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Meditation Two Hundred Eighty

The Second Week of July 2008 

Righteousness Apart From The Law

 Begin with prayer to the Holy Spirit 

 

Reading: Romans 4:13-25

     As Saint Paul continues the fourth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, he reminds us that Abraham is the prototype of the man of faith, a model for us all.  He also makes it clear that it is through faith rather than Law that Abraham enters into true relationship with God.  Abraham lived and died long before the giving of the Law to the Children of Israel at Mount Sinai – long before the Jewish people even came into existence.  Abraham is alone.  He has no Torah to rely on, no formal legal or theological structure to enable him to discern the difference between right and wrong, between a sacred act and a sinful one.  He has only his faith in a mysterious God who calls to him in a way that is insistent and irresistible.  It is in this God and His extravagant promises that Abraham puts his faith.  

     “I have made you the ancestor of many nations,” says God to Abraham, who remains childless in his old age.  “Your descendants will be as many as the stars,” God assures him despite the fact that Sarah, Abraham’s wife, is long past childbearing age.  Such assertions are ridiculous – hurtful: They contradict all that we know about the way the world works, and they seem only to point out the futility of the lives of  Abraham and Sarah.  Surely they will die alone and without progeny, mourned by none and quickly forgotten by all.  Yet Abraham stubbornly puts his faith in God’s unbelievable words.  He risks everything on a promise that is impossible until finally he is rewarded with the birth of Isaac.  And through Isaac the Jewish nation will come into being, a nation that will give birth to the Messiah, the Christ, who will bring salvation to all and transform the gentiles into numberless spiritual descendants of Abraham along with his natural descendants, the Jews.  

     Through his faith, Saint Paul tells us, Abraham was justified, and through Abraham’s faith, God acted to redeem the world, showing forth His glory and His power.  The Law  -- despite its holiness and value – could never accomplish this, could never transform Abraham into God’s instrument.  The fulfilling of intricate religious commandments and rituals plays no part in this story.  Saint Paul stresses that faith must precede and inform the keeping of the Law.  He also stresses that as Abraham was justified by placing his faith in God’s impossible promises, so we, Abraham’s spiritual descendants, can be justified, as well.  Have faith, Paul exhorts us; have faith in the “one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.”  He urges us never to surrender that faith, that hope against hope that turned Abraham’s barren life into unimaginable fruitfulness.  For Saint Paul , the type of faith that he sees in Abraham is the type of faith that creates true relationship with God.  It is also the type of faith that overcomes all obstacles and provides us with all the good things that our Heavenly Father yearns to bestow upon us.  

                                                                                                 

Quotation for Meditation

 

Grace, which is a participation in the divine nature and an absolutely gratuitous gift, has not by reason of this double title and, as it were, form, any measure that can regulate its perfection and mode of growth other than the free love of God for each man in particular.

 

 --Fr.  Reginal Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Christian Perfection and Contemplation, Tan Books and Publishers, Inc. Rockford Illinois, Pg.410

 

Quiet Time and Then Discussion

 

Questions for Meditation

 

1.   Discuss why God would punish people for disobeying Him.

 

2.   How does law and grace answer the problem of sin?

 

3.   Discuss what it means to have hope against hope.

 

Prayer 

 

     And I pray Thee, loving Jesus, that as Thou hast graciously given me to drink in with delight the words of Thy knowledge, so Thou wouldst mercifully grant me to attain one day to Thee, the fountain of all wisdom and to appear forever before Thy face.  

 

            --Fr.  Benedict J. Groeschel, C. F. R., Praying to Our Lord Jesus Christ, Ignatius Press, San Francisco.Pg.41