Today we celebrate the Conversion of Saint Paul, the only conversion on the Church’s liturgical calendar. There have been many other notable conversions throughout the history of the Church. Saint John Henry Newman and Saint Edith Stein come to mind. Politicians, entertainers, writers, philosophers (and so many others) have made the journey to Catholicism. Tony Blair, John Wayne, Shia LaBeouf, Dorothy Day, Marshall McLuhan, and Graham Green are just a few of the many who have “converted” to following Christ within the Catholic Church.
So why is Saint Paul’s the only conversion celebrated with a liturgical feast? As the foremost missionary the Church has ever seen, Saint Paul, more than any other person, was responsible for bringing the Gospel beyond the confines of Judaism to the Gentiles. That kicked off the spread of Christianity to the entire world. Unless you’re of completely Jewish ancestry, you can thank Saint Paul for the opportunity you have to follow Christ in the Catholic Church. No one else’s conversion has ever had such an impact on Christianity.
Conversion, however, is only the first step toward transformation. In Saint Paul’s own description of his conversion, found in Acts 26, he describes his encounter with Jesus: “I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It hurts you to kick against the goads’” (Acts 26:14, NRSV). When Saint Paul asks what’s going on, Jesus tells him, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But get up and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you” (Acts 26:15-16). When Paul responds to the call of the Lord, his conversion is complete, but his transformation from Saul the persecutor to Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, has just begun.
As a cradle Catholic myself, I can’t testify personally to what a “conversion” from no religion or from one religion to another is like, but I have met many converts who would agree that their conversion was only the beginning of spiritual transformation. The challenge of being transformed into Christ is something we all embrace, whether we were baptized as infants or later in life.
Transformation into Christ so that “it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:19) encompasses all areas of our lives. On this journey one aspect of our life that sometimes gets neglected is the digital, but transformation needs to touch this arena as well.
A new book from Pauline Books and Media addresses this area. Media Fasting: Six Weeks to Recharge in Christ, by Sister Nancy Usselmann, FSP, challenges the reader to take a deep look at the role of digital media in his/her life and make an examination of conscience.
Sister Nancy explains that the goal of her book is to: “lead readers on a journey to discover Christ in and through their media to develop virtue and make good choices in the digital environments they inhabit. To live our faith today, we must integrate it within our daily experiences and decisions, which are often on a digital plane. Media fasting is a spiritual practice that leads us into a deeper relationship with Christ to be transformed by his grace so we, in turn, can become an evangelizing presence in the digital culture and transform the culture in Christ.”
Media Fasting encourages readers to pray and discern how God might be leading them to transformation through making and following a six-week fasting plan according to one’s own situation. For each day of the six weeks, Sister Nancy provides a Scripture passage, reflection, media challenge, and prayer designed to lead the reader through the spiritual discernment needed to assess whether their media use is hindering or facilitating their spiritual transformation. Sr. Nancy hopes that through the media fast that her book proposes, people will “change the way they see their relationship with God, the world, the media, and themselves by creating spiritual disciplines that free us from addictions and open us to grace, setting us on the path to holiness of life.”
At the end of his life, Saint Paul acknowledged to his friend and disciple Saint Timothy, that he had cooperated with God in his transformation: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:7). Conversion is only the beginning of transformation. May we all cooperate with God’s grace as well as Saint Paul did, in all areas of our lives.
Media Fasting: Six Weeks to Recharge in Christ, releases on February 1, 2025 and can be pre-ordered by clicking here.
