When I look at your beautiful creation O God our loving Father I cannot but stop and wonder be at awe with all the beauty and mystery so extraordinary yet ordinary in your majesty.
Today we have two stories so extraordinary but with you simply ordinary: when you asked Abraham to offer to you Isaac, off he went faithfully even blindly: As the two walked on together, Isaac spoke to his father Abraham, "Father!" he said. "Yes, son," he replied. Isaac continued, "Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?" "Son," Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the sheep for the burnt offering?" Then the two continued going forward. (Genesis 22:7-8)
The faith of Abraham in you, O God, is so great, so extraordinary; and so was the faith of Isaac to his father that it never occurred to him he would be the one to be sacrificed either. Both Abraham and Isaac showed extraordinary faith you ordinarily ask from us.
Give us the grace, O God, to imbibe this ordinariness of having extraordinary faith in you, like the harmony and beauty found ordinarily in nature; may we realize that any sickness is a "dis-ease", our lack of harmony with you and with others due to sin.
Let us not "harbor evil thoughts" like those scribes present at Christ's healing of a paralytic to whom he declared "your sins are forgiven" (Mt.9:2) to show that wherever there is dis-ease, there is a lack of harmony wanting your mercy and unity. Amen.
