16 - Blinded by The Light: The Radical Conversion of Saint Paul

A man convinced he’s right meets a voice that can’t be ignored. We open with Saul standing at Stephen’s stoning—educated, zealous, and certain he’s defending God—and follow the thread to Damascus where light stops him cold and a single question changes the map of his life: “Why are you persecuting me?”

From there we trace the layers that make this story endure. Saul’s formation under Gamaliel, his Pharisee rigor, and his Roman status explain his force—and make his surrender even more striking. The word Lord on his lips isn’t casual; it carries the Old Testament weight of reverence, signaling that recognition begins before sight returns. Through Ananias’s hesitant obedience, “something like scales” fall, and a persecutor becomes a preacher. We explore why Acts tells this conversion three times, how Paul’s testimony fueled mission to Gentiles, and why the church remembers Peter and Paul as inseparable witnesses bound by the same gospel.

Along the way, we pull the story into the present. Most of us won’t meet a blinding light or fall off a horse, but we will be interrupted—by hard feedback, by loss, by friends who love us enough to challenge us. Conversion looks like letting community refine you, holding law and love together, and choosing habits that keep your heart listening. Rock bottom can be a foundation. Course corrections can be grace. And when the scales fall, even a little, the next right step becomes clear.

If this conversation helped you see Paul—and your own path—with fresh eyes, subscribe, share it with a friend who sharpens you, and leave a review so others can find the show. Then tell us: where do you need new sight today?

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Jordan Whiteko, Father Andrew Hamilton, Father Christopher Pujol, Vincent Reilly, Cliff Gorski, John Zylka, Sarah Hartner

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:01):
You're listening to the Catholic Acting Podcast.
We discussed the act that Jesusperformed that stunned his
disciples.
Great to be back, Jordan.

SPEAKER_02 (00:09):
You don't know us by now, you're never gonna know.

SPEAKER_01 (00:12):
I'm Jordan Waco here with Father Hamilton and Father
Poojal.
Are you ready, Father Chris?

SPEAKER_00 (00:17):
Yes, to be blanded by the light, the light of the
gospel.
Jordan, what are we learningabout today?

SPEAKER_01 (00:22):
The conversion of St.
Paul.
St.
Paul was introduced in the Actsof the Apostles as Saul, as
witness to Stephen Stoning.
So he was there, is what this istelling me.
Okay.

SPEAKER_00 (00:34):
So yeah, he was there.
But remember, Saul becomes Paul.
So the name's gonna changethroughout as we move our way
through the story, just as Simonbecame Peter.
So just keep that in mind.
So early on, we're gonna talkabout Paul as Saul.
Saul the the Greek the Pharisee.

SPEAKER_01 (00:53):
Yeah.
So he was at Stephen's death,his the stoning.

SPEAKER_02 (00:58):
Saul was at the stoning, yeah.
It all comes back to thosestones that were thrown.
And he was a witness.

SPEAKER_00 (01:03):
He was a witness.

SPEAKER_02 (01:04):
So Stephen really has a huge impact, not only on
those that are alreadyChristian, by seeing his
martyrdom, but even it beginskind of to turn the wheels of a
man named Saul towardsconversion, where he's now seen
this great witness of Stephendying for the Lord Jesus, who he
claims his personal relationshipwith, about the glory of God.

(01:25):
He sees the forgiveness that heeven has for his persecutors,
and he's standing there asothers, the other Jewish uh
people from the Sanhedrin arethrowing stones at Stephen,
killing him.
He was just a witness, he didn'the saw the killing of Stephen.
We don't believe that he threw astone.
He held the the garments ofthose that took them off so that

(01:46):
they could have better aim,yeah, more velocity.

SPEAKER_00 (01:50):
But you have to think, like, in in Saul's mind,
right, he was a Roman citizen,he was born in Greece, so he's a
pretty powerful guy.
He has an upper level of ofcontrol in in civil society.

SPEAKER_02 (02:05):
And he's well educated.
Very Pharisee.
So the Pharisees, as a group,followed very closely the Mosaic
law to the Torah, the first fivebooks of what we now term the
Old Testament, but wereespecially hyper-focused on the
Levitical laws and how they wereto be lived out.
And he studied under the famousrabbi Gameliel, who comes up in

(02:27):
the Acts of the Apostles.

SPEAKER_00 (02:28):
This the his studies and his education is what
justified these people for thestoning by Levitical law.

SPEAKER_02 (02:36):
Think about it this way
Stephen, he just hears aboutthis sect of individuals that
believe that their leader, whoclaimed to be the Messiah,
resurrected from the dead, thatthey are the way, that they are
following a certain way that isdifferent from the Mosaic law,
from the Levitical law, ofeverything that he's known and

(02:57):
studied as a Pharisee.
He is very skeptical and eventhinks that this is a schismatic
group that's drawing people awayfrom righteousness of God and
holiness.
Even a group that blasphemes.
It blasphemes something false.
And so what we see with Saul isthat he's reticent and even
angry at that, because he'strying to protect what he

(03:18):
believes to be the truth of theMosaic law found in his
Pharisaic from this denigrationof this new Christian group that
followed this one called Jesusof Nazareth, who rose from the
dead, that they're claiming.
And so that's why he's there,more or less persecuting this

(03:39):
group, not wanting their messageto spread or to grow, because he
sees them as being false, theChristians.

SPEAKER_00 (03:45):
Okay.
And so after this stoning ofStephen, Saul continues to
persecute the Christians.
He continues to be present attheir at their martyrdoms,
continues to round them up andturn them over to the Jewish
authorities.

SPEAKER_02 (04:01):
And so Saul He's like a policeman for the Mosaic
Law.
Yeah.
He sees the Christians astheological criminals.

SPEAKER_00 (04:10):
They're the problem that needs rounded up and dealt
with.
And so that was what Saul wasreally aiming to do.

SPEAKER_01 (04:17):
Okay.
So, but then he experienced aprofound conversion that changed
that traject trajectory, right?
Uh what was what happen whathappened?

SPEAKER_00 (04:26):
So let's talk about what it wasn't first.
I mean, there's beautifuldepictions of the conversion of
Saint Paul, and most famouslyCaravaggio's Saul is falling off
of the horse, and the horse isup in the air, and this bright
light appears, and and Jesussays, Saul, Saul, why are you
persecuting me?

(04:47):
Now we have no evidence that hewas actually riding a horse, but
I think it's a great way to showthe mystery of what's happening
here.

SPEAKER_02 (04:54):
You fall off your high horse is like a statement,
you know, that kind of you'reknocked down from your pride.
So it makes sense why it'simaged that way.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (05:02):
Okay.
So Saul is moving along, andthis bright light overtakes him
so much that he becomes blinded,he cannot see, and he hears the
voice that says, Why are youpersecuting me?
It's not persecuting others,it's not persecuting Stephen,
it's not persecuting thisspecific group.

(05:25):
But what Jesus is saying to himis that you're persecuting me
because you're persecutingothers, and they act in my name,
and you are now attacking me.

SPEAKER_02 (05:37):
And Saul even asks a question back after this great
light in that voice who are you,Lord?
Or referring to this, that whichhas been shown to him as being
God, right?
That word Lord has a lot ofweight behind it in the Old
Testament into the new.
And that's how Jesus is firstknown by the earliest Christians

(05:58):
and preached, especially by Paullater in all of his letters, as
Jesus as Lord and Savior.

SPEAKER_01 (06:04):
Jesus Christ is this when he becomes Paul, when he
when he hears this a voice thatsays, Why are you persecuting
me?
This is his conversion.
So this is right when he's themaking of Paul.
This is the making of Paul.
So Paul.
So he just changes the letterand now he's a new man.

SPEAKER_00 (06:20):
Well, we think about it like as when he received
baptism, right?
You receive a Christian name.
So Paul is his Christian name.
Okay.
But other than that.

SPEAKER_01 (06:29):
But it's not Saul Paul.
Like, you know, when we get ourconfirmation name, we pick a
whole new name, but that doesn'tchange our first name.

SPEAKER_00 (06:36):
Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_01 (06:37):
It's so he's just he he saw becomes Paul.

SPEAKER_02 (06:40):
Any name change in sacred scripture as a means to
say that this person is changedand now they're oriented in a
different way.
Even beautifully within monasticand religious life, you'll still
see in the tradition of thechurch that monks often,
religious sisters, takedifferent names from their
secular name.
They might have gone in.
The Pope.
Yeah, the Popeyes.

(07:01):
That's actually a great analogythere.
Good.

SPEAKER_00 (07:03):
And what's interesting too is what Father
was mentioning about Saul'sresponse of who are you, Lord,
being Greek and being so highlyeducated, you know, in the Old
Testament, they never spoke thename of God.
That the name of God, thetetragrammaton, was so holy,
it's not written, it's notspoken, and it would be replaced

(07:23):
with the word Adonai or Kurios,which means Lord.
And so for him to respond, Lord,is saying that he's already
drawing a connection to the oldlaw.

SPEAKER_01 (07:37):
It's a sign of faith.
Okay.
Paul's conversion is told threetimes in the Acts of the
Apostles.
Why is this such an importantevent that it gets told three
times?

SPEAKER_02 (07:47):
How many times would you tell your vocation story?
So we're asked to tell ourvocation story like constantly
as priests.
Like, why have you decided tofollow this call of the Lord?
And so for Paul, I mean, he'swriting that down because it has
such a significance.
When we think about Saint Paul,who he becomes after this
incident on the road toDamascus, it propels him into

(08:08):
preaching the message to Jew andGentile, but especially to the
Gentiles, traveling all aroundthe region to different places
and planting church communitiesthere.

SPEAKER_00 (08:17):
Until he ends up back in Rome with St.
Peter.

SPEAKER_02 (08:20):
And so how important his story was.
It's like that he was one of themost famous uh spreaders of the
gospel.
And so everybody needed to knowhis story.
And so I'm sure that heconstantly gave that, again,
reaching back to some of ourwords from previous times,
right?
From charygma, the way in whichGod had converted him, literally
turned the tables on him, andnow he's a different person.

(08:42):
But what we didn't get to therein his conversion that we should
mention so we don't forget isthat he was blinded, right, by
this light.
And does he remain blinded?
For a time until he comes to oneof the set-aside disciples,
Ananias, who is to pray overhim.
And then it says that from hiseyes fell like scales, and he

(09:04):
was able to see again.

SPEAKER_00 (09:06):
Um a reality, but also a good typology and a
symbol as well, that that thisold way that he couldn't see
through, that that that harshreality of the old law that it
was so oppressive upon God'speople, is now removed to see
this new law of love.

(09:27):
So instead of him going topersecute Christians out of
disgust and a belief that theywere against God, he now is able
to interact as a Christian,seeing the completion of the old
law.
And just to go back for a momenton the threefold um telling of

(09:48):
this story of conversion in theActs of the Apostles, you know,
Peter is never without Paul interms of how we look at the
church.
And Paul was never withoutPeter.
They're the the great liketwins, they call them.
And if we think about whathappened when Peter was
reconciled post-resurrection toChrist, he denied him three

(10:08):
times, and then there was athreefold um profession of faith
that Peter made.
And so now we have Saint Paulmaking a threefold act of faith
in the Acts of the Apostles, sothat those early Christians
realized even though he was aGentile, he shares in the same
faith that at one point wasreserved for the Jewish people.

SPEAKER_01 (10:33):
Not all of us are going to have such a profound
conversion experience like St.
Paul.
But how do we experienceconversion in our lives today?

SPEAKER_02 (10:43):
Sometimes it's by a challenge of another individual
where maybe we're going down thewrong path, right?
So the early Christians werecalled the way.
That's what it actually says inthe Acts of the Apostles here
for especially the first accountof St.
Paul's conversion on the road toDamascus.
But we have to be challenged tosay maybe we're going down the

(11:04):
wrong path and to correct coursea little bit.
And that's part of the Christiancommunity.
And that's our continualconversion and why we call each
other to a higher level.
You should be around people thatcall you to the heights of
holiness, but they don't let youdwell where you are or meet you
there, but rather raise you upin charity and working together
to be holier people.

(11:24):
We're really formed by thepeople around us.
If we're around people all thetime that we were, it was just
easy to get along with, youknow, that doesn't really form a
lot of habit of endurance orholiness.
But even those people in ourlives that get on our nerves a
little bit.

SPEAKER_00 (11:38):
They make us that's why you come here.
Yeah, that's why that's why wedo this podcast.

SPEAKER_02 (11:45):
But that helps us to continue to be formed and to be
challenged towards holiness andconversion.

SPEAKER_00 (11:49):
Conversion doesn't always have to be a star-struck
moment of blindness, but itcould be a tragedy that then
touches your heart and makes yourealize that everything you have
is fleeting.
And the better and the faster wecan turn and make ourselves more

(12:10):
like Christ, the better we willbe for it.

SPEAKER_02 (12:14):
Yeah, and that's uh rock bottom can be a firm
foundation for the rest of yourlife.
And so sometimes you don't knowhow far you've fallen until you
hit the ground, and then youknow where you need to go.
And that's true of St.
Paul from From the ground up?
Yep.
And it continues to spread thegospel.

SPEAKER_01 (12:30):
Thanks for listening to the Catholic Accent podcast.
Don't forget to follow, like,and subscribe to our show.
He then became a greatpersecutor of the Christians.
Uh, who was Saul?
Well, he wasn't a greatpersecution.
Hold on.
You have that as the firstthing.

SPEAKER_03 (12:50):
Well, I know, but get him to tell you the story of
that Paul was standing there andall the cloaks were laid at
Paul's or at Saul's feet.

SPEAKER_01 (12:58):
So I'm gonna start over.

SPEAKER_02 (12:59):
You just really like stoning.
We always come back to stoning.