.......................Straining Ahead for what is still to come.....................

All of Paul's effort was response to Christ's call, like a race which Paul was running in order to win the prize, eternal life with Christ.

In his letters, Paul continually express his grateful astonishment at the grace given to him by God who loved him first: :Christ died for us while we were still sinners"(Room 5:8).

At the same time, Paul stresses the urgent need to respond and to collaborate with grace, and his desire to offer himself completely to the One who loved him.

Now that i have become perfect yet: I have not yet won but I am still running, trying to capture the prize for which Christ Jesus captured me.(Philippians 3:12)

I can assure you my brothers, I am far from thinking that I have already won.

All I can say is that I forget the past and I strain ahead for what is still to come: I am racing for the finish, for the prize to which God in C call us upwards to receive in Christ Jesus.(Philippians 3:13-14)

 

..................The Generation of the Church................

Apostolic

Paul encounter with Christ determined his character and his mission in history.

He became an apostle, no less than Peter and John.

There was a fire burning in his bones and never leting him grow weary.

He wanted to tell everybody what happened to him and to talk to them about the love that had taken hold of him.

His missionary drive immediately bore fruit: in just seven years he had founded new communities in Antioch, Tarsus, Lystra, Iconium, Dorileum, Samothrace, Troas, Neapolis, Philippi, Thessalonika, Anphipolis, Laodicea, Corinth, Ephesus.

Paul was not strategist planning a conquest, but a man in love with Christ, ready to do His will, wanting to be Led.

He was not afraid of difficulties or dangers, because he knew that he was not acting alone, but in communion with Christ himself, who through him was seeking each and every person.

Every time Paul arrived in a new city, the first thing he wanted to do was meet the Jewish community, his beloved brothers, in spite the sufferings the often caused him by their refusal to believe in Christ.

He went to live among them and worked with them, in his trade as a tenmaker.

On the Sabbath, he would go to the Synagogue, where he would present himself as a doctor of the Law so as the show that the Old Testament was prophecy of Christ.

Paul establisheda large network of friends and relationships everywhere, a network that was much more extensive than letters indicate.

 

.................Catholic.................

The ancient Romans used to incoporate the beliefs of the people they conquewas red, including them in their pantheon.

This was not without political calculation.Paul's attitude was profoundly different.

He was open to other cultures, but his openness was similar to the look of a lover who detects traces of his bride everywhere.

Paul's only concern was to proclaim Christ,

This was why he embraced everyone and shared the experience of all those he met.

He approach was based on an existing attitude of sympathy, as if he wanted to connect with the genuine humanity in every person.

In spite of differing points of view, he was baking on the possibility of bringing them to common worship of the one true God.

Despite Paul's openness, his joy at thge little morsels of truth he found scattered all around, in every tradition and in every person, was never detached from his forthright message, free of any artificial "watering down" of the truth of Christ.

Paul stood before the whole Council of the Areopagus and made this speech: "Men of Athens, I have seen for my self how extremely scrupulous you in all religious matters, because i noticed as I strolled around admiring your sacred monuments, that you had an altar innscribed: To An Unknown God.

Well the God whon I proclaim is an fact the one whom you already worship without knowing it."(Acts 17:22-23)

I made my self a Jew to the Jews{...} to win those who are subject to the Law{...}

To those who have no Law, I was free of the Law myself, to win those who have no Law.(First letter to the Corinthians 9:20-21)

And so, while the Jews demand miracles and the Greeks look for wisdom, here we are preaching a crucified Christ: to the Jews an obstacle that the cannot get over, to the pagans madness.(First Letter to the Corinthians 1:22-23)