Today, we hear the story of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac. If you are like me, I struggle sometimes in trying to understand the meaning of some of the readings from the Old Testament. We might ask ourselves as we ponder today’s reading from Genesis: How would a God of love and mercy test Abraham in this way? How could Abraham have such total and complete trust in God? And think of Isaac looking up at his Father. What could have been going through his mind?
We trust in our faith that God is full of love and mercy. That is one of the truths of God that is at the foundation of what we believe as Christians. Yet, God also sacrificed his son to be our redeemer and savior. I think of some of the rough experiences I have had in life, how at the end of my missionary term in Ecuador, I was amazed that I survived it and was still in one piece. Those experiences have given me the compassion and tenacity I have needed to follow my vocation as a priest. In his passion and journey to the cross, Jesus unites his sufferings to the suffering we go through in life. Jesus walks with us and shows us love, mercy, and compassion for the things that we are going through. The cross is not an event that stands by itself, for with the cross, there is also resurrection and eternal life. Perhaps we can see in the story of Abraham and Isaac a foreshadowing of the story of God the Father and his beloved son.
As I thought about the story of Abraham and Isaac, the suscipe of St Ignatius of Loyola came to mind. I remember praying the suscipe prayer at the end of the spiritual exercises of St Ignatius in Spain in the summer of 2019. The pray has a lot of meaning for us in our Catholic faith: Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will. All I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me. Your love and your grace – that is enough for me.
As we think of sacrifice today and the sacrifice that was asked of Abraham, may we ask ourselves what sacrifices we are willing to make for our faith.
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