From the Pastor - 2nd Sunday in Lent
Today's readings are a powerful testimony to God’s profound love for each one of us. It is a reminder for us, as Christian stewards, to surrender all that we have to the Gracious Giver.
The First Reading from Genesis is the infamous story of God putting Abraham to the test. God commands Abraham to offer his son, Isaac, to the Lord as a sacrifice. Abraham obeys the Lord. Yet, a messenger of the Lord cries out at the last moment to stop him. Because of Abraham’s faithfulness and surrender to the Lord, he is blessed abundantly.
We can only imagine how Abraham felt, offering the life of his son, not understanding why, but blindly obeying. Yet, Abraham’s response of total surrender to God’s plan is a testament to trust in God’s deep love for us. As Christian stewards, we are called to surrender all to the Lord — our time, our talents, and even our material possessions. We should willingly give God our entire lives with the confidence that He will take care of us.
St. Paul echoes this message so beautifully in our Second Reading. He says, “He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him?” God loves us so much that He gave us His only Son who suffered, died, and rose for us. He has given us His very best. Can we not entrust our entire lives to Him knowing He will continue to pour out His love on us?
As we continue our journey through Lent, let us reflect on God’s profound love for us. © Catholic Stewardship Consultants, 2024
Pastoral Pondering
On February 8th the Church observed the Memorial St. Josephine Bahkita, a native of the Sudan who was sold into slavery and eventually ended up in Italy where she, after obtaining her freedom, converted to Catholicism and became a Canossian sister. Her feast day is also the International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking.
Over the last couple of years, we are hearing more and more news about the horrible situation at our southern border. According to the USCCB website, “each year, an estimated 17,000 vulnerable men, women and children are trafficked across our borders and then forced into slavery” (https://www.usccb.org/topics/anti-trafficking-program). This enslavement occurs in various forms, from forced labor to sexual exploitation and everything in between. Human trafficking is an attack on the inherent dignity of the person who is created in the image and likeness of God.
Human trafficking is certainly not limited to our national borders. It is an international problem. Human trafficking is calculated as a 150-billion-dollar industry. Because it is so lucrative and fairly easy to perpetrate due to lax border enforcement, it is not an easy problem to address. What is clear, of course, is that ordinary parishioners can make an impact by pushing elected officials to address and actually solve the problem, educate yourself about the signs of human trafficking and how you can respond (https://www.usccb.org/committees/administrative/become-shepherd), and helping to raise awareness in the community.
I’ll close with this quote of Pope Francis from Evangeli Gaudium: “How I wish that all of us would hear God’s cry: ‘Where is your brother?’ (Gen. 4:9). Where is your brother or sister who is enslaved? Where is the brother and sister whom you are killing each day in clandestine warehouses, in rings of prostitution, in children used for begging, in exploiting undocumented labor? Let us not look the other way."