I watched a short video on TikTok by a fellow who debates people on what looks like a college campus about Jesus Christ. A young, angry student was shouting at him. “How convenient of you to use the Bible to argue for Jesus. Show me the doctor’s records. Show me the coroner’s report. Show me the documents from the hospital that prove He was dead, and I’ll believe.” she screamed. “No, ma’am, how convenient for you. How convenient for you to demand things you know didn’t exist in the first century. How convenient for you to deny the historical records, the same records that prove Plato, Socrates, Heroditas, etc.” She was silent, and from the look on her face, you could tell she had realized she had lost the debate. She thought she had all the answers. Educated by the best philosophy instructors, most of whom were atheists in their education methods, had made her think she knew everything. In that one moment, reason and logic showed she was wrong on the God front.
That’s why we have the particular first reading about Saint Paul. In it, Paul gives his testimony about why he has become a Christian. Paul chose the community he had been persecuting, killing, and imprisoning to be his own community. He is dropping names. He wasn’t taught by some amateur rabbi but by Gamaliel himself. An elite Master of the Jewish Oral Law. Going to Gamaliel was the Ivy League of the first century. Paul had all the information in his mind. He knew the Old Testament, inside and out. Paul knew the tradition of the Jewish people, the oral analysis of the written text. He thought he had all the answers. It took God knocking him down, taking his sight away, and performing a miracle by one of the followers of the Way to bring it back for Paul to begin to listen. Many Evangelical Christians would refer to it as a mountain-top experience. Coming face to face with God. Paul had one, and it changed Him.
Just like Paul, we each have a testimony; the following is mine:
I grew up in a small town in Southwest Virginia. My mother and father were churchgoers until I was about five years old, then my dad quit going for various reasons. For a while, my mother would drive us to church alone but then began to stay home with dad as well. When I was fourteen, I had my own mountain-top experience and gave my life to God in an altar call at a Christian lock-in. I began to live out my Christian faith as a Southern Baptist, eventually joining a more Pentecostal Church and tried to make Sunday services weekly.
I lived according to a teaching that I could do whatever I wanted as long as I believed in Jesus, and I did just that. Years later, after many years of doing whatever I wanted, my life began to fall apart. My wife at the time left me for the third time. My job was sinking into an even deeper mire and muck. My house was falling apart. I would sit in front of my computer during the winter as the mice ran around my feet and the wind blew through the floorboards, wondering why my faith had not made everything perfect. Then I fell in love with this beautiful girl I met in Chicagoland. There was only one problem; she was Catholic!
Months went by, and soon a year. I fell in love with her, and we married. I began the long and arduous task of converting her out of the Catholic faith! I knew that if I could show her the errors of her belief, I would be able to turn her into a Baptist, a Methodist, anything but a Catholic! So I began to study. I would try to argue with her, and she’d tell me, “Find out.” So I would. It wasn’t long until I began to have more questions for myself than for her. I began to argue with Father Tim Siegel as well, who would sit patiently with me, listen to all my questions, and point me to where I could find answers. I joined RCIA and, just as quickly, dropped out. Then we baptized our daughter. I stood up with the rest of the congregation and said, “I promise to raise my daughter as a Catholic.” I knew then that I needed to know what they taught genuinely.
I began to study even more. This time going to Catholic sites, Catholic books, and the Catechism instead of Anti-Catholic sources. A few months later, Pope Benedict announced he wanted the Parishes to offer up 60 hours of adoration. I heard Father Tim talking to his secretary, and it seemed he would have to cancel it. More people need to have signed up. So I offered, as a friend to Father Tim, to sit in the room as a ‘warm body.’ I had just had back surgery and had nothing better to do. So, Father Tim had the secretary put me in any needed spots. I ended up attending more than 50 hours of adoration.
I prepared myself for this new experience by packing a bag full of books, puzzles, games, and magazines to read. I needed something to pass all these hours and keep my mind occupied. I knew what the church taught about adoration and the Eucharist. I was wrestling with it, on the verge of believing but not quite there. On the third day, though, I ran out of things to read. So I pulled out my trusty King James bible and began to play bible roulette. I placed the Bible on the bench next to me, flipped it open, and pointed. I looked down at the verse that God had revealed to me.
Psalm 46:10 – Be still and know that I am God.
That was my first real experience with Jesus in the Eucharist, the first time I ever got on my knees during adoration and gazed at God in the Blessed Sacrament. I then joined RCIA with the proper disposition, began my work on our annulments, and our marriage was blessed and I entered the Roman Catholic church. I, too, thought I knew it all. I’d studied the Bible since I was a young man. I had gone to church for many years. It took God speaking to me in the language I understood, in the one Way I would listen, through those Scriptures, for me to come out of the close-minded darkness I was in and into the fullness of faith, The Catholic Church.
So I want to challenge you to do two things today.
- Try to figure out your “God language.” You know the book “Love Language” that talks about how people experience love in different ways? Some like touch. Some like silence. Some like to be with others. Find out how you best connect with God and reflect on your life. You’ll find you have had a mountain top experience, maybe even many of them that you didn’t recognize until now.
- Figure out your testimony. Tell people about your faith. It doesn’t have to be long-winded. . A paragraph, a minute or so. One that tells them why you are a Christian, why you show up to Mass, why you would brave the cold, snowy roads to go and listen to someone speak about Jesus at 8 in the morning.
Then go out and share that with others. God loves humility; He gravitates toward it. We must realize we don’t have all the answers, but He does. Then we need to share that with others so they can figure out how God has been calling them all along. Climb those mountains, or better yet, realize we serve a God who can turn a valley into a monument, and He will raise us into His presence if we stop and let Him do the work.
A reflection on the readings for Wednesday, January 25th, 2023: The Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul