06/07/2023

I do not know the Liturgical Calendar of the Church at all well, so was surprised by today's reading from Genesis. It seems that the story of Abraham and Isaac was used not very long ago. I  commented then  that there is a trend to interpret the the recorded experiences of the Patriarchs as allegories to shape our behaviour and our beliefs. "Don't ever teach your children that God ordered Abraham to kill his own son" thundered one priest that I remember. I can't remember what he preached on Good Friday.

"God will provide the lamb" is Abraham's reply to his beloved but terrified son. On the blackest of nights the world has ever known, the true lamb, also in  a fit of terror, pleads that the horrors that are to be perpetrated upon him be taken away. He also knew then that the Providence of the Father, Abba, is the reality of living as a begotten not made "beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." and he prepares himself for what is to come with the perfect alignment of wills that is the Incarnation.

In his everyday teaching Jesus knew that there was a huge opposition in the persons of the scribes and pharisees. Our Evangelists don't give the organised religious practitioners of their times a very good press but  we must always bear it in mind that the named and unnamed characters who harried our Lord to his death on Calvary, were all human beings and it is to find a way to pardon all of our sins, theirs and ours, that Jesus suffered and died. 

All of the evil being created by man in the Middle East and in the rest of our world today is the result of all sin that was brought into the Garden by the one sin of AdamEve. "Our God provides" but it is up to us to use the gift of freedom wisely and within his boundaries. We pray "thy will be done" and then choose to be sinful rather than wise, Death rather than Life-Eternal. 

Dear Lord each of us has the soul created by you to be part of your Kingdom. Our bodies too are to be resurrected. Mary and all your saints who worship you in heaven pray continually for your grace to shower down on us all on earth and in Purgatory. May this "today" be sinless for me and let my soul be protected by the power of your grace. I pray as always in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.