Throughout the Lenten season, we will post reflections for holy days and Sundays from this year’s Lenten reflection booklet, A Fast That Matters, written by Frida Berrigan, and excerpts from past booklets, like the one posted below, written by Dorothy Stoner, OSB, in 2000. Click here to see all reflections as they are posted as well as links to other Lenten resources on our Lent 2024 webpage.
If you are looking for a daily reflection booklet specially curated for Lent, you can still purchase and download this year’s e-booklet, A Fast That Matters: Reflections for Lent 2024. Click here to order and download now.
REFLECTION FOR Sunday, February 25, 2024
by Dorothy Stoner, OSB
from the 2000 Lenten reflection guide, “The Sabbath-year journey through Lent: A covenant of listening”
Genesis 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18 | Romans 8:31b-34 | Mark 9:2-10
I don’t think I will ever read the story of “Abraham’s sacrifice,” today’s first reading, without great discomfort, even anger. Why, even now as I write this reflection, am I experiencing such emotion?
Perhaps as a woman I feel a special kinship with Sarah, and I wonder where she is in this story. Does she know where her husband and son are going, and why? Or have they left without a word, presuming — and rightly so, I hope — that she wouldn’t understand. Perhaps Abraham did tell her of this “call.” How did she respond? Did she quietly and easily respond “in faith” as did her husband, the one held up to us as a model of faith? Or did she cry and beg Abraham not to take their son – her son – the promised one, the love of her life. Did she try to reason with her husband: “How could this God of Promise, of Hope, demand the death of a child?” Once again do we have the voice of a woman who speaks of new understandings – of the need for new responses – do we once again have this voice being dismissed, or maybe even worse, ignored?
This story may very well remind me of the voices and experiences of women that continue to be dismissed or ignored. A reminder of a reality that I too often try to repress so I can be about life and work. How could I go about my work and my life if I constantly noticed what was happening all around me? I would be in a constant rage. And yet, how much longer will I, will we, continue to ignore the voices of women — and men — who call for inclusion rather than exclusion, dialogue rather than monologue or silence, engagement rather than isolation, cooperation rather than competition, peace rather than war, boundaries rather than barriers, a community of equals rather than patriarchal institutions? Is this story so evocative for me because it once again reminds me of very real, contemporary situations all around me and the fact that too often I remain silent? Do you remain silent, too?
Perhaps this story is so striking because it makes me wonder who this God is in whom I place such trust. Is this truly a god who demands the death of an old couple’s long-awaited son, just to prove a man’s loyalty? Is this a God who handed over his own Son, as we read in Romans 8? A God who, as so many of us were taught, chose to send his Son to be brutalized and crucified to somehow make up for what we, humans, have done? I may have accepted these ideas as a child, but I no longer can. This sounds too much like a God who will seed tragedies into my life as a punishment for what I’ve done, or to strengthen me or to test my faith. I can’t believe in a God like this; I can’t trust this one. And you know what else, this image of God contradicts the tender, merciful, ever faithful God that is so present in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures; the “abba” of Jesus.
We put aside, only with some difficulty, that which we were taught as children by those we were dependent on and trusted. This story from Genesis may in some way call forth those feelings of insecurity that come when I no longer accept what I had been taught and what continues to be taught and preached by some around me. I am an adult now, with beliefs and understandings that slowly developed through years of study, prayer and life experiences, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still carry around within me those “naggings” from the past that try to pull me back. Is this story one of those things that does that? What stories, persons, experiences attempt to pull you back to a past that no longer has meaning for you?
Perhaps this story evokes such strong feelings within me because year after year I hear this story read without challenge. I hear homilists — even those generally considered to be more enlightened — preach about Abraham as a model of faith because of his willingness to sacrifice (kill) his son. I read commentaries that focus on the faith of Abraham without a counterpoint, or that quickly skip over a note that this may well have originally been a liturgical piece used at Hebrew shrines to condemn the sacrifice of children.
Today we celebrate the transfiguration of Jesus. Could it be that the story of Abraham, Isaac and Sarah is here to evoke feelings and images and experiences that need to be openly and honestly addressed if we are to share in that transfiguration of Jesus? This is the Millennial Year. Is this the year to do it?
>> Join the Pax Christi USA community on Monday, February 26, for the second of our weekly series of Lenten prayer services over Zoom. Click here for more information and to register.
>> Click here to see more resources for prayer, study and action this Lenten season.
Dorothy Stoner, OSB, is a member of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, PA and served as a faculty member in the Philosophy/Religious Studies department at Mercyhurst College. A pastoral minister, she is a frequent retreat leader, speaker and facilitator.