Lent Reflections.. Twelveth Day..."TEST OF FAITH" Sunday, March 1, 2015

“Test of faith”!

Yousef was a poor Egyptian Coptic Christian worker who went to Libya to find work to support his family. 

He knew it was dangerous to go there but he said that his faith gave him courage. 

He said, "I have one God, he's the same here and there." Emad mourns the loss of his brother Maged: "We are proud that he went to the father in the sky."

As we reflect on the tragic loss of the 21 Coptic Christians we realize that they faced an agonizing test of their faith and triumphed over it. 

They faced indeed a period of terrible darkness and found courage to embrace the death uttering the name of Jesus. 

Abraham finds himself in a terrible test of his faith when he had to let go of the most precious possession of his life: his son Isaac. He remains faithful and obedient to God. 

Ignatian spirituality speaks of dispossession or detachment from all that remains a stumbling block to receiving more blessing and drawing oneself attached to God. 

It is intriguing to note that Abraham tells the servants, “stay here… while the boy and I go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.” 

Do we something deeper here? 

Abraham is supposed to be sacrificing his son. Then again, he tells us son that “ God himself will provide.” 

As the story unfolds there was no sacrifice of his son and we see that Abraham is blessed for generations to come for his fidelity and trust in the promises of God. 

The story ends up being what God does for Abraham rather than what Abraham has done for God.

In the transfiguration of Jesus to the disciples in the mount Tabor we encounter the moment of agony, suffering, darkness and pain that gives way to a tremendous, mysterious and abundant giving of God to his own Son Jesus with the glory. 

Just as the Coptic brother said of Maged ‘we are proud that he went to the father in the sky’, we are indeed blessed with the gift of salvation after the agonizing suffering and death of Jesus on the cross. 

The glory of Jesus comes after his death, darkness, dispossession, detachment, giving of his very life for others. 

Our journey with God in faith has always a happy ending especially when we are ready to ‘dispossess’ or detach ourselves and surrender in total obedience to God. 

How do we face the tests of faith in our life and what is it that God asks of us to detach ourselves from? 

Lent is letting go of ‘meism’ and let God into our lives.