8th March 2009 :: 2nd Sunday in Lent
Those of you who are parents may be astounded by what you heard from the First Reading today. Abraham is asked by God to sacrifice his only Son. Even more surprising is that he is prepared to do it. However like all Scripture it must be taken in context. In Abraham and Isaac the chosen people saw the attitude they must have towards God. They were always at his mercy and yet they experienced time and again his faithful love, his patience and his desire that they listen to his voice.
In St Mark's gospel we hear once again the amazing story of the Transfiguration. Notice that Mark mentions Peter, James, and John. These characters would also be present in the garden of Gethsemane and would be chided because of their tiredness. Mount Tabor and the Garden of Gethsemane are very important places in the lives of all Christians because we spend time in both throughout our lives. How often do we experience great consolation and it is easy enough to believe in God, and we say thank God I am a Christian. But there are other times when the cloud covering us is the shadow of the Cross and we are anything but grateful to God. Those disciples who heard the voice of God attesting to his Son soon forgot what they experienced when the going got tough and when they were asked to accept that Jesus was destined to suffer and to die. We also perhaps search for a more pure and untroubled faith life. We don't want to think too much about the many contradictions we are asked to accept. Is God is so good, why do innocent people suffer? Why did he stand by and allow his Son to be sacrificed, why did he appear unmoved as so many of the Chosen People were exterminated in the Concentration Camps?
I don't have any answers to those questions, and they provoke other ones too. But on this day of Lent let us take consolation from St Paul's Letter to the Romans, 'With God on our side who can be against us'? And his conclusion, 'He not only died for us, he rose from the dead, and there at God's right hand he stands and pleads for us'. Amen.
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Homilies Archive
17nd May 2009
26th April 2009
3rd Sunday of Easter
12th April 2009
Easter Sunday
9th April 2009
Holy Thursday
29th March 2009
5th Sunday in Lent
22nd March 2009
4th Sunday in Lent
17th March 2009
St. Patrick's Day
15th March 2009
3rd Sunday in Lent
8th March 2009
2nd Sunday in Lent
1st March 2009
1st Sunday in Lent
25th February 2009
Ash Wednesday
22nd February 2009
8th February 2009
1st February 2009
25th January 2009
18th January 2009
11th January 2009
Feast of the Baptism of the Lord
6th January 2009
Feast of the Epiphany
4th January 2009
2008 HOMILIES ARCHIVE
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