Category: Uncategorized

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Genesis 17: 9-22:

“When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him
and said: “I am God the Almighty.
Walk in my presence and be blameless.”

God also said to Abraham:
“On your part, you and your descendants after you
must keep my covenant throughout the ages.
This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you
that you must keep:
every male among you shall be circumcised.”

God further said to Abraham:
“As for your wife Sarai, do not call her Sarai;
her name shall be Sarah.
I will bless her, and I will give you a son by her.
Him also will I bless; he shall give rise to nations,
and rulers of peoples shall issue from him.”
Abraham prostrated himself and laughed as he said to himself,
“Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old?
Or can Sarah give birth at ninety?”
Then Abraham said to God,
“Let but Ishmael live on by your favor!”
God replied: “Nevertheless, your wife Sarah is to bear you a son,
and you shall call him Isaac.
I will maintain my covenant with him as an everlasting pact,
to be his God and the God of his descendants after him.
As for Ishmael, I am heeding you: I hereby bless him.
I will make him fertile and will multiply him exceedingly.
He shall become the father of twelve chieftains,
and I will make of him a great nation.
But my covenant I will maintain with Isaac,
whom Sarah shall bear to you by this time next year.”
When he had finished speaking with him, God departed from Abraham.”

The Word of the Lord.

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Perhaps one of the most nerve-racking periods in a married couple’s life is when the wife first becomes pregnant. 

Everything about their relationship changes; they are no longer two, but three. Perhaps a home office is painted powder blue; onesies and diapers are purchased in anticipation; sleeping habits are disrupted; finances are stretched.

Then there are the changes a woman experiences physically. Allowing another human being to grow inside her body is almost miraculous. 

Enduring a nine-month pregnancy is not for the faint of heart.

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Imagine being Abraham and Sarah in our first reading. They’re preparing to become first-time parents at an age when most of us would be retired…or somewhere over the rainbow!

Sarah is old and frail. Naturally, Abraham asks God, “Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Or can Sarah give birth at ninety?”

God’s promise seems so absurd that Abraham literally laughs out loud.

That slow, nine-month period of Sarah’s pregnancy would’ve been no less stressful for Abraham and Sarah than it is for a married couple today. Only they didn’t have the science, the medicine, or the technology that we do.

Once she conceived, Abraham and Sarah simply had to trust that her body – and the baby growing within – would endure to the end.

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Though most of us – perhaps none of us – are pregnant, we’re all in different periods of waiting.

Some of us are waiting for a prayer to be answered; a door to be opened; a temptation to subside. Once we ask the Lord to help us, a seed is planted. A promise is made.

“Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith,” Jesus says, “you will receive.”

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Unlike Abraham, who laughed at God’s promises, may we continue this day in faith.

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Image credits: (1) The Funny Old Man, Pinterest (2) Portrait of Patriarch Abraham, Guercino (3) The Heaton File, God Made Her Laugh

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Gospel: Luke 1:57-80

“When the time arrived for Elizabeth to have her child
she gave birth to a son.
Her neighbors and relatives heard
that the Lord had shown his great mercy toward her,
and they rejoiced with her.
When they came on the eighth day to circumcise the child,
they were going to call him Zechariah after his father,
but his mother said in reply,
“No. He will be called John.”
But they answered her,
“There is no one among your relatives who has this name.”
So they made signs, asking his father what he wished him to be called.
He asked for a tablet and wrote, “John is his name,”
and all were amazed.
Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed,
and he spoke blessing God.
Then fear came upon all their neighbors,
and all these matters were discussed
throughout the hill country of Judea.
All who heard these things took them to heart, saying,
“What, then, will this child be?”
For surely the hand of the Lord was with him.

The child grew and became strong in spirit,                
and he was in the desert until the day
of his manifestation to Israel.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

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Nearly every birth in the Bible is about the parents as much as it is the child.

Consider the difference in the parental reactions between the birth of Jesus and the birth of John the Baptist, whose feast day we celebrate today.

Both were foretold by the Angel Gabriel and both seemed unlikely: Mary, a virgin, and Zechariah’s wife, Elizabeth, was elderly and barren.

While Mary believed what Gabriel told her, Zechariah’s heart was clouded by doubt.

“How can this be?” he says. “For I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years.”

Zechariah didn’t believe in the impossible. So, Gabriel strikes him mute, preventing him from saying another word until he holds his child, John, in his arms.

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This is a lesson learned throughout scripture: God can do extraordinary things. 

Yet how often do we question the Lord like Zechariah did, favoring human logic over the power of the divine?

“Lord, time is running out. Will you answer me?”

“How can I carry this cross?”

“How can I climb the mountain before me?”

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I asked a similar question upon arriving here at St. Pius X. “Lord, how can I renew this parish? We’re in the middle of a pandemic!”

Yet look at what the Lord has already done – and is still doing today. Our ministries are expanding; Mass attendance is growing; faith and excitement are oozing out of many.

Like Zechariah, we’re being invited to trust that God is doing the impossible right in front of us.

And we’re all part of his plan.

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What seems impossible in my own life? Where have I hit a roadblock?

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God can break barriers and open doors. But first we should believe.

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Image credits: (1) When God Does the Impossible, beWarm (2) Gospel Images – Birth of Isaac (3) Wildens Infant Christ and Saint John

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Genesis 15: 1-18

The word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision:

    “Fear not, Abram!
        I am your shield;
        I will make your reward very great.”

But Abram said,
“O Lord GOD, what good will your gifts be,
if I keep on being childless
and have as my heir the steward of my house, Eliezer?”
Abram continued,
“See, you have given me no offspring,
and so one of my servants will be my heir.”
Then the word of the LORD came to him:
“No, that one shall not be your heir;
your own issue shall be your heir.”
He took him outside and said:
“Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can.
Just so,” he added, “shall your descendants be.”
Abram put his faith in the LORD,
who credited it to him as an act of righteousness.

He then said to him,
“I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans
to give you this land as a possession.”
“O Lord GOD,” he asked,
“how am I to know that I shall possess it?”
He answered him,
“Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat,
a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”
Abram brought him all these, split them in two,
and placed each half opposite the other;
but the birds he did not cut up.
Birds of prey swooped down on the carcasses,
but Abram stayed with them.
As the sun was about to set, a trance fell upon Abram,
and a deep, terrifying darkness enveloped him.

When the sun had set and it was dark,
there appeared a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch,
which passed between those pieces.
It was on that occasion that the LORD made a covenant with Abram,
saying: “To your descendants I give this land,
from the Wadi of Egypt to the Great River the Euphrates.”

The Word of the Lord.

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All week our first reading has come from the Book of Genesis, as we witness the faith journey of Abraham. He’s an old man now and his wife, Sarah, has borne no children.

So, Abraham grumbles before God, saying, “What good will your gifts be, if I keep on being childless?”

It seems Abraham’s on the brink of despair. God has made an impossible promise: to bless his descendants, something that cannot happen if Abraham has no children.

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“Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can,” the Lord says to him today. “Just so, shall your descendants be.”

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Strangely, God tells Abraham to look up and count the stars in the middle of the day.

It seems cruel. Although Abraham knows the stars exist, he cannot see them now.

God is inviting him to trust. If the Lord has worked wonders before, then why would he not work wonders again?

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Before he dies, Abraham has eight sons.

And today more than half of the world’s population – over 4 billion people – call him their father in faith. 

Descendants as numberless as the stars.

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Like Abraham, do I feel like I’m staring at a bright sky, as if I cannot see the stars? 

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In those moments when we cannot see, God invites us to trust like Abraham. If God has provided for us before, then why would he not provide again?

It’s all a matter of being patient, of waiting until dusk. Then the stars – the answer to our prayer – will appear.

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Image credits: (1) Photos.com by Getty Images (2) Blackaby Ministries International (3) Sunny Sky Photo, iStock