Multi-faceted Saint Paul was foremost a pastor

Intermountain Catholic

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Fr. Patrick Mullen Ph.D, the keynote speaker at the 46th Annual Pastoral Congress for the Diocese of Salt Lake City, talks of the many facets of St. Paul, the great evangelizer and apostle of Jesus Christ. IC photo by Barbara S. Lee

DRAPER — Saint Paul had many sides to him. "He was not a flat character," said Father Patrick Mullen of St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, Calif. "St. Paul’s letters have a strong founding in Scripture, and like Saint Peter, Paul failed and picked himself up again."

Fr. Mullen was the keynote speaker at the 46th annual Diocesan Pastoral Congress held Oct. 18, the Feast of St. Luke, at Juan Diego Catholic High School at the Skaggs Catholic Center in Draper. More than 550 people attended.

A New Testament Scripture scholar, Fr. Mullen told the religious educators to, "shape what we give our students and teach what they want to learn. Start with their questions."

Fr. Mullen said St. Paul started his teaching with the people, and although he never knew Jesus personally, he was nevertheless an apostle, sent forth by Jesus to teach.

"Paul may have been writing to the church in Corinth or the church is Ephasus, but he was writing to us, and we should be on fire with his teaching," Fr. Mullen said.

Paul the poet wrote things that were beautiful, like Phil. 2:6-11, and the Ode of Love in 1 Cor. 13:1-13, he said. "We need to be poets, borrowing from others. We need to teach the beautiful and the dramatic."

Fr. Mullen encouraged religious educators to become Scripture scholars, reading their Bibles daily, writing in them, and quoting from them.

"St. Paul quoted from the Hebrew Scriptures 90 times," he said, and he had to be quoting from memory because paper was very expensive at that time.

"Read the Scriptures and teach others to do the same."

Fr. Mullen said in St. Paul’s time, only from two percent to five percent of the people were literate, so Paul and the other apostles had to be good story-tellers, passing their teachings on through the oral tradition.

"The Catholic Church went 1,500 years without the Book," said Fr. Mullen. "Our teachers had to make the passing on of stories happen at the level of the heart."

St. Paul was also a theologian, he said, one who had studies the faith.

"Today we have 2000 years of theology with which to work as religious educators, and the next great theologian might come from this room. Jesus has empowered each of you to read and teach as Paul did."

One of the great questions today is why some people wander from the faith while others live an intentionally Catholic life, said Fr. Mullen.

"Paul was also a liturgist. He would be the first person to recount the actions at the Last Supper, and liturgy should matter to us."

Children must be raised with a love of the Eucharist, and that happens in Catholic homes where parents are the first religious educators, said Fr. Mullen

"St. Paul was also the all competent," he said. "He had to be either a mother or a pastor, doing all things, experiencing all things, then teaching all things."

Paul was also a "scrapper," who argued with St. Peter, and while he is often seen as "the bane of women," almost everything he wrote about women has been taken out of context. The great evangelizer also had a "swaggering ego," and "poured himself out," in his letters to the churches he founded, said Fr. Mullen.

Little is known of Paul before his conversion, but Fr. Mullen said he had changed his name from Saul to Paul before his conversion. He was from the tribe of Benjamin.

As for the controversy about who wrote Paul’s letters, Fr. Mullen said it is obvious that Paul himself wrote seven of the letters, and others may have been written by scribes while Paul dictated them. Others were written by people claiming to be Paul, but their writing and teaching is very much in the style of St. Paul.

"There is so much to learn about St. Paul that it’s easy to become overwhelmed by him," said Fr. Mullen. "Here is a man who turned his life around to become closer to God. After his conversion he loved people in a way he never did before. By writing to all of the small communities, clinging to one another, he proved himself first and foremost a pastor.

"St. Paul is the model for all of us in religious education," he said. "We are called to be shepherds in the classroom."

In his homily at the Congress Mass Bishop Wester spoke of teaching at Marin Catholic High School, and complimenting students. Often they deflected the compliments, other times they fished for more.

Whether it is compliments or comments about us, "we need a framework, a perspective of who we are," the bishop said. "We need to respond to compliments with a hearty, ‘Thanks be to God.’’

St. Paul, he said, gave us a vision of St. Luke, portrayed as the winged ox. He was a companion of Paul, a physician, and an apostle to the Gentiles.

"Luke’s perspective was one of God’s mercy, of universal salvation, love of the poor, one of renunciation and prayer to the Holy Spirit. Luke is the patron saint of artists, painters, sculptors, physicians, and butchers."

Let’s make sure we have the right perspective as one passing on the faith, the bishop said. "First, Jesus gets the credit. It was he who invited us to the banquet. And it is Jesus who sends us forth."

"We live today in a time of urgency," he said. "We get caught up in many things in this fast paced world, but let us not get caught up in the ‘me.’"

"As Fr. Mullen said, we should borrow some to share the story and then pass on the faith," said Bishop Wester. "This is precious."

The work of the Lord and for the Lord’s people must be centered, tuned in, alert, awake, and urgent to the passing on of the faith, the bishop said. In Utah, we have wide open spaces, there is rapid growth, and many secular influences. "We need to respond with urgency to the passing on of the faith. I must make passing on the faith a priority for me at all times.

"This is a long haul; a marathon, not a sprint. It is a paradox to the urgency, but it compliments it, too," he said.

"Luke put the emphasis on ‘our daily bread;’ the ordinary was special to him. God is at work in the ordinary.

"Our response when someone compliments us should not be, ‘aw, shucks,’ but ‘Thanks be to God,’ who has begun the good work in us and will see it to its fulfillment."

Paul wrote to Timothy that only Christ stood with him, the bishop said. "He is standing by us when we are teaching, passing on the faith."