Almighty Savior, who at noonday called your servant Saint Paul to be an apostle to the Gentiles: We pray you to illumine the world with the radiance of your glory, that all nations may come and worship you; for you live and reign for ever and ever. Amen.

Illumination is a gift from God to be sure, but it comes at the cost of the life we assumed we would lead. Paul had no desire to bring the love of God to Gentiles, but that was the holy calling and life that he got. The flash of light and the voice from heaven stripped him of his spiritual blindness courtesy of a three day physical blindness.

Perhaps it is only when we are stripped of the illusion that we see reality clearly that we are willing to rely on God’s vision. It’s quite a bold thing to ask for, as an individual and as part of the nations of this world, this clarity of vision. If it changed Paul’s life so dramatically, it’s likely to do the same to ours…