Reading 1 Rom 4:20-25
Brothers and sisters:
Abraham did not doubt God's promise in unbelief;
rather, he was empowered by faith and gave glory to God
and was fully convinced that what God had promised
he was also able to do.
That is why it was credited to him as righteousness.
But it was not for him alone that it was written
that it was credited to him;
it was also for us, to whom it will be credited,
who believe in the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead,
who was handed over for our transgressions
and was raised for our justification.
Responsorial Psalm Luke 1:69-70, 71-72, 73-75
R. (see 68) Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; he has come to his people.
He has come to his people and set them free.
He has raised up for us a mighty savior,
born of the house of his servant David.
R. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; he has come to his people.
Through his holy prophets he promised of old
that he would save us from our enemies,
from the hands of all who hate us.
He promised to show mercy to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant.
R. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; he has come to his people.
This was the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
to set us free from the hands of our enemies,
free to worship him without fear,
holy and righteous in his sight all the days of our life.
R. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; he has come to his people.
Gospel Lk 12:13-21
Someone in the crowd said to Jesus,
"Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me."
He replied to him,
"Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?"
Then he said to the crowd,
"Take care to guard against all greed,
for though one may be rich,
one's life does not consist of possessions."
Then he told them a parable.
"There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest.
He asked himself, "What shall I do,
for I do not have space to store my harvest?"
And he said, "This is what I shall do:
I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones.
There I shall store all my grain and other goods
and I shall say to myself, "Now as for you,
you have so many good things stored up for many years,
rest, eat, drink, be merry!""
But God said to him,
"You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you;
and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?"
Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasure for himself
but is not rich in what matters to God."
Meditation: Romans 4:20-25
“He was empowered by faith.” (Romans 4:20)
When you think of the great men and women in the Bible, surely Abraham shines above them all. Our forefather in faith, he pioneered a path that millions upon millions have followed ever since. With simple, unwavering faith, he pulled up stakes and moved from his comfortable life in Ur to the Land of Canaan, a place he had never seen before. And he did it simply because a God he had never heard of before spoke to him and made some outlandish promises. Abraham didn’t have any precedent to follow. He didn’t have the stories of previous holy men and women. He didn’t have a Bible or Sacred Tradition. All he had was God and his faith. And that was enough for him.
Quoting Genesis, St. Paul tells us that this faith of Abraham’s “was credited to him as righteousness” (Romans 4:22). That’s all Abraham needed to be considered righteous before God—faith. There was no Temple ritual. There were no dietary restrictions. There was no canon law or church discipline. There was only faith. There was only trust and surrender.
Today, let the story of Abraham sink into your heart. Let his witness show you how much you can accomplish with just a simple act of faith. In the end, that’s all you need. Yes, we have sacraments and liturgies. Yes, we have laws and traditions. But every single thing that we do in church, every single aspect of our lives as Catholics, is founded on this one word: faith.
It is as we choose to believe the unbelievable that we find the power we need to live in obedience to the Lord. It is as we trust in an unseen God that we find the comfort and hope that are woven into our liturgy. It is as we embrace the absurd message of a crucified and resurrected Messiah that we find freedom from sin and power over temptation.
We don’t know what awaits us today or tomorrow or next year. We don’t know when the next tragedy will strike or when the next windfall will come our way. We have so little control over the world. But we have a secret weapon: faith. And with faith, we can move mountains, just as Abraham, our father in faith, did.
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