Collection of videos for the Pauline Year
Throughout the year dedicated to St. Paul, a number of professors from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome have presented a series of videos on the Apostle to the Gentiles, edited by the Argentinean producer Digito Identidad. The letters of St. Paul, his apostolate, his determination to unite faith and reason, and his intimate conversation with Jesus, are some of the themes of the collection of 13 brief videos published in monthly installments on the Opus Dei website (www.opusdei.org).
The series was introduced by Bishop Javier Echevarría, the Prelate of Opus Dei, who invited viewers to take advantage of the Pauline Year, as “a gift of the Holy Father,” to get to know Jesus Christ better, through St. Paul. He said our Lord is telling all Christians “my grace is sufficient for you” (2 Cor 12:9), to carry on the struggles of ordinary life.
The American professor and priest, John Wauck, explained that St. Paul clearly understood that his sufferings identified him with Christ; his example “is an invitation to take up the cross in our ordinary life.” In another video, Professor Wauck reflects on St. Paul's affection for the first Christian communities which, in many cases, he himself founded.
Theologian Carla Rossi Espagnet presented two of the Pauline videos. In the first one she explained some aspects of the Apostle's teaching on marriage: “Love and respect; that is what St. Paul asked of spouses.” In a second video she considered St. Paul's teaching on charity. “Without charity, without love for others,” she said regarding the Apostle's hymn to charity, “our actions would lack meaning.”
Professor Robert Gahl dedicated one of the videos to the reality of our divine filiation: “Christians can call God 'Father'... this is something that we learn from Paul.” In the tenth video of the series, he stressed the Apostle's closeness to Christ: “in him Paul discovered the Son of God, the Lord, the Messiah.”
Fr. Bernardo Estrada, Professor of Sacred Scripture and specialist in St. Paul's letters, spoke about Saul's vocation after his encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus. Professor Maria Angeles Vitoria, from the School of Philosophy, highlighted the union of faith and reason in the Apostle to the Gentiles. St. Paul, she said, revealed a faith “that was in no way opposed to human logic. Therefore he was always a friend of sincere dialogue with those who rightly sought the truth.”
St. Paul and work is the topic dealt with by Maria Aparecida Ferrari, professor in the department of ethics and sociology. Professor Eusebio Gonzalez, in one of the first videos, pointed to St. Paul's apostolic zeal: “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” The series concluded with a consideration of St. Paul and the Eucharist.
Romana, n. 47, July-December 2008, p. 326-327.