The Beauty in Belief

A Reflection on the First Reading for March 13th, 2022:
Second Sunday of Lent

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Genesis
15.5-12, 17-18

The Lord said to Abram: “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.

Then the Lord said to Abram, “I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.” But Abram said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”

The Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” Abram brought the Lord all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him. When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.

On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.”
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Abram waited, listened, and waited some more. A lifetime of faithfulness to God lived with virtue even though his desire to become a father remained unfulfilled. What more must he do? Well, chop a few animals in half, apparently. This unusual request was a ritual of the time, used to seal a deal. The animals were cut in two, laid in two parallel lines, and the parties seeking agreement would walk the aisle between the animals. The broken animals symbolized the outcome if one were to break the agreement: break the agreement, and you will be broken.


Stretched to the edge of his faith, Abram complied with his Lord’s request, because he believed. At long last, the Lord honoured Abram’s belief and came blazing down the aisle in the form of fire—the refining fire of the Spirit of God. Abram received a fresh injection of hope with a covenant that stretches into eternity: descendants numbering greater than the stars—so many, they can’t be counted.


In our Catholic faith, we enter into a similar ritual on a number of different important occasions. For the Eucharist, we walk down the aisle and receive a promise of God after the priest breaks the Eucharist in two before us—broken so we may be made whole. At Confirmation, the same: an aisle and a covenant. In marriage, and for the sacrament of Holy Orders, the same again. And then finally, at our funeral mass, one last promise fulfilled (hopefully). Though brokenness lives on either side of the aisle, wholeness lives at the end—on the altar—in Him.


I’m imbued with the strength and familiarity of the past. The beautiful traditions of the Church drive my roots deeper into His fertile soil and hold me securely—like a child in her father’s strong arms. I’m so grateful for this time spent in salvation history, because my belief has been thin these days. Struggling to believe in myself, and tasked with a to-do list a mile long, I’ve been checking everything off the list other than “belief”. Instead I worry I won’t be enough, I’ll let someone down, I’ll fail at a task, nothing good will come of my work—and I’ve even stretched toward the question, “I’m doing all these tasks for God, but does He even want goodness for me?” While the former worries are truths: I will let people down, and I will fail sometimes, the answer to the latter is unequivocally, “Yes.” He wants goodness for me, if only I believe. The beauty in belief is that it converts worries into wonder. Belief allows me to hand my failures over to Him—everything in my life, my hopes and dreams, even—and His refining fire will form me and convert them to beauty in unimaginable ways.


Belief tells me, “You will have all the goodness you imagined, and then some. Outside of time, God’s answer is never late.”


It’s a bit of a cliffhanger, this one. In this excerpt from Genesis, we witness the covenant, but not the fulfillment of it. We must wait for the end of the story. In the waiting, He promises you goodness, too. Do you believe Him?




Lori MacDonald

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