Saint Paul the Apostle, whose name before his conversion was Saul, on the road to Damascus heard the voice of Jesus speaking to him from the sky and saying, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” He then went on to Damascus, and was baptized in the Catholic Faith by Saint Ananias. Later on, because he was meant to be the Apostle to the Gentiles, and after seeing how much the Jews as a nation despised and rejected Jesus, he changed his name from Saul, which is Jewish, to Paul, which is Gentile. This was in admiration of a Roman named Sergius Paulus (Saint Paul of Narbonne, feast day March 22), whom he met and converted.
