5 March 2027 · Syro-Malabar Rite
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“And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Genesis 15:6
Abram has left everything and has just risked his life to rescue Lot, but he is still childless, and he is tired. God comes to him in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” Abram answers honestly, almost bitterly: “O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless?” God does not scold him. “He brought him outside and said, ‘Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’” Nothing has changed outside; the tent is still empty of children. But something changes inside: “And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Then comes a strange and solemn rite. Abram cuts animals in two and lays the halves opposite each other. In the ancient world, the parties to a covenant walked between such pieces, as if to say: may I be torn like these if I break my word. But when darkness falls, only one passes through: “a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.” God alone walks the path; God alone binds himself. On a Friday the Church remembers how far that binding went: on the Cross God kept his covenant at the cost of his own Son's body, and Jesus could say of the cup, “the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20).
The second reading is a story of clever deception. The people of Gibeon, a city close by, fear the fate of Jericho and Ai, so they dress in worn-out clothes and patched sandals, pack dry and mouldy bread, and arrive at Joshua's camp saying, “We have come from a far country; so now make a treaty with us.” The mouldy bread is convincing, and Israel signs. The sacred writer puts his finger on the real mistake: “So the leaders partook of their provisions, and did not ask direction from the LORD.” They used their eyes, their reason and their experience, and they forgot to pray. Many of our worst decisions, about marriage proposals, land deals, jobs abroad or business partners, are made the same way: we examine the bread and forget to ask the Lord. The First Friday is a good day to bring the decisions in front of us to the Heart of Jesus before we sign.
Paul ends his long meditation on Israel with a mystery: “a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved.” He insists that “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable”, and that “God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.” Then he can only break into praise: “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” In the Gospel the people of Jerusalem argue about Jesus: “we know where this man is from.” Jesus cries out in the temple: “I have not come on my own. But the one who sent me is true, and you do not know him. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.” They try to arrest him, “but no one laid hands on him, because his hour had not yet come.” That hour would come on a Friday. On the Cross a soldier “pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out” (John 19:34). The First Friday devotion to the Sacred Heart, so loved in Kerala homes with the picture of the Heart above the family altar, is simply this: to look at the pierced side of the one God sent, and to see there how far the covenant goes.
Theme: “And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.”
First Friday: the stars and the covenant between the pieces, the mouldy bread of Gibeon, the depth of God's riches, and the pierced Heart of the one the Father sent.
“And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Genesis 15:6
“No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.” Romans 4:20–21
Apply: Name one promise of God you find hard to believe, and pray with it each night this week.
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” Proverbs 3:5–6
“If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you.” James 1:5
Apply: Bring one decision before the Blessed Sacrament before you act on it.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8–9
“O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” Romans 11:33
Apply: End each day this week with a few minutes of simple praise, asking nothing.
“And I will pour out a spirit of compassion and supplication on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that, when they look on the one whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.” Zechariah 12:10
“Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out.” John 19:34
Apply: Renew the consecration of your family to the Sacred Heart today.
God binds himself to us with a covenant he keeps alone, all the way to the pierced Heart on the Cross.
Believe like Abram, ask before you decide, praise the depth of his riches, and rest in the Heart that was opened for you.
Take-home resolution: Keep this First Friday with confession, Holy Qurbana and the consecration of your family to the Sacred Heart.
Dear friends, Abram is tired and childless. God takes him outside and says: look toward heaven and count the stars; so shall your descendants be. And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:5–6). Faith believes before it sees.
Then God makes a covenant. A smoking fire pot and a flaming torch pass between the pieces of the animals. Only God passes; only God binds himself. On the Cross, God kept this covenant at the cost of his Son, and the soldier's spear opened the Heart from which blood and water flowed.
The Gibeonites deceive Israel with mouldy bread, and the leaders did not ask direction from the Lord (Joshua 9:14). Before we make our big decisions, let us bring them to the Heart of Jesus.
Paul says that the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable, and he cries out: O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! (Romans 11:29, 33). On this First Friday, let us go to confession, receive the Lord, and renew our trust in his Sacred Heart. Amen.
Children, God told Abram to count the stars, because his family would be just as big! Abram could not count them all, and God's love for you is even bigger. Tonight, look at the stars, or at the picture of the Sacred Heart, and say: Jesus, I trust in you.
Lord Jesus Christ, sent by the Father, on the Cross your side was pierced and your Heart was opened for us. You are the fire that passed alone between the pieces, binding yourself to us for ever. Give us Abram's faith to believe when nothing has changed, the humility to ask your direction before we decide, and a heart that praises the depth of your riches. Sacred Heart of Jesus, we place all our trust in you. Amen.
At the centre of today’s readings stands one question: can God be trusted? Abram, still childless, is taken outside to look at the stars, and he believes. In John, the crowds argue about where Jesus comes from, and he tells them that he comes from the one who sent him. Beside these, the Gibeonites deceive Joshua in the second reading because the leaders “did not ask direction from the Lord”, and Paul ends his long reflection on Israel with praise, for “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable”. It is also a First Friday, when many families turn to the Heart of Jesus, in whom God’s faithfulness has a human face.
Setting.
Years have passed since the first promise, and Abram has no child. By the custom of the time, a childless man’s heir might be a servant of his household, and Abram names Eliezer of Damascus (15:2). This is the first time in the story that Abram answers God, and his first words are a complaint. Many scholars think that the chapter joins two scenes: the promise of an heir (vv. 1–6) and the promise of the land (vv. 7–21).
The reading ends at v. 15, just before the climax, when a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch pass between the divided animals (15:17). Jeremiah 34:18 shows the meaning of such a rite: those who pass between the pieces accept the fate of the animals if they break their word.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield;” (15:1)
The chapter opens with the words God so often speaks to those he calls. Abram has just come back from a war, and God himself will be his shield.
“Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” (15:5)
God brings an old man out of his tent and gives him the night sky. Nothing has changed in Abram’s house, and nothing will for many years. The promise is all he has.
“And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.” (15:6)
One of the great verses of the Bible. St Paul builds on it in Romans 4:3 and Galatians 3:6. St James quotes it too, and adds that Abraham’s “faith was active along with his works” (James 2:22–23). Abraham’s faith is God’s gift, and by grace it bears fruit in obedience.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that Abraham thus fulfils the definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1 (CCC 146), and calls him the father of all who believe. Justification comes from God’s grace, and it is given to those who believe, and calls us to cooperate by faith and works of charity (CCC 1987–2005). Nostra Aetate 4 and CCC 839 remember that Israel is still loved by God for the sake of the patriarchs, as today’s epistle says.
Setting.
Jesus has gone up in the middle of the festival and is teaching openly in the Temple (7:14). People from the city are surprised that the authorities do nothing. Their question shows a real belief of some Jews of the time, found in writings outside the Bible: that the Messiah would stay hidden until the moment of his appearing. Others held a different view, as later in the chapter some say that he must come from Bethlehem (7:42; Micah 5:2).
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Yet we know where this man is from; but when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from.” (7:27)
John loves this kind of irony. They know Nazareth, and they think that settles the matter. They do not know where he is really from. The reader, who has read John 1:1–18, does know.
“I have not come on my own. But the one who sent me is true, and you do not know him.” (7:28)
This is what the discussion has been missing. The question is not his home town but the one who sent him.
“but no one laid hands on him, because his hour had not yet come.” (7:30)
His life is not in the hands of his enemies. He will give it when the time comes (see John 10:18). Only God sets that hour.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism teaches that the Son came down from heaven to do the will of the Father who sent him (CCC 606), and that the hour of Jesus is the hour when he passes to the Father and gives the Spirit (CCC 729–730). The Creed answers the question of the crowd: he is “God from God, begotten, not made”, and also a man of Nazareth, of the Virgin Mary.