June 28, 2023
(St. Irenaeus, Bishop, Doctor of the Church, Martyr)
The word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram! I am your shield; I will make your reward very great.” Gn_15:1-12,17-18
Jesus said to his disciples: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves. By their fruits you will know them. Mt_7:15-20
Jesus speaks to His disciples and us today, about discernment, a fact of life in our world that we almost cannot avoid. With ten to a hundred different versions of almost every purchase we make, we’re constantly discerning which is the best, in quality, cost, availability and service.
And it’s really no different with people: where we often have to ponder, just who is out to get us and who is truly on our side. And with, even the least amount of experience, we come to learn that there are lots of smooth-talking, “wolves in sheep’s clothing” out there, as Jesus would call them, people who can sometimes make discernment pretty challenging, especially when we know that there are lots of ‘angels in disguise’ all around us.
You see, even our great Patriarch, Abraham, was not without a need for discernment in his early relationship with God. Paraphrasing, he asked God, “Look, You’ve made all these wonderful promises of descendants, and nations, and land, and blessings, but how will I ever know that they’ll actually happen, because, here I am, nearly 100-years old, and I don’t even have ONE child of my own.”
So, God gave Abraham a visible sign, a Sacrament, if you will, a Covenant promise, using the symbolism that was common in those days to Marriage Covenants between the fathers, of a bride and her groom. It was called the “blood path.” And it vowed fidelity to their promise, under the penalty of death, just like the split animals, IF that promise was ever broken.
Bare-footed, the promising parents-to-be would tramp through the blood poured between those broken halves of animals, knowing that it would be their blood – should the marriage covenant ever be broken. It was the blood of life, the blood of sacrifice, the blood of covenant, the blood of salvation!
You see, because God was fully aware of Abram’s Faith, in spite of his need for signs, in spite of his need for understanding, and even despite all his future failures to trust 100% in God, 100% of the time, God walked the blood path for Abraham in the symbolic, sacrificial purification of a blazing oven and in the enlightening, guiding lamp of a flaming torch, just as He did for us – in the sacrificial Passion of our Lord, and by endowing us with the guiding Light of the Holy Spirit within us.
Yes, there will be terrifying periods of darkness in every one of our lives, just as there was for Abram. And yes, there will be vultures and wolves who will try to steal away our Faith, our Love and our Joy in the Lord. But, just as God our Father, Jesus our brother and the Holy Spirit our advocate assures us: we are to “Fear not. For I am your shield, and I will make your reward very great.”
We truly DO know our God, by His fruits, by His love in every one of our hearts!
And, as St. Irenaeus tells us: “The glory of God is man fully alive”
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Whispers to the Wind 