Today at Mass we have one of the great accounts of the conversion of St Paul: ‘Now as he journeyed he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed about him. And he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting”’.

That fall to the ground has been painted and commented on many times down the centuries. It is not unlike the scene in the Garden of Olives, when the soldiers who had come to arrest Jesus fall to the ground upon hearing the words ‘I am He’, or more literally, ‘I AM’, with all the resonances that that phrase has in salvation history.

As Saul/Paul fell to the ground he regained his truth as a person and a child of God. As in the Garden, Jesus identifies Himself as ‘I AM’.

In all our own moments of truth, however painful, may we know ourselves dearly loved as children of God, and may God bless you this day.