Acts 9, 1-9 Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

Acts 9

(Acts 9, 1-9) Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

[1] Now Saul, still breathing murderous threats against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest [2] and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, that, if he should find any men or women who belonged to the Way, he might bring them back to Jerusalem in chains. [3] On his journey, as he was nearing Damascus, a light from the sky suddenly flashed around him. [4] He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" [5] He said, "Who are you, sir?" The reply came, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. [6] Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do." [7] The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, for they heard the voice but could see no one. [8] Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him to Damascus. [9] For three days he was unable to see, and he neither ate nor drank.

(CCC 154) Believing is possible only by grace and the interior helps of the Holy Spirit. But it is no less true that believing is an authentically human act. Trusting in God and cleaving to the truths he has revealed are contrary neither to human freedom nor to human reason. Even in human relations it is not contrary to our dignity to believe what other persons tell us about themselves and their intentions, or to trust their promises (for example, when a man and a woman marry) to share a communion of life with one another. If this is so, still less is it contrary to our dignity to "yield by faith the full submission of... intellect and will to God who reveals" (Dei Filius: 3: DS 3008), and to share in an interior communion with him. (CCC 155) In faith, the human intellect and will co-operate with divine grace: "Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace" (St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II, 2, 9; cf. Dei Filius 3; DS 3010). (CCC 162) Faith is an entirely free gift that God makes to man. We can lose this priceless gift, as St. Paul indicated to St. Timothy: "Wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting conscience, certain persons have made shipwreck of their faith" (1 Tim 1:18-19). To live, grow and persevere in the faith until the end we must nourish it with the word of God; we must beg the Lord to increase our faith (Cf. Mk 9:24; Lk 17:5; 22:32); it must be "working through charity," abounding in hope, and rooted in the faith of the Church (Gal 5:6; Rom 15:13; cf. Jas 2:14-26).