Thursday, July 1, 2021

Dear Reader, if you receive these homilettes by email, you may find the service stopped in July.  As I understand an instruction from Google, its Burnfeeder program will no longer support the service.  You can always find the homilettes on the blog site: https://cbmdominicanpreacher.blogspot.com/ . Perhaps if you send me your email address, I could send the homilettes in a mass email.  You may send your email address to cmeleop@yahoo.com. When I ascertain that the service is no longer functioning, I will start sending them to you .

 

Thursday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time

(Genesis 22:1b-19; Matthew 9:1-8)

A few years ago Pope Francis expressed the need to change one of the petitions in the Lord’s Prayer.  He said that God would never “lead (anyone) into temptation.”  He felt that a better wording for the petition would be, “…do not let us fall into temptation.”  The pope’s idea was criticized.  Biblical scholars insisted that the Greek words really do say “lead us not into temptation.”  Traditionalists opposed the change just because it was a change.  In light of this controversy, it can be asked of today’s first reading:  Is not Abraham being led into temptation when he is told to sacrifice his son?

Abraham, however, may not believe that God is really going to allow him to go through with the human sacrifice.  When Isaac asks, “’…where is the sheep for the burnt offering?’” Abraham tells him that God will provide.  After all, Abraham knows that God has always shown Himself as just and beneficent.  In the end Abraham is proved correct.  God has only tested him to see if he is obedient.

God may test us as well.  He may call a child to Himself which would cause the child’s parents extreme distress.  The parents may want to curse God and turn bitter toward their neighbors. We pray that this never happens to us.  We pray every day, “Do not lead us into temptation.” 

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