Why Are You Persecuting Me?

* Spirit of Jesus pray for me
* Paul, Luke, Mary, Holy Church pray for me
* Saints pray for me
#goads

+------Why Are You Persecuting Me?; God's Words To Paul on Damascus's Road #Goads

I intuited it pretty early on
- a child, privileged,
inculcated in Platonic
idealism (Gamaliel), and
Roman Pride; I was Aeneas
seething
watching Troy burn
vowing revenge (but for
Hebrew oppression)–
a scintilla of whispers
in my soul at night:
“you were meant
for so much more.” They were
just flights of balderdash
until now- my horse lost and
deluded, scampering off
to Greece- me on my back blind.
Lying prostrate by a dust cloud
enshrouded…punching the air,
my teeth clenched, accusing
Christians of this. But now the Voice
louder, sonorous: “Saul,
you are not a murderer,
pedantic – You are Paul,
herald of God’s peace,
unifier of the entire world” 

------Acts 26:12-18
“On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. About noon, King Agrippa, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’
“Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ “ ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’