SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT  – 2021

« On the first Sunday of Lent we contemplated Jesus tempted, to help us to see his vulnerability as a member of the human race. 

« In the second Sunday we are invited to contemplate his glory, his divine being.   

« We need to meditate and contemplate both realities to be able to follow the Lord unconditionally.    

FIRST READING  – Gen 22:1-2.9.10-13.15-18.

Ø   The cycle of Abraham ends with the story of the sacrifice of Isaac.  Frightening story which poses a great number of questions, probably because we read it literally, in a fundamentalist way. 

Ø  According to a commentator the biblical author uses a legend to give a message on the meaning of faith, on the value of life and that God is the God of life, and does not want human sacrifices. A legend which fits well with the behavior of Abraham.   

Ø  Another commentator thinks that Abraham in his process of learning to know God who has spoken to him, has called him and has made promises to him, wants to offer to God the best he has, even if this entails that the promises will not be able to be fulfilled, or God will provide.  

Ø  A third commentator says that the story is about a believer who discovers, through the tortuous way of the divine silence, the promise of a complete salvation. 

Ø  In the Old Testament God is portrayed in contradictory ways, sometimes with the tenderness of a parent and other times with great rigor. Sometimes God promises and later on asks to do something different.   

Ø  In truth it is not God who is ambivalent, but the faith of human being who in his/her process of maturing understands  God  better little by little.  This is what the writings of the different authors of the Old Testament reflect. The Bible is in truth the story about God who seeks the human being, and the slow and sometimes contradictory response of that same human being.     

Ø  Let us try to draw something from the great theological richness of this text, to nurture our faith.     

Ø  Abraham does not have Ishmael anymore because he has sent away the mother with the child. The warranty of having descendants rests now on Isaac. 

Ø  Abraham understands or believes that God calls him and he responds quickly “Here I am.” 

Ø  He thinks that God wants him to sacrifice his son that he gave to him. And he makes himself ready to fulfill God’s order.   

Ø  But this will entail that the promises will not be able to be fulfilled, there will be neither descendants nor land, nor promises. Everything will be over. 

Ø  Abraham will lose what is the support of his faith, and in the darkness of his heart he is ready to execute what he believes is the will of God, and thus he will become the father of all believers from all times, who will trust even without seeing, who will hope against hope.  

Ø  This situation is a constant theme in the life of every believer, in the life of every man or woman who seek the Lord with all their being. Let us think of Mary, the young girl from Nazareth, to whom God asked her to give up her “Isaac”, change her plans for the plans of God. How difficult it is for us and how often we are not able to make this leap in the dark, where there are always the divine hands to receive us. 

Ø  God stops the arm of Abraham. God condemns the sacrifice of children or of any other human being.  

Ø  Abraham, guided by God, does not sacrifice his son and instead he offers a goat

Ø  The people of Israel  influenced maybe by this account  understood that the first born belongs to God, and thus they recue him offering a sacrifice, the paschal lamb on the night of the Passover.  Like  Abraham who offered the sacrifice of a sheep in place of his son.  Remember also the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, the parents offer   two turtle-doves and two pigeons as a ransom for the son.  

Ø  We are called to live our faith, our intimate relationship with God in every situation of our life, in the light and in the darkness when everything seems lost and we are alone facing the abyss. It is the    moment of unconditional love, of faith without seeing without light.   

Ø  Abraham understands that God does not want human sacrifices. The happiness he experiences when God stops his hand seems to be reflected in the words “for having done this, for not having denied your only son to me… because you have obeyed…”   

Ø  I transcribe beneath something I have read and which I find very interesting and clarifying. The author of the  book According to the Scriptures quotes from the book Temor y Temblor of the Danish philosopher  S. Kierkegaard  the following words:

“When the child has to be weaned, the mother dyes her breast with dark color. It would be cruel if the breast continued to be desirable when the child has to be weaned. Thus the child thinks that the breast has changed. But the mother has not changed at all, she continues to be the same, her eyes are filled with tenderness and love, precisely in the moment when she takes away  the child from her to help him or her grow.”  

Ø  There are two important points in Abraham’s story:  the faith of Abraham, the call to a trusting faith in Yahweh, and the name of the mount “The Lord will provide” which continues to be a profession of unconditional faith in the God of the promises.   

Ø  Who or what is our Isaac? Are we willing to give it to the Lord? Even if this entails a radical change in our life? Or, maybe it will require the acceptance of darkness that frightens us, because we think that in darkness we are without the Lord? But,  the truth is that he is always there.    

SALMO RESPONSORIAL 116,10.15.16-17.18-19

I WILL WALK BEFORE THE LORD IN THE LAND OF THE LIVING

I believed even when I said

I am greatly afflicted

Precious in the eyes of the Lord

Is the death of his faithful ones.

I WILL WALK BEFORE THE LORD IN THE LAND OF THE LIVING

O Lord, I am your servant

The son of your handmaid

You have loosed my bonds

To you will I offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving

And I will call upon the name of the Lord.

I WILL WALK BEFORE THE LORD IN THE LAND OF THE LIVING

My vows to the Lord I will pay

In the presence of all his people

In the courts of the house of the Lord

In your midst, O Jerusalem!

I WILL WALK BEFORE THE LORD IN THE LAND OF THE LIVING 

ü  The words of the first stanza might reflect the feelings that filled the heart of Abraham when he thought that God wanted him to sacrifice Isaac. 

ü  In the second stanza, the author declares himself the servant of the Lord who has loosen his bonds. Yes the Lord broke the chains, freed Abraham from anguish, when he revealed to him that he was not asking for the life of his son. 

ü  His reacts with joy and thanksgiving “I will offer to you a sacrifice of praise, I will invoke your name.”  

ü  Thus he will sing, he will be faithful and trustful in the Lord in the midst of the faith community. 

GOSPEL OF MARK  9:2-10 

Ø  Six days after the first announcement of his passion, Jesus is transfigured in the presence of his disciples, as an announcement of his glorious resurrection. 

Ø  The two magnificent pictures that today’s liturgy offers to us happened on a mountain. In the first narration from the Old Testament it is Mount Moriah which the tradition identifies symbolically with mount Zion where the temple of Jerusalem was built.   

Ø  Moses represents the LAW and Eliah the PROPHETS (The Hebrew  Scriptures are organized into two sections the Law and the Prophets). 

Ø  Jesus takes with him to the mountain Peter, James and John, they will also be with him during his agony in the garden, during his defeat and vulnerability like every other human being. These men will be able to testify to Jesus man and God.  

Ø  Peter, as usual speaks in the name of the other disciples. How good it is to be here Lord! To be in the glory without passing through the darkness of faith, the cross, the desolation. Peter does not want that Jesus go back to where they came from, it is better to stay here, we will build the necessary tents.  

Ø  Again the voice from heaven is Heard “This is my  beloved son, listen to him

Ø  In two different occasions the Father tells us that Jesus is his beloved son. Moments when we are reminded of the glory of this son, who in the daily life is not noticed and he is considered as a simple and poor man. These occasions are: his baptism and his transfiguration.   

Ø  The cloud reminds to us the cloud that covered the meeting tent in the desert. The cloud which is the symbol of the presence of God. From the cloud the voice is heard, the disciples are frightened.  

Ø  But when they lift up their eyes, they see only Jesus.      

Ø  He tells them, do not say what has happened to anyone. Why? Because they will not understand until the resurrection, then you will say it, now is not the time. 

Ø  Like the disciples, we also wish to be in the glory, in the joy without passing through the darkness of faith, through the difficult way in the following of the Lord who goes to the cross.  

SECOND READING FROM THE LETTER OF PAUL TO THE ROMANS 8,31-34

     With this hymn to the love of God, Paul ends the central section of his letter.   

     The dark faith of Abraham, in his journey to Mount Moriah, the place of his son’s sacrifice, the sacrifice of all his hopes, is the trusting faith of this hymn.  

o   Who will be against us? Who will accuse us? Who will condemn us? 

o   If God is with us nothing and nobody can harm us.  

     This is the security of the believer, even if everything around him or her shout something different. Nothing and nobody will separate us form the unconditional love of God in Christ Jesus.   

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• GUILLÉN TORRALBA, Juan, “Génesis” en Comentario al Antiguo Testamento I. La Casa de la Biblia, Estella Navarra, 1997.
• LA BIBLIA DE NUESTRO PUEBLO, comentarios de Luis Alonso Schökel. Misioneros Claretianos, 2010.
• LOZANO, Juan Manuel, Escritos María Antonia París, Estudio crítico, “El Misionero Apostólico”.   Barcelona 1985.
• RAVASI, GIANFRANCO. Según las Escrituras.  Doble Comentario de las lecturas del domingo. Año B.  San Pablo, Bogotá,Colombia 2005.

§  VIÑAS, José María cmf y BERMEJO, Jesús, cmf.  “Autobiografía ” de San Antonio María Claret.   

 

 I never sought any consolation, either interior or exterior, from any creature; I always kept a profound silence of the graces that Our Lord put in my soul. And I kept this silence even with my confessors, because I did not have as a matter of consultation the Holy Law of the Lord; thus on speaking of the acts I practiced, to fulfill with perfection the Divine Commandments, it always seemed to me vanity or idle words, because I had the duty to fulfilled them;^[1]  and on the contrary it would have given me great remorse of conscience to hide the smallest thing that I had omitted due to my neglect or laziness, which, by the mercy of God, I was always very careful to confess with clarity. (Venerable Ma. Antonia Paris, Memories and Notes. First Series of Memories 9 in Writings.)

The reason is that, as I have said, I am so soft-hearted and compassionate that I can't bear seeing misfortune or misery without doing something to help. I would take the bread out of my own mouth to give it to the poor. In fact, I would abstain from putting it into my mouth in order to have something to give to those who are asking for it. I am even scrupulous about spending anything at all on myself when I think of the needs I can remedy. Well, then, if these momentary physical misfortunes affect me so much, it is understandable what I feel in my heart at the thought of the everlasting pains of hell--not for me, but for all those who willingly live in mortal sin. (St. Anthony Ma. Claret. Autobiography 10.)

 

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[1] From “because” it is crossed out in the original.