Sunday, March 10, 2024

21 March 2024 - homily for Thursday of the 5th week of Lent - Genesis 17:3-9

     In our reading from Genesis today, God makes a covenant with Abraham and with his future generations.  At the end of the reading, it states that “God also said to Abraham: ‘On your part, you and your descendants after you must keep my covenant throughout the ages.’”  

     One of the things that draws me to the pilgrimage of St James in Spain is the history of that pilgrimage. It started in the early 9th century when the remains of the St James the Apostle were rediscovered in northern Spain by a hermit seeing a light shining in a cave. Some of the roads and bridges that I hike along on the pilgrimage route were constructed by the Romans more than 1,000 years ago. Some of the churches that I visited are also that old.  Sometimes, as I am walking along the trail, I stop and can almost hear the footsteps of the millions of pilgrims who traveled that route in faith before me over the centuries. Just I followed in the footsteps of those many pilgrims who traveled those roads before me, we follow in the footsteps of Abraham and his descendants, in the covenant he made with his people. We may ask ourselves: Are we adhering to the spirit of that covenant? Are we fulfilling the purpose God intended for us as his people? 

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