St Paul the Writer



The Pauline epistles comprise nearly a quarter of the New Testament. They are the letters which were written by St Paul or claim his authorship. Used as a means of keeping in contact with the Christian communities he established, Paul's letters are some of the earliest extant Christian documents. They provide an insight into the beliefs and controversies of nascent Christianity and, as part of the Canon of the New Testament, they have also been, and continue to be, foundational to Christian theology and ethics. Nevertheless Pope Benedict XVI notes: "From his Letters, we know that Paul was far from being a good speaker; on the contrary, he shared with Moses and Jeremiah a lack of oratory skill. "His bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account" (2 Cor 10: 10), his adversaries said of him. The extraordinary apostolic results that he was able to achieve cannot, therefore, be attributed to brilliant rhetoric or refined apologetic and missionary strategies. The success of his apostolate depended above all on his personal involvement in proclaiming the Gospel with total dedication to Christ; a dedication that feared neither risk, difficulty nor persecution." We celebrate St Paul in this Pauline Year and run-up to his feast on the 25th of January. This window of St Paul surrounded by scribes and readers is in the church of St Mary Abbot in Kensington, London.

Link da imagem: https://ift.tt/2ZxskkV
Fonte: Lawrence OP https://flic.kr/p/5UgXND

0/Post a Comment/Comments