Dear Friends,

The first reading of today’s liturgy of the word gives us the perfect model of what our faith should be.. The first reading says, “The Lord said to Abraham:’Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.” (Gen.15,5-6).

We should know the story of Abraham. Abraham was 75 years old, when called to leave his country, his clan, his friends and set out for another country hundreds of miles away, about which Abraham knew nothing. It was hard to abandon one’s own country but to leave it at the age of 75, no man would ever do. Yet Abraham, trusting exclusively on the word of God, did as God had told him and left for unknown country.

On reaching the country God had spoken to him about, Abraham found out that the land was occupied by peoples too strong for him to displace. How could that land possibly become his?
Then God promised Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars of heaven. Time passed and neither promise was being fulfilled. It was hard to see how the Lord promised him would be his, but it was still harder to believe that a man now nearly a hundred years old, with a wife also advanced in age, could have children. Abraham even wondered when and how the promise would be fulfilled, wondered why God was delaying in fulfilling them. It was impossible to see that God’s promise would be fulfilled.

Later on Abraham was blessed with a child in the person of Isaac, after the age of a hundred. God asked Abraham to sacrifice his only Son, Isaac. Abraham again trusted God, to the point of being ready to offer his son, Isaac in sacrifice.

Because of his deep faith in God, Abraham was called Our Father in Faith. From this beautiful story, we learn that we must put our trust in God throughout our life: in joy and in sorrow, never doubting for a moment.

May God bless you!

Fr. Chris