Tuesday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time

Old Courthouse in Williamsburg, Virginia

Saint Paul’s Letter to the Galatians is a good introduction to his more important Letter to the Romans. The latter is truly an epistle, a thoughtful exposition of his teaching about grace. Galatians was written hurriedly, with some autobiographical material, under the pressure of controversy. We can see in this shorter letter how his most important doctrine was conceived.

In today’s passage he says of his “conversion:”

But when he, who from my mother’s womb had set me apart and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me…

Much to our surprise, Saint Paul expresses no great remorse for his violent, anti-Christian past. He doesn’t seem ashamed or guilt-ridden about it. He was acting at that time according to his best lights and by his pharisaic tradition. What’s to be ashamed of?

“But when he… called me through his grace” the Pharisee saw the light and changed his ways. Traditionally we call that event “the conversion of Saint Paul” but that name misses the point. Conversion suggests he should have known all along that Jesus is Lord; but he could not know it until it was revealed to him.

And that is what grace does. It comes unexpectedly and unpredictably according to God’s purposes and in God’s time. We do not earn it or deserve it but God gives it out of his own free generosity.

Saint Paul also insists upon his being called “from my mother’s womb,” as Jeremiah was called, because some Galatians questioned his authority. His God-given right to announce the gospel preceded his being sent by the Church. He also had the authority to guide the Galatians in their development. But other Christian preachers had come to Galatia with a different interpretation of the gospel – that the gentile men should be circumcised and become Jewish in order to be Christian – and Paul had to respond to that, as we will hear.

In these United States, when we hear so often the word freedom and so rarely reflect on the word, we should study Saint Paul experience of, and teaching about, freedom and grace. The two words are almost identical. 

What does it mean that God has set us free? What kind of freedom is it? What are its privileges and responsibilities? What has it cost God? And how much will it cost us?

Clearly, freedom is not about feeling guilty and remorseful all the time. Saint Paul had no time for such nonsense. When he remembered the past, as he does while writing this Letter, he remembered it with gratitude for the grace God had given him.