Shrine Basilica of Our Lady of Health Vailankanni

“Thereupon Abraham took the wood for the holocaust and laid it on his son Isaac's shoulders, while he himself carried the fire and the knife. 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 wood, but where is the sheep for the holocaust?”. “Son”, Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the sheep for the holocaust” (Gn 22:6-8). This answer of Abraham, at once correct and cautious, amazes me. I wonder what he had in mind, because when he says: “God will provide”, he is not speaking about the present but about the future. To his son who questions him about the present, he talks about the future. It is because the Lord himself was going to provide the lamb in the person of Christ... “Abraham reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son”. Let us compare these words with those of the apostle Paul when he says, “God did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all” (Rom 8:32). See the great generosity with which God competes with man: Abraham offered a mortal son who in fact was not going to die, while God handed over to death his immortal Son for us all ... “As Abraham looked about, he spied a ram caught by its horns in the thicket”. Christ is the Word of God but “the Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14)...Christ suffers, but in his flesh; he undergoes death, but it is in his flesh that he dies, and the ram here is the symbol of this. As John said: ”Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29). The Word remained incorruptible: he is Christ in spirit, the one that Isaac represents. This is why he is at once victim and priest. For, in spirit, he offers the victim to his father and, in the flesh, he himself is offered on the altar of the cross.

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“ Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad ”

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