13th Week, Thursday, July 6
Genesis 22:1-19 / Matthew 9:1-8
God tests Abraham; Offer Isaac in sacrifice.
God's test of Abraham underscores two important points about faith. First, faith involves trust in God. For example, reason told Abraham that Isaac was the one through whom God's promise to him would be realized. But then Abraham was told to offer Isaac in sacrifice. Had Abraham relied on reason alone, he would have been forced to set aside his trust. Second, faith involves risk. An example will illustrate. When two people marry, neither is certain that the other will remain faithful in a crisis. Each must take this risk. Faith is something like that. It involves a knowledge gap that only trust and risk can bridge.
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How ready are we to trust and risk for God? "Faith is saying 'Amen' to God." Mery Rosell
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Saint Maria Goretti
In 1900, two farm laborers relocated their destitute families to an old barn near Nettuno, Italy. Luigi Goretti, his wife, Assunta, and their six children moved in with Giovanni Serenelli and Alessandro, his teenaged son. Soon after the move, Luigi died, leaving Assunta to carry on his work. Maria, her oldest child, who was ten, assumed the household duties and cheerfully supported her mother.
At twelve Maria was already a beautiful young woman. Alessandro, then nineteen, twice made advances toward her. She rebuffed him and kept his propositions secret because he had threatened to kill her. On July 5, 1902, Maria sat atop the hovel’s stairs, mending Alessandro’s shirt. He stormed past her, ordered her into a bedroom, grabbed her, and attempted to rape her. “No! No! No!” Maria cried. “Don’t touch me, Alessandro! It’s a sin!” She resisted him with all her strength. Angered beyond control, he stabbed her fourteen times. Maria survived a pain-filled twenty-four hours in the hospital.
She showed more concern for where her mother would sleep in the hospital than for herself. Before she died she forgave Alessandro and prayed for God to have mercy on him.
Alessandro was sentenced to thirty years’ hard labor and imprisoned at Noto, Sicily. One night in 1910 he dreamed that Maria handed him a bouquet of lilies and he began to feel remorse. Soon after, Bishop Blandini of Noto visited him, explaining that Maria had forgiven him and that God would also forgive him. The message struck home. A few days later Alessandro sent the bishop this letter:
I cannot tell you what comfort has come to my sorrowing soul through the conversation with your Excellency, for which I send my most heartfelt gratitude.
It is indeed true that in a moment of mental aberration I was led to commit a barbarous murder which the law has already punished. . . .I regret doubly the evil I have done, because I realize that I have taken the life of a poor, innocent girl. Up to the last moment she wanted to protect her honor, sacrificing herself rather than give in to my wishes. This it was that drove me to so terrible and deplorable a deed. Publicly, I detest the evil that I have done. And I ask God’s forgiveness and that of the poor, desolate family for the great wrong I committed. I hope that I too, like so many others in this world, may obtain pardon. May your prayers united to mine obtain for me the forgiveness of him who governs all things, and the calm and the blessing of the poor departed one.
Alessandro was released from prison early for good behavior. He reformed his life and ultimately joined the Franciscan Third Order. Pope Pius XII canonized Maria Goretti in 1950. Assunta was present for the event, the first time a mother was present when her child was declared a saint.
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At the time of Christ, people did not understand the Hebrew of Bible that was read in the synagogues. They spoke Aramaic. They thus made a free translation, which was called a Targum Sometimes small changes were added, occasionally explanations were given. So, in this passage: "Isaac said to his father. Bind me well so that I may not struggle at the anguish of my soul, and that a blemish may not be found in an offering". This binding that Isaac asks, expresses his own intention to be a sacrifice and do the will of God. The binding is Akedah in Aramaic. In their moments of anguish Jews asked God to remember the Akedah of Isaac. They expressed with this their readiness to be a victim and do the will of God, in spite of their anguish that might make them struggle against doing God's will.
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When what we have is sufficient and even in surplus, it is easy to think that God will provide for our needs. But when we are down to nothing, can we believe that God will come up with something? Abraham was blessed by God with almost everything and the most precious was an heir, a son in his old age.
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The incident of the sacrifice of Isaac was certainly a warning against the Canaanite practice of children’s sacrifices and a call for spiritual sacrifices. On the deepest level it may very well be a test of the faith of Abraham, that God’s covenant and promise of a great posterity were not simply attached to Isaac because he was Abraham’s beloved son, but to God’s gratuitousness, God’s free gift. Torn apart and dispossessed, Abraham stands the trial in faith; he still has his son, but now as if constantly given by God.
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This is the third miracle in the second group of three, Matthew tells us about. In the storm he shows Jesus to have power over nature. In the second he shows his power over demons and now his power over the conscience of man. In the first Jesus is accepted, in the second he is rejected. In the third Matthew shows that Jesus divides men. Some say he blasphemes. Others praise God for having given such authority to human beings. The reaction of men to Christ is different. Astonishing. They bring to Jesus a paralytic. His life is meaningless. He is a burden, literally, to himself and others, very unhappy. Jesus sees deeper. He knows what is ailing and he says to him: 'Your sins are forgiven." That is not what they had come for. He also shows that he knows what is in their minds. For this he shows them his power. "Get up, pick up your bed and go off home", he said to him. He was cured.
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It was, humanly speaking, a meager consolation for the cripple to hear that his sins were forgiven. But to the believer, sin is the root of human ills; when this root is taken away by forgiveness, the whole person is saved, also in one’s body. In the gospel, the scribes call Jesus a blasphemer. The official people of institutionalized religion challenge the true message of God, on account of so-called true religion. Let us pray today that we may recognize the true Spirit of God when here is a message to tell us, even when it is unpleasant.
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Prayer
Lord our God, often we do not understand what you ask of us in life. Give us a trusting faith, we pray you, that we may keep believing in you even when we don’t see where you lead us. Give us the faith of Abraham, who was willing to sacrifice his son; give us the faith of the lame man who found fresh courage when his sins were forgiven. Tell us to stand up and walk with the certainty that you love us and want to bring us home to you, who are our God forever. Amen
