The stones were flying, and a young man stood guard over a pile of cloaks.

In front of him, a Christian named Stephen was dying.

The crowd that killed him had laid their outer garments at the young man's feet.

He did not throw a stone.

But the Acts of the Apostles tells us he approved of every one.

His name was Saul.

Within a few years, he would become the man the world knows as St. Paul the Apostle.

The Brilliant Young Pharisee

Saul was born in Tarsus, a busy city in what is now southern Turkey.

He was Jewish, from the tribe of Benjamin, and he was also a Roman citizen, a rare privilege that would matter later in his life.

He trained in Jerusalem under Gamaliel, one of the most respected teachers of the law.

He became a Pharisee, fiercely devoted to God and to the traditions of his people.

He also learned a trade, making tents, which would one day pay his way across the Mediterranean.

To Saul, the followers of Jesus were a threat.

They claimed a crucified man was the Messiah.

They claimed he had risen from the dead.

To Saul, it was blasphemy, and it had to be stopped.

The Hunter

After Stephen's death, Saul threw himself into the fight.

He went house to house, dragging men and women off to prison.

Years later, he would write that he had persecuted the Church of God violently and tried to destroy it.

When believers fled Jerusalem, he wanted to follow them.

He asked the high priest for letters authorizing him to arrest any followers of the Way he found in the synagogues of Damascus.

Then he set out on the road north.

The Light on the Road

He was nearly there when it happened.

A light from heaven flashed around him, brighter than the noonday sun.

He fell to the ground.

A voice spoke to him.

Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?

Saul asked who was speaking.

The answer shattered everything he believed.

I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.

Notice what Jesus did not say.

He did not say you are persecuting my followers.

He said you are persecuting me.

Christ was so united to his Church that to strike them was to strike him.

Saul rose from the dust and opened his eyes.

He could see nothing.

His companions had to lead him by the hand into the city he had come to terrorize.

Three Days in the Dark

For three days Saul sat blind in Damascus.

He did not eat or drink.

Meanwhile, the Lord spoke to a believer in the city named Ananias and told him to go to Saul.

Ananias protested.

He knew exactly who this man was and how much harm he had done.

But the Lord told him that Saul was his chosen instrument to carry his name to the Gentiles.

So Ananias went.

He laid his hands on the man who had come to arrest him and called him brother.

Something like scales fell from Saul's eyes.

He could see again.

And he was baptized.

The Man Nobody Trusted

Conversion did not make Paul's life easier.

His old allies now wanted him dead, and he had to escape Damascus by being lowered over the city wall in a basket.

The Christians in Jerusalem were afraid of him at first.

It took Barnabas, a generous believer, to vouch for him.

Paul spent years in quiet preparation before his great missionary work began.

To the Ends of the Earth

Then he started walking, and he did not stop for the rest of his life.

The Acts of the Apostles describes his great missionary journeys through Cyprus, Asia Minor, Macedonia and Greece.

He preached in synagogues and marketplaces.

He debated philosophers in Athens.

He planted churches in cities like Corinth, Philippi, Thessalonica and Ephesus.

And he paid for it in his own body.

In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul lists what he endured.

He was flogged five times with thirty-nine lashes.

He was beaten with rods three times.

He was stoned once and left for dead.

He was shipwrecked three times, and spent a night and a day adrift at sea.

And that list was written before some of his worst trials had even begun.

The Letters That Changed the World

When Paul could not visit his churches, he wrote to them.

Thirteen letters in the New Testament carry his name.

They are some of the earliest Christian writings we have.

In them we find the famous hymn to love from his first letter to the Corinthians, which is read at countless Catholic weddings.

Love is patient, love is kind.

The man who once breathed threats against Christians became the Church's great teacher of grace, faith and love.

Shipwreck and Chains

Eventually Paul was arrested in Jerusalem.

As a Roman citizen, he appealed his case to the emperor.

On the voyage to Rome, his ship was caught in a violent storm and wrecked on the island of Malta.

Everyone on board survived.

When he finally reached Rome, he lived under guard, still welcoming visitors and preaching about Jesus.

Near the end, writing to his young disciple Timothy, he looked back on his life.

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

The Final Witness

Ancient Christian tradition holds that Paul was martyred in Rome under Emperor Nero, in the mid-60s.

Because he was a Roman citizen, he was not crucified.

He was beheaded, according to tradition, at a place outside the city now called Tre Fontane.

His tomb is honored in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.

The Church celebrates his feast with St. Peter on June 29, and remembers his conversion on January 25.

No One Is Too Far Gone

Paul's story is a warning against writing anyone off.

If there was ever a person Christians had reason to give up on, it was Saul of Tarsus.

God did not give up on him.

He knocked him off his feet, opened his eyes and sent him to the world.

The persecutor became the apostle.

And the same grace is still at work today.

Your turn: Is there someone in your life you've been tempted to give up on? Share how St. Paul's story speaks to you in the comments below.

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