This June we begin a special jubilee year in the Catholic world. It’s the Year of St. Paul! It was declared by Pope Benedict XVI to mark the 2,000th birthday of the apostle, who was born sometime between 7–10 A.D.

We all know Paul’s dramatic story, which we hear each year in the Sunday liturgies during the Easter season. It is a great story of redemption that could almost read like one of our Lord’s parables.

Paul was a highly educated Pharisee, a student of the esteemed Gamali-el the Elder. (Gal 1:14) And his zeal for his religion led him to play a prominent role in persecuting the early church. It is still chilling to read the account of St. Stephen’s martyrdom. “They cast him out of the city and stoned him; and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.” (Acts 7:58)

This is the first appearance of Paul in Scripture. And he is a terrifying figure at first. He is described “ravaging the church,” going door to door, seizing Christians and hauling them off to prison, “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.” (Acts 9:1) But when he meets Jesus on the road to Damascus his life is changed completely and forever.

And that is my prayer for this Pauline Year. That each of us uses this special year to deepen our own personal encounter with Christ.

As Pope Benedict says, we learn from the experience of St. Paul that “what counts is to place Jesus Christ at the center of our lives, so that our identity is marked essentially by the encounter, by communion with Christ and with his Word. In his light every other value is recovered and purified from possible dross.”

Paul taught us that in Christ we are made sons and daughters of God, heirs to the promise of eternal life. This should change everything for us. The question we have to ask ourselves is this: Are we living as children of God, constantly aware of God’s loving presence in our lives?

In baptism we become “a new creation” (2 Cor 5:17); Paul revealed this to us. It is time for us to live it, my friends! Let us make new plans to meet Jesus every day in this special year. They don’t have to be grand plans, a commitment we can’t possibly keep. But all of us can find a few more moments in our busy days for Jesus.

Here is a good place to start: commit yourself to reading a few verses from the Gospels each day and a verse or two from one of Paul’s letters. Start with the Gospel of Mark and Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. Try to spend a little time each week praying before the Blessed Sacrament, perhaps by getting to Mass a little earlier.

Another very special part of the jubilee year will be the possibility to receive plenary indulgences, a gift granted to us by the Holy Father, so that the faithful may obtain “spiritual treasures for their own sanctification,” in honor of St. Paul. An indulgence is “a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven.”

During the Pauline Year, plenary indulgences will be granted to those who visit the Pontifical Basilica of Saint Paul, in Rome, but also in the different dioceses, at the places assigned by the local bishop. In the Archdiocese of San Antonio, I have determined these places to be San Fernando Cathedral, St. Paul Parish, in San Antonio, and Sts. Peter and Paul Parish in New Braunfels, where the indulgences will be granted from June 28, 2008 to June 29, 2009.

They can be also gained by those who participate in the celebrations on the days of the solemn opening and closing of the Pauline Year in any place of worship.

A plenary indulgence can be gained only once a day, for ourselves or for the faithful departed, and we need to be in a state of grace. In addition, it is necessary to fulfill the usual conditions for indulgences: to have the interior disposition of complete detachment from sin, even venial sin; to have sacramentally confessed our sins several days (at most 20 days) before or after the indulgence acts; to receive the Holy Eucharist; and to pray for the intentions of the Holy Father. One sacramental confession suffices for several indulgences, but a separate holy Communion and prayers for the intentions of the Holy Father are required for each indulgence.

The “faithful confined by sickness or other legitimate or relevant reasons” can also receive the indulgences as long as they fulfill the usual requirements as they are capable, and “unite themselves spiritually with one of the jubilee celebrations in honor of St. Paul, offering to God their prayers and their suffering for the unity of all Christians.”

I also encourage you to be on the watch for the archdiocesan calendar at www.archsa.org, in Today’s Catholic, or on Catholic Television of San Antonio, as more events and opportunities to celebrate this jubilee year will be forthcoming.

Let us make this a special year of renewal. The year when we really begin to live as Paul did — “by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20)

Parts of this column originally appeared in Catholic Life Magazine, Summer 2008. Reprinted with permission.