Redeeming the Time

In a recent blog entry at Glory to God for All Things, Father Stephen Freeman writes powerfully that “first off, everyday, before I have done anything else, I must believe in God. It is not something to be taken for granted, but something to be exercised.” We have recently been reading in Genesis about the Patriarch Abraham, whose greatest virtue was faith and trust in God. As St. Paul says in the Epistle to the Hebrews, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Father Stephen explains a simple fact that is also quite apparent from the life of Abraham: this faith is not simply a verbal statement or an intellectual assent; rather, it is a faith that is so deeply a part of our being that it informs our every thought and action. As St. James points out in his epistle, Abraham’s faith was manifested not in his words, but in his actions. At God’s command, he left his homeland for a land of strangers. At God’s command, he was prepared to sacrifice his own son, in whom he had been promised as many descendants as the stars in the sky. This faith, Fr. Stephen points out, is both a gift of God which we cannot attain for ourselves and an ascetic effort which we must carefully retain and cultivate.

LISTEN NOW

This is a homily, first to myself, spoken concerning the following scripture, which is appointed for the 35th Thursday after Pentecost:

Hebrews 10:35-11:7 Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh. By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.

May God help us to live in a way worthy of this Holy Scripture! May we always remember and live as “them that believe to the saving of the soul!”.

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