June 22: The One, True Covenant with God

Jean Blondel: The Covenant with Abraham
Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague, 1372

Wednesday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

Reading I: Gn 15:1-12, 17-18

When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your descendants I give this land (NRSV, Gen 15:17-18a).”

Father, in all of our lives there are moments that seem privileged when we are sure that we see clearly. On the contrary, Father, you are always there, in every moment, through your Word present to us, calling us to greater clarity and understanding. The Israelites were so sure from Mt. Sinai on that you had promised them the land. They told stories of that promise going back to Abraham. But it was not the land at all. Father, your promise and the destiny to which you call us, even though it begins here is not of this world. It is a share in your own divine life that you offers us and give to us in part even here below. Father, keep us safe on our journey through the desert of this world to you our only future. At every moment may we grow constantly in our understanding of you and the life to which you call us. May we choose only you and live out that choice in the constant service of one another.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.