Our Lord speaks of the Word of God as a seed that is sown in the heart of man. God wants His word to bear fruit in us – eternal fruit that does not perish. Such fruit can only grow in a good heart, and for the heart to be good, it is necessary to prepare it in the right way.

The Church recommends to us, especially during Lent, three means to prepare our hearts to receive the Word of God so that it may bear abundant fruit in us. These three means are penance, mortification, and resolutions.

It is important to remember that we cannot buy God's mercy through acts of mercy – the Lord of the vineyard rewards everyone exactly as He wants, and we can be grateful that He does so out of goodness and love. However, it is necessary for us to practice works of mercy, because it is our chance to truly live in God’s mercy and grace. This is what we are called for, whether in the first hour or the last.

Paul’s conversion was a divine act, but this doesn’t mean that God did not use His servants in it. There were two people whose role in the life and fate of Paul was decisive: the already mentioned Saint Stephen the Protomartyr, and a disciple living in Damascus named Ananias. Interestingly, Saint Ananias, who later also died a martyr, is commemorated on the same day that we celebrate the Conversion of Saint Paul.

Here He is: the Most Holy Trinity, Father and Son and Holy Spirit. God, who is One, but not alone, because in Him is the whole richness of being and He is the source of every true, loving relationship. This is the main reason why He created everything: to share the blessing of life and love with those who would not exist without Him. But in His love, God goes even further than simply creating us: He did not respond to man’s rebellion against Him by destroying us and creating a better mankind, but by becoming the Son of Man in His only begotten Son, so that we might become sons and daughters of God.