Thursday of the
Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
(Genesis 22:1b-19; Matthew 9:1-8)
Mass murderers are regularly reported as hearing
voices. They are directed by what they often
explain as a divine command to commit an atrocity. Abraham seems to hear such a dark order in
today’s first reading.
The passage, sometimes called by its Hebrew name Akeda meaning binding, challenges interpreters.
They rightly ask, “How could a just God suggest to anyone that he kill
his son as a sacrifice?” Can God really
be so capricious or, more pointedly, so cruel.
No, such a conception contradicts what God has revealed about Himself. But humans are subject to such vagaries of
will. The story may be better understood
in a way that contrasts to what is written.
Rather than God directing Abraham to slaughter Isaac, Abraham may be superimposing
on God an aberrant voice within him telling him to commit the outrage. Drama is taking place within Abraham – will he
accept as God’s will the voice that tells him to kill Isaac or the natural
order that forbids all human sacrifice? What
may well be God’s true voice then speaks up.
Abraham clearly hears that he is not to kill his son, but to offer a
sacrifice on his behalf.
People often enough claim to hear the voice of God within
them. They are not to be dismissed as
demented or foolish. But they should
test that voice by comparing it with God’s will as seen in the natural law and
in revelation. If there is an aberration
between the two, they must concede to what is known in the latter category.
