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[According to the Acts of the Apostles, the Lord appeared in a vision to a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord told him to go a road called Straight Street and lay his hands on a man of Tarsus named Saul to cure him of his blindness. This man, who was blinded by a light on the road to Damascus, we know as St Paul, apostle to the gentiles. When Ananias answered, “Lord, many have told me about this man, and all the hurt he has done to your saints at Jerusalem; and that he has come here with authority from the chief priests to imprison all those who call upon your name,” the Lord said to him, “Go on your errand; this is a man I have chosen to be the instrument for bringing my name before the heathen and their rulers, and before the people of Israel too. I have yet to tell him, how much suffering he will have to undergo for my name’s sake.” In his second epistle to the Corinthians St Paul describes those sufferings in great detail:]

I have toiled harder, spent longer days in prison, been beaten so cruelly, so often looked death in the face. Five times the Jews scourged me, and spared me but one lash in the forty; three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned; I have been shipwrecked three times, I have spent a night and a day as a castaway at sea. What journeys I have undertaken, in danger from rivers, in danger from robbers, in danger from my own people, in danger from the Gentiles; danger in cities, danger in the wilderness, danger in the sea, danger among false brethren! I have met with toil and weariness, so often been sleepless, hungry and thirsty; so often denied myself food, gone cold and naked. And all this, over and above something else which I do not count; I mean the burden I carry every day, my anxious care for all the churches; does anyone feel a scruple? I share it; is anyone’s conscience hurt? I am ablaze with indignation. If I must needs boast, I will boast of the things which humiliate me; the God who is Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, blessed be his name for ever, knows that I am telling the truth.

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