To Reveal His Son in Me

A Reflection on the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Beloved in Christ,

In his Epistle to the Galatians, the Holy Apostle Paul speaks of the extraordinary change which had taken place in his life. He had once persecuted the Church of God, seeking to destroy the very faith which he would later devote his life to proclaiming. He had been zealous for the traditions of his fathers, advancing beyond many of his contemporaries, and had regarded his opposition to the followers of Christ as an expression of religious fidelity. Yet all of this was to change, not through the gradual refinement of his former convictions, nor through any achievement of his own, but through the intervention of divine grace.

Reflecting upon his calling, the Apostle writes: “But when it pleased Him, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles…”

There is something especially significant in the Apostle’s choice of words, but which we might easily miss. Not that he does not simply say that God was pleased to reveal His Son to him, but in him. This is no small distinction.

Certainly, Christ was revealed to Saint Paul. The encounter with the risen Lord overturned his former understanding and brought him to recognize the truth of the Gospel. Yet the Apostle’s words point toward something greater than the acquisition of knowledge, however sacred that knowledge may be. The revelation of Christ was not merely an event which changed Paul’s opinions, but it was an encounter which transformed his life! The persecutor became an Apostle. The man who had sought to destroy the Church became its servant. The zeal which had once been directed against Christ was now devoted to His proclamation. What had formerly been an instrument of destruction became, through grace, an instrument of salvation.

The Christian faith is not simply a collection of truths to be learned, nor a system of moral principles to be adopted. It is, before all else, the revelation of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, and our calling to communion with Him.

This does not in any way diminish the importance of doctrine, or of the faithful transmission of the teaching received from the Apostles. On the contrary, without the truth of the Gospel, we cannot rightly know the Christ whom the Gospel proclaims. But there is a difference between knowing the truths of the faith and allowing those truths to take root within us, bearing fruit in the transformation of our lives.

A person may know much about prayer without having learned truly to pray. He may speak eloquently of charity while remaining indifferent to the sufferings of others. He may understand the necessity of repentance while continually postponing his own. The purpose of the Christian life is not merely that we should become well-informed concerning Christ, but that we should become conformed to Him. And this transformation begins, as the Apostle reminds us, with grace.

Saint Paul does not describe himself as a man who had made himself worthy of divine revelation. Indeed, his account emphasizes quite the opposite. At the very time when he was most zealous in his opposition to the Church, he was already known to God, who had called him by His grace. The initiative belonged to God.

This same truth is manifested, in a different and particularly moving manner, in the Gospel appointed for this Lord’s Day. As the Lord approached the city of Naïm, He encountered a funeral procession. A young man was being carried to his burial, the only son of his mother, who was herself a widow. Saint Luke tells us that a great multitude of the city accompanied her.

The Evangelist records no petition from the grieving mother. She does not approach Christ asking for a miracle, nor does she make any declaration of faith in His power. Indeed, nothing in the account suggests that she expected anything other than the burial of her son. Yet the Lord saw her: “Whom when the Lord had seen, being moved with mercy towards her, He said to her: ‘Weep not.'”

Our Lord did not wait to be summoned. He approached the procession, touched the bier, and commanded the young man to arise. And the dead man sat up and began to speak. Then Saint Luke adds a detail of extraordinary tenderness: “And He gave him to his mother.” The miracle was not performed merely as a demonstration of divine authority, although that authority was unmistakably revealed. It was an act of mercy toward a suffering woman, restoring to her the son whom death had taken away. Here, as in the calling of Saint Paul, we behold the initiative of divine grace.

The widow had not sought out Christ; Christ came to her. The young man could do nothing to restore himself to life; life was given to him by the word of the Lord. And Paul, far from seeking to become a disciple of Christ, had been actively opposing those who followed Him. Yet in both accounts, the mercy of God accomplished what human strength could not.

There is, of course, a distinction between the raising of a dead body and the spiritual transformation of a living person. The young man could neither seek nor coöperate in his restoration to earthly life, whereas the human person, awakened and called by grace, must freely respond to the Lord. Nevertheless, both accounts reveal the same fundamental truth: life comes from God, and it is His grace which makes our response possible.

This is a truth which we must never allow to become merely an abstract theological proposition. It concerns every Christian, whatever his present circumstances may be.

There are those who have known the faith from childhood, and those who have discovered it only after many years. There are those whose lives have been marked by a dramatic conversion, and those whose growth in faith has been quiet and gradual. Some approach God with confidence, while others struggle with uncertainty, discouragement, or the painful awareness of their own failures. Yet the Christian life is not measured by the dramatic character of one’s conversion, nor by the ease with which one has come to believe. What matters is the life of Christ taking root within us.

For some, this may begin with a sudden recognition of truths long resisted. For others, it may be the gradual awakening of a conscience, the discovery of a desire to pray, or the realization that a life once considered satisfactory has left something essential unfulfilled.

And for those who have long professed the faith, the work of grace is no less necessary! It is possible to become so accustomed to the language and practices of Christianity that we cease to attend to their meaning. We may continue to pray, to worship, and to observe the outward forms of religious life, while allowing our hearts to grow cold toward the very One whom these things are intended to glorify.

The remedy is not to abandon the practices of the faith, but to return to their purpose: communion with the living Christ.

The Apostle’s words, “to reveal His Son in me,” thus remain a challenge and an invitation. Has our knowledge of Christ made us more merciful toward others? Has our participation in the life of the Church taught us greater patience, humility, and charity? Have we become more ready to forgive, more willing to serve, and less inclined to regard our own desires and judgments as the measure of all things?

These questions are not intended to lead us into anxious scrutiny of every thought and action, still less into the presumption that we can measure the workings of divine grace with precision. Rather, they remind us that the Christian faith is meant to bear fruit. The revelation of Christ is not given to us so that we may admire it from a distance. It is given that we may be changed by it.

And here we may return once more to the Gospel. When the Lord raised the widow’s son, the people who witnessed the miracle were filled with fear and glorified God, declaring: “A great prophet is risen up among us… God hath visited His people.” They recognized that God had acted among them, although the fullness of what they had witnessed would become clear only through the death and Resurrection of Christ Himself. For the One who raised the young man at Naïm would Himself enter the tomb. The One who restored a son to his grieving mother would, through His own death and Resurrection, open the way to everlasting life.

The raising of the widow’s son was a restoration to mortal life; the Resurrection of Christ is the victory over death itself. And it is into the life of that risen Christ that we are called.

The same Lord who called Paul from persecution to apostleship, and who spoke life to the dead at Naïm, continues to call men and women to Himself. His mercy is not exhausted by the failures of the past, nor is His grace limited to those who have already attained some imagined degree of spiritual perfection.

But neither does His mercy leave us as we were. The grace which calls us is also the grace which transforms us, if we will receive it and coöperate with it. Thus the Apostle’s words express not merely the history of his own conversion, but something of the very purpose of our Christian calling.

We are called to know Christ, to live in Him, and, by His grace, to become living witnesses of His presence. Not simply that His name should be upon our lips, or His teachings stored within our memories, but that His mercy, His patience, His humility, and His love should increasingly be made manifest in our lives. For the Gospel is not merely the announcement that God has visited His people. It is the proclamation that, through Jesus Christ, He has come to give us life. And that life is meant to be revealed in us.

18 October 2026