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00:00So now we begin our course, and the way to start it is...
00:29from where we left the other, that is, we left the other, because in our conversion you will remember in our
00:37The last course was the retreat where we began our Christian life, where we accepted
00:46Jesus as Lord of our lives, where they laid hands on us to ask the Lord again.
00:54that would fill us with the strength of his spirit to begin the new life, the Christian life, the life
01:02of the new man, and that's why I'd like to start; I was just reviewing it here in my Bible.
01:10Chapter 9, which I invite you to read at home, and there wasn't a little bit of time left to avoid making it too long.
01:17Too much for our meeting and to be able to move a little faster, I don't read it all, we already know it
01:23It is chapter 9 where Paul has asked for letters from the
01:28to the priests in order to go and persecute the Christians, and well, along the way they go
01:41He will meet Jesus while on his way to Damascus, and the first thing that jumps out at him is...
01:51I'd like us to stop there for a little while, she says, because she calls him by his name.
01:58Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? I want you to see that conversion is something personal, not communal.
02:10The community doesn't become a community; it's a call for you, for me, for each one of us. God called you to...
02:20Your name Luis Juan Pedro María Lupe, what is your name? And we can see that there is certainly a choice of
02:33Each one of us, each one of us is this Paul who meets Jesus on the road.
02:41You were on the path of a housewife, a father, a son, I don't know, I don't know where the Lord found you on the road
02:50But one day he found you, just like he found Paul, and he called you by name: "You are special, you are my son, I love you."
03:04We begin our journey; we can see in this what we have already learned in the introductory course, which for
03:15God, each one of us is important. He has called us, He has invited us, He has pronounced our
03:25His name, and this is because He wants to have a personal relationship with each one of us, God.
03:35wanted to have a personal relationship with Pablo, just as he wants to have a second element with us.
03:43We can see in this encounter of Paul, if we look at verses 8 and 9, right, we're going to see that Paul...
03:54Pick up your Bible if you have it there, let's read this little bit from Paul.
04:00Saul got up from the ground, and although his eyes were open, he saw nothing, and taking him by the hand, he
04:12They took him to Damascus; he spent three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank.
04:20It's interesting how many days Pablo is blind; it's three days. What does this tell you? What does it tell us?
04:33He speaks of what he has told us, for he speaks of the resurrection, it is the time that Jesus was in the
04:38The darkness of the tomb. Christ was in that darkness for three days. He entered the Lord's tomb and it opened.
04:48For him, the true light was the light of the resurrection, just as it was for each one of us.
04:55Paul lived in the Old Testament and now he will begin a new life in the Spirit; we lived in
05:07Well, it might sound bad, but I think we lived in the darkness of a church that was anchored
05:18Only in the rites of the baptized, going to mass, fulfilling some devotions, etc., but when
05:27You come to know Christ when the Holy Spirit comes into your life. Now we begin a new life.
05:33where we will see things as Paul saw them, as they truly are, as God created them, and we will understand more.
05:44Regarding our relational, sexual, affective, emotional life, etc., the light of the spirit illuminates it.
05:55All of us brothers, without him we would always live in total darkness, and I don't think he should have to
06:02I think you understand what I'm saying because I'm sure that...
06:08Although perhaps you haven't lived it or experienced it fully yet, I believe without a doubt that having
06:16Having completed your entire Christian initiation course, you can now understand that indeed before the
06:23Jordan, our life is not as it is now. We call it Jordan in this course, but whoever has
06:32I have therefore had a course of Christian initiation, of true renewal, the fusion of the spirit, in short, some
06:39other types of Christian initiation, all of these especially when there has been a process not only of the
06:45three or four days, but there has already been a long process in which you have been assimilating life
06:52Christian and then you have this conversion experience with the laying on of hands and asking you
06:59I am admitted into the community of disciples and ask the Lord to strengthen my spirit.
07:07I'm sure you understand clearly today that what I'm telling you is true; you are a new
07:15creature and you see things differently because without the spirit, without this transformation, everything is
07:26darkness, although it seemed to us that we were in the light, the truth is not so; the laying on of hands by
07:35Ananias in the case of Paul carries out the last part of his conversion because without the
07:45Without the Holy Spirit, we would absolutely not have the opportunity to know the light. In verses 17 and 18 we read the following:
07:56Ananias went and entered the house, and after laying his hands on Paul, he said, "Brother Saul, the..."
08:10Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road you were coming from, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and
08:17May you be filled with the Holy Spirit, says verse 18. At once something like scales fell from their eyes, and
08:28He regained his sight, got up, and was baptized. Verse 19 simply concludes by saying he took food and received payment.
08:40force
08:41Without the laying on of hands, without the Holy Spirit, I would have had neither the light nor the strength to be able to
08:53To preach in order to see things differently, so that one can become a true no.
09:02not only one in a disciple but in an apostle
09:05From that moment on, Paul will be led by the Spirit because Christians
09:13True Christians are guided not by the law but by the spirit; the law exists, yes, but
09:23Whoever says "Thou shalt not steal"—a person who is led by the Spirit obviously does not steal.
09:29He doesn't lie, he doesn't fornicate, he doesn't mess with other people's wives, in other words, he loves his parents, he takes care of them.
09:39It protects, goes to mass, that is, it doesn't need to see the law; the law existed before, now the Christian is pushed
09:51by a force that comes from within and not from without, that's why we read in the Old Testament how
09:58The Lord says, "I will put my law in your hearts, not outside, not here in the books. Books are of no use to us."
10:07to get to know him, to deepen our relationship with him, but it is the spirit that will guide everything
10:15Our life, Pablo's entire life from that moment on, has the light of God, and of course, little by little
10:26as is also happening in us, he will come to understand that his mission is to become not only
10:33not in a disciple of Christ but in one of his apostles, and this must also be verified in you
10:41And you're going to say, "I, an apostle of Christ, yes, all disciples in one way or another must exercise the..."
10:51apostolate, that is, we have to become witnesses, sent by the Lord, some from our
11:01We don't have to leave our own home; our siblings, our parents, and our children are there.
11:07Our grandparents, our uncles, we don't have to go far; if you go to school, there you have candidates.
11:14You're going to work there, there's someone you can talk to about Christ, but I can't, no, not right now, and...
11:25Later on, you won't have the charisma of preaching, like I recognize I have.
11:32But even if you don't have that charisma, you have others, and those charisms become visible to the extent that they do.
11:39They become an invitation, an apostolate to draw people to Christ
11:46That is why one of the fundamental teachings of the first Christian catechesis has to do with
11:57The requirement of conversion to transform ourselves into disciples; conversion makes us authentic
12:07disciples became followers of Christ and later, with God's grace, apostles as well
12:14And well, this seems logical to me, since we see that from the beginning of his preaching both
12:24John the Baptist, like Jesus, makes this invitation
12:29to preach, to invite others to be part of the community; even more so, Jesus himself places it as
12:40essential to be able to follow it
12:44We follow this path through a deep conversion, a transformation; Jesus invites us to do so.
12:55to change, to transform ourselves, but we cannot do it on our own; we need God's help.
13:04And this will be the task that Jesus will entrust to his apostles: to help others find the way
13:15from conversion so that all who approach them can know that there is a different path that leads them
13:24to turn in a new direction, to know the light, the truth
13:32You understand this now, and it is this conversion, this transformation, that enables us to be able to
13:44to guide us along the path of salvation
13:48Only through salvation can we reach heaven
13:55And that's why what Jesus says in the Gospel of Mark, for example, is so important.
14:02If you go to the Gospel of Mark, chapter 16, verse 16, it tells us
14:07Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved
14:14Whoever refuses to believe will be condemned
14:18And well, this belief, as we have already made clear
14:25Saint Paul understood it as a duty.
14:28as a follow-up to the gospel
14:31which brought about a radical change in his life
14:35The Torah is there, but now he follows Christ, now he listens to Christ, now he lets himself be moved by the Spirit
14:47That is why, for him as it will be for many others
14:52It's not just like with the Jews, you remember I've preached on the subject of the shub
14:58In other words, it returns to the law.
15:00No, not here. Go back to the law.
15:03but as a radical change
15:06radical change that Paul's adherence to Christ implies
15:13And from there will come a new way of understanding life
15:18and outside the Mosaic law
15:21Let's now understand
15:24This is something new and different.
15:27Let's stop for a moment
15:29And we continue with this interesting
15:32Well, a chapter on the topic.
15:35of what conversion really is
15:38and what's happening right now in your own life
15:41See you in a bit
15:43in a moment