{"id":5034,"date":"2006-10-25T09:18:09","date_gmt":"2006-10-25T09:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/on-to-st-paul.html"},"modified":"2006-10-25T09:18:09","modified_gmt":"2006-10-25T09:18:09","slug":"on-to-st-paul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/on-to-st-paul.html","title":{"rendered":"On to St. Paul"},"content":{"rendered":"

As you know, over the past weeks, Pope Benedict has been presenting a catechesis on the 12 Apostles during his weekly General Audience. Now it’s time for the "13th Apostle."<\/a><\/p>\n

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Benedict XVI today announced a new cycle of catechesis to 25,000 people gathered for the general audience, since he has completed his depiction of the 12 apostles. Starting with Paul of Tarsus, he will now tackle \u201cmen and even women who dedicated their lives to the Gospel and to the Lord\u201d. <\/p>\n

After Jesus, recalled the pope, Paul \u201cis the person from the beginning about who we are most informed\u201d, both from the Acts of the Apostles as well as his letters that allow us to get to know him \u201cwithout intermediaries\u201d. \u201cA diaspora Jew, Paul lived in the city of Tarsus \"Pope2\"<\/a> between Anatolia and Syria\u201d, a persecutor of Christians until struck by the light of Christ. Described by Chrysostom as \u201csuperior to angels and archangels\u201d and by Dante as \u201cvase of election\u201d, which means, the pope explained, \u201can instrument chosen by God\u201d, Paul knew the first disciples of Christ, \u201cwho put not a religion but the person of Jesus at the centre, and to him was linked the remission of sins\u201d. But his \u201cenlightenment and true vocation came when he encountered the Risen Lord\u201d. For this reason, Paul \u201cdescribes himself explicitly as an apostle by vocation or an apostle by the will of God\u201d. Benedict XVI said: \u201cFrom that moment, he dispensed all his energies for Jesus Christ and for his Gospel\u201d. From here is drawn the foremost teaching of Paul, that \u201cwhat counts is putting Jesus Christ at the centre of our lives, and that in the light of Christianity, every other value is found or even, if necessary, purified from possible impure matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second aspect of St Paul underlined by Benedict XVI \u201cis the universal character of his apostolate: salvation is offered to all men without exception… The proclamation of grace destined to reconcile man with God and with others, does not concern only the Jew, it concerns all, because God is God of all\u201d. <\/p>\n

Highlighting the passion of Paul to spread the Gospel in every part of the world, Benedict XVI also drew attention to his sufferings and martyrdom in Rome under Nero. \u201cHe could not have faced such great trials were it not for a reason of absolute value: for him, this was Jesus Christ.\u201d He added: \u201cMay the Lord help us to put his exhortation into practice, when he says \u2018be imitators of me, as I am of Christ\u2019\u201d. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

update: <\/u>  Zadok comments, in the comments, on the poor AsiaNews translation in the first paragraph. Here’s the Italian:<\/a><\/p>\n

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Anch\u2019essi hanno speso la loro vita per il Signore, per il Vangelo e per la Chiesa. Si tratta di uomini e anche di donne, che, come scrive Luca nel Libro degli Atti<\/em>, \u00abhanno votato la loro vita al nome del Signore nostro Ges\u00f9 Cristo\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As Zadok says, it should be "even" women, but "also" women. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As you know, over the past weeks, Pope Benedict has been presenting a catechesis on the 12 Apostles during his weekly General Audience. Now it’s time for the "13th Apostle." Benedict XVI today announced a new cycle of catechesis to 25,000 people gathered for the general audience, since he has completed his depiction of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nOn to St. Paul - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/on-to-st-paul.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On to St. Paul - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As you know, over the past weeks, Pope Benedict has been presenting a catechesis on the 12 Apostles during his weekly General Audience. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5034\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}