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From: Genesis 22:1b-19

The Sacrifice of Isaac and the Renewal of the Promise

[1b] God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.”
[2] He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the
land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains
of which I shall tell you.” [3] So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his
ass, and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac; and he cut the
wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had
told him. [4] On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar
off. [5] Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the ass; and the
lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.” [6] And Abraham took
the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took in his
hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. [7] And Isaac
said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here am I, my son.” He
said, “Behold, the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”
[8] Abraham said, “God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.”
So they went both of them together.

[9] When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built an
altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on
the altar, upon the wood. [10] Then Abraham put forth his hand, and took the
knife to slay his son. [11] But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven,
and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.” [12] He said, “Do not
lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God,
seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” [13] And Abra-
ham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught
in a thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up
as a burnt offering instead of his son. [14] So Abraham called the name of that
place The Lord will provide; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord
it shall be provided.”

[15] And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven,
[16] and said, “By myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done
this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, [17] I will indeed bless you,
and I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand
which is on the seashore. And your descendants shall possess the gate of their
enemies, [18] and by your descendants shall all the nations of the earth bless
themselves, because you have obeyed my voice.” [19] So Abraham returned to
his young men, and they arose and went together to Beer-sheba; and Abraham
dwelt at Beer-sheba.

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Commentary:

22:1-19. God has been true to his promise: he has given Abraham a son by Sa-
rah. Now it is Abraham who should show his fidelity to God by being ready to sa-
crifice his son in recognition that the boy belongs to God. The divine command
seems to be senseless: Abraham has already lost Ishmael, when he and Hagar
were sent away; now he is being asked to sacrifice his remaining son. Disposing
of his son meant detaching himself even from the fulfillment of the promise which
Isaac represented. In spite of all this, Abraham obeys.

‘”As a final stage in the purification of his faith, Abraham ‘who had received the
promises’ (Heb 11:17) is asked to sacrifice the son God had given him. Abra-
ham’s faith does not weaken (’God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offe-
ring’), for he ‘considered that God was able to raise men even from the dead’
(Heb 11:19). And so the father of believers is conformed to the likeness of the
Father who will not spare his own son but will deliver him up for us all (cf. Rom
8:32). Prayer restores man to God’s likeness and enables him to share in the
power of God’s love that saves the multitude (cf. Rom 4:16-21)” (”Catechism of
the Catholic Church”, 2572).

By undergoing the test which God set, Abraham attains perfection (cf. Jas 2:21)
and he is now in a position for God to reaffirm in a solemn way the promise he
made previously (cf. Gen 12:3).

The sacrifice of Isaac has features which make it a figure of the redemptive sacri-
fice of Christ. Thus, there is father giving up his son; the son who renders himself
to his father’s will; the tools of sacrifice such as the wood, the knife and the altar.
The account reaches its climax by showing through Abraham’s obedience and
Isaac’s non-resistance, God’s blessing will reach all the nations of the earth (cf.
v. 18). So, it is not surprising that Jewish tradition should attribute a certain re-
demptive value to Isaac’s submissiveness, and that the Fathers should see this
episode prefiguring the passion of Christ, only Son of the Father.

22:2. “The land of Moriah”: according to the Syrian version of Genesis this is
“land of the Ammorites”. We do not in fact know where this place was, although
in 2 Chronicles 3:1 it is identified the mountain on which the temple Jerusalem
was built, to stress the holiness of that site.

22:12. God is satisfied just by Abraham’s sincere intention to do what he asked
of him. It is as good as if he had actually done the deed. “The patriarch turned
sacrificer of his son for the love of God; he stained his right hand with blood in
intention and offered sacrifice. But owing to God’s loving kindness beyond telling
he received his son back safe and sound and went off with him; the patriarch was
commended for his intention and bedecked with a bright crown; he had engaged
in the ultimate struggle and at every stage given evidence of his godly attitude”
(”Homiliae in Genesim”, 48, 1).

Making an implicit comparison between Isaac and Jesus, St Paul sees in the
death of Christ the culmination of God’s love; he writes: “He who did not spare
his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with
him?” (Rom 8:32).

If staying Abraham’s hand was really a sign of God’s love, an even greater one
was really a sign of God’s love, an even greater one was the fact that he allowed
Jesus to die as an expiatory sacrifice on behalf of all mankind. In that later sacri-
fice, because “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8), “the abyss of malice which sin opens wide
has been bridged by his infinite charity. God did not abandon men. His plans fore-
saw that the sacrifices of the old law would be insufficient to repair our faults and
reestablish the unity which had been lost. A man who was God would have to of-
fer himself up” (St. J. Escriva, “Christ is Passing By”, 95).

22: 13-14. Some Fathers see this ram as a prefigurement of Jesus Christ, insofar
as, like Christ, the ram was immolated in order to save man. In this sense, St
Ambrose wrote: “Whom does the ram represent, if not him of whom it is written,
‘He has raised up a horn for his people’ (Ps 148:14)? [...] Christ: It is He whom
Abraham saw in that sacrifice; it was his passion he saw. Thus, our Lord himself
says of Abraham: ‘Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he
saw it and was glad’ (Jn 8:56). Therefore Scripture says: ‘Abraham called the
name of that place ‘The Lord will provide,’ so that today one can say: the Lord
appeared on the mount, that is, he appeared to Abraham revealing his future pas-
sion in his body, whereby he redeemed the world; and sharing, at the same time,
the nature of his passion when he caused him to see the ram suspended by his
horns. The thicket stands for the scaffold of the cross” (”De Abraham”, 1, 8, 77-
78).

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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

From: Matthew 9:1-8

The Curing of a Paralytic

[1] And getting into a boat He (Jesus) crossed over and came to His own city.
[2] And behold, they brought to Him a paralytic, lying on his bed; and when
Jesus saw their faith He said to the paralytic, “Take heart, My son; your sins
are forgiven.” [3] And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man
is blaspheming.” [4] But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think
evil in your hearts? [5] For which is easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven’, or to
say, ‘Rise and walk’? [6] But that you may know that the Son of Man has autho-
rity on earth to forgive sins” — He then said to the paralytic — “Rise, take up your
bed and go home.” [7] And He rose and went home. [8] When the crowds saw
it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.

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Commentary:

1. “His own city”: Capernaum (cf. Matthew 4:13 and Mark 2:1).

2-6. The sick man and those who bring him to Jesus ask Him to cure the man’s
physical illness; they believe in His supernatural powers. As in other instances
of miracles, our Lord concerns Himself more with the underlying cause of illness,
that is, sin. With divine largesse He gives more than He is asked for, even though
people do not appreciate this. St. Thomas Aquinas says that Jesus Christ acts
like a good doctor: He cures the cause of the illness (cf. “Commentary on St.
Matthew”, 9, 1-6).

2. The parallel passage of St. Mark adds a detail which helps us understand this
scene better and explains why the text refers to “their faith”: in Mark 2:2-5 we
are told that there was such a crowd around Jesus that the people carrying the
bed could not get near Him. So they had the idea of going up onto the roof and
making a hole and lowering the bed down in front of Jesus. This explains His
“seeing their faith”.

Our Lord was pleased by their boldness, a boldness which resulted from their
lively faith which brooked no obstacles. This nice example of daring indicates
how we should go about putting charity into practice—as also how Jesus feels
towards people who show real concern for others: He cures the paralytic who
was so ingeniously helped by his friends and relatives; even the sick man him-
self showed daring by not being afraid of the risk involved.

St. Thomas comments on this verse as follows: “This paralytic symbolizes the
sinner lying in sin”; just as the paralytic cannot move, so the sinner cannot help
himself. The people who bring the paralytic along represent those who, by gi-
ving him good advice, lead the sinner to God” (”Commentary on St. Matthew”,
9, 2). In order to get close to Jesus the same kind of holy daring is needed, as
the Saints show us. Anyone who does not act like this will never take important
decisions in his life as a Christian.

3-7. Here “to say” obviously means “to say and mean it”, “to say producing the
result which your words imply”. Our Lord is arguing as follows: which is easier
— to cure the paralytic’s body or to forgive the sins of his soul? Undoubtedly, to
cure his body; for the soul is superior to the body and therefore diseases of the
soul are the more difficult to cure. However, a physical cure can be seen, where-
as a cure of the soul cannot. Jesus proves the hidden cure by performing a visi-
ble one.

The Jews thought that any illness was due to personal sin (cf. John 9:1-3); so
when they heard Jesus saying, “Your sins are forgiven”, they reasoned in their
minds as follows: only God can forgive sins (cf. Luke 5:21); this man says that
He has power to forgive sins; therefore, He is claiming a power which belongs
to God alone—which is blasphemy. Our Lord, however, forestalls them, using
their own arguments: by curing the paralytic by saying the word, He shows them
that since He has the power to cure the effects of sin (which is what they believe
disease to be), then He also has power to cure the cause of illness (sin); there-
fore, He has divine power.

Jesus Christ passed on to the Apostles and their successors in the priestly mini-
stry the power to forgive sins: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive sins of any,
they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:22-23).
“Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven, and
whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven” (Matthew 18:18). Priests
exercise this power in the Sacrament of Penance: in doing so they act not in
their own name but in Christ’s—”in persona Christi”, as instruments of the Lord.

Hence the respect, the veneration and gratitude with which we should approach
Confession: in the priest we should see Christ Himself, God Himself, and we
should receive the words of absolution firmly believing that it is Christ who is ut-
tering them through the priest. This is why the minister does not say: “Christ ab-
solves you...”, but rather “I absolve you from your sins...” He speaks in the first
person, so fully is he identified with Jesus Christ Himself (cf. “St. Pius V Cate-
chism”, II, 5, 10).

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.