How did the Universe come to be and is there a contradiction between the Standard Cosmological Model and Scripture?

In this lecture, we explore and explain the Big Bang based on the latest scientific research in this area. We present what science knows today and touch upon areas that remain unexplained or subject to further research.

The Standard Cosmological model states that the Universe had a beginning some 13.75 billion years ago and that it is in an accelerating state of expansion today. The Big Bang provides us with a framework that models what happened between then and now and has proven to be a worthy replacement for the Newtonian model. This model is supported by empirical data gleaned from observatories working around the clock to map the skies most notably Hubble, from the Chandra X-ray observatory, and from numerous NASA missions. All in all, this is a model that has helped us understand and appreciate the incredible size complexity, and order of the Universe.

This model requires esoteric matter be present such as the black holes and 'dark matter' which emits no light and cannot be observed and is at pains to explain and model the state of the universe before Plank's time, that is before 10-43 second (yep, that's a 0 followed by a decimal point followed by 42 zeros and then 1). Even though this infinitesimal period may seem insignificant, it plays a major role because before Plank's time the four forces of the universe were unified in an incredibly small, dense, and hot universe and the Big Bang alone does not have the expressive power to tell us what happened then.

What is then the Big Bang and what do we know today about the Universe? This is the subject of this lecture.

Underpinning the Standard Cosmology Model is Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Often misunderstood and maligned by those who think that the purpose of this theory is to establish a foundation for moral relativism, the Theory of Relativity is a major achievement of mathematics and physics.

In this lecture we begin with electricity and electromagnetism, show how they were understood to be one and the same force (the electromagnetic force), progress forward towards the study of light which stumped Poincaré and the other masters of the time, and then reach Einstein who succeeded in formulating his special theory of relativity by observing that unlike anything else in this universe the speed of light is an absolute constant (when light is traveling in the void of space).

Since one cannot fix the speed of light and hope that time and space will remain constant, this observation led Einstein to inevitably conclude that time and space are not observed (experienced) in the same way by all observers because they do tend to expand or contract (at speeds approaching that of light).

One thing was left to do: understand the relationship between gravity and light and bring them together into a unified set of equations. This is what he did in the general theory of relativity.

This lecture then will lift the veil on this complex scientific problem and help us become more conversant with this subject so that we can begin to separate the science from the hype and recognize that the Theory of Relativity affirms rather than derogate from the fundamentals of our faith since it affirms the absolute universality of the speed of light which is not subject to the observer for it is fixed and constant across space and time.

Photo by Blende57 from Essen, Germany - relativity theory, CC BY 2.0,

If there is anything in the domain of science that causes our heads to spin it is indeed Quantum Theory. While the Theory of Relativity is concerned with the grander things in the Universe, Quantum Theory tries to make sense of the behavior of the littlest things in our world: the atomic sub-structure that composes the physical world.

One of the strangest tenets of Quantum Theory is the Incertitude Principle which states that it is impossible to determine the speed and the position of an electron at the same time. One can precisely compute the speed of an electron but then its exact location becomes uncertain. Likewise, one can precisely determine the location of an electron but then its speed becomes uncertain.

There are other esoteric laws (at least to a layman) that deals with matter and anti-matter and the possibility for matter to spring out of 'nothingness' without anyone's intervention that are certainly head spinning and have also been exploited by scientists and non-scientists alike to draw far-ranging and often fanciful conclusions about the social order, the existence of God and the meaning of life. Often these well-meaning individuals tend to forget that the laws that govern the infinitesimally small may not apply to objects at a larger scale.

The purpose of this lecture is to introduce Quantum Theory in as simple terms as the subject allows so that we may then begin to discern between the wheat and the chaff, between scientific statements that have validity within their own domain and fanciful extrapolations to theology that sow confusions and doubt. By the end of this lecture, the listener will recognize that Quantum Theory is another vista on the mystery of Creation, another icon of contemplation for the beauty of the Universe leading to a deeper appreciation of God as the creator of all there is.

When Darwin put forth his theory of evolution he had an inkling that it may be found controversial. Little did he expect that his scientific studies would mushroom into a world-wide controversy pitting men of science and men of faith against each other.

What is the theory of evolution? What does it actually teach and is it fundamentally opposed to a religious view of the world? In this study we spell out in simple terms what this theory is all about, we showcase its strength and its power to unify disparate scientific observations into a coherent whole that is the most powerful explanatory framework we have today to explain life on Earth.

Next, we list nine challenges that this theory is facing as it progresses forward (and no, these challenges do not include irreducible complexity) so that by the end of this lecture, the listener will have a good grasp of the main tenets of this theory, why is it the best scientific theory we have today for explaining the emergence of life on Earth, and what are some of the inherent difficulties it is facing today.

Ultimately, the goal of this lecture is to help Catholics understand that the theory of Evolution is not an attack on our faith, rather it is profoundly catholic in its makeup and upholds the working of providence and of grace in the world.

Whether men of science ignored or neglected to control the pseudo-scientific statements in newspapers, magazines, radio, and TV or whether men of faith refused to dialog fruitfully with the Theory of Evolution, Darwin's Origin of Species ignited a controversy that has led to the creation of an alternate view of the world, known collectively as Creationism.

If one were to search for Creationism on the internet, one would be greeted by swaths of pages full of invectives and derogatory comments by men and women who are content to belong to one of two camps: Evolutionists are adherents to the Theory of Evolution and Creationists are those who reject this view of the world and each camp accuses the other of ill-will ignorance and a host of other ill-conceived intentions.

But what is Creationism in the first place?

Simplistically, one would say that Creationism is the belief that God created the world and all life it harbors. From a theological point-of-view, no serious believer would have an issue with this statement since it is embedded in the Creed: I believe in God, the Maker, Creator of Heaven and Earth. This later expression Heaven and Earth is an ancient way of saying that God created the Universe and everything it contains. From a theological point-of-view, Catholics are creationists.

Yet the question we face is not what creationism means from a theological point of view, rather what does it mean from a scientific point of view? Is there validity in considering creationism as a bona fide scientific theory?

In this lecture, we go through the dozen or so variations on creationism, explain the (often contradictory) differences between them and explain why one would be hard-pressed to conceive of any of them as a worthy contender to the Theory of Evolution.

Furthermore, we will explain that these theories present serious challenges to our faith and are not compatible with a Catholic view of the world by studying some of the significant challenges they pose to the faith.

We begin our scriptural study of the Book of Genesis by taking a broad view of the purpose and content of this sacred book. Who was it written for? And for what purpose?

After all, Genesis is not a compendium of divine activities that brought about the creation of the world and man nor is it an exhaustive account of all the truths that God wishes to convey to us, rather it is written to answer specific questions, much like the letters of St. Paul and understanding what these questions are is key to a proper comprehension of the book.

Beyond the actual purpose, there is the broader question of methodology: how are we to interpret an ancient text whose context and culture have faded away and for which we have vague references? Colloquialism, hyperboles, metaphors, and other techniques of communications are part of Genesis as they part of any other text, and understanding the text in its original context conveys the literal meaning of the text; quite a different thing than the literalistic meaning -- the meaning derived from a one-to-one mapping of words to content. A simple example suffices to explain the difference: "Honey, you're so sweet." This expression that a mother may say to her daughter is a metonymy in which A the words "honey" and "sweet" do not mean the physical substance of honey of level of sucrose but indicate something about the character of the daughter. Likewise, "He's got bat ears" is a metalepsis --another figure of speech-- implies that the subject has very sharp (another metonymical device) hearing.

We can figure out what is meant with these sentences from the current context and the ambient culture. Not so with ancient texts where the context has been lost and the culture is practically unknown. In these cases, we must proceed carefully lest we interpret literalistically a metaphor, simile, metonymy, or similar textual devices. To this end, we focus on the Four Senses of Scripture and we establish them as a foundation for our interpretation of the Book of Genesis.

Next, we focus on the title of the book "Sepher Telodot" in Hebrew -- The Book of Generations and describe what this means. Also, we compare the Book of Genesis in its structure and content to Egyptian mythology and the Babylonian Enuma Elish, the creation-myth to better understand how Genesis can be considered an Apologia -- a defense of the faith -- against these myths.

What is then the theological and moral purpose of the account of Creation? In this lecture we focus on the initial three days, that is from verses one through thirteen of the first chapter of Genesis.

Highlights

1. What does "In the Beginning mean"? Is it a chronological reference? Is it something else? And why begin with an account of creation instead of starting off with the establishment of the Temple which was far more important for Jewish life than the account of creation ever was? What led the Narrator to begin this way?
2. Curiously, the account starts with the Earth being void and chaotic. From the literal meaning, we infer that the Narrator is not recording a step-by-step detailed account of the act of creation, rather he chooses specific actions of relevance to his immediate audience and through the workings of the Holy Spirit is also supremely relevant for us.
3. Why is it important that "there be light"? This answer may seem obvious until we realize that most answers we may advance are homo-centric. The question, therefore, is not why man considers light important rather why is it that the first divine utterance recorded by the Narrator is this one.
4. Why does Scripture indicate that "the Light was good?" And why does it also speak of the separation of light from darkness?

These considerations (and others not mentioned here) are addressed in this lecture.

Why does the Narrator prescinds from the natural order and recounts the creation of the sun, moon, and stars after the creation of the vegetative life on Earth? Is it because there is a lack of true understanding of the created order or could there be a deeper more cogent reason for this inversion?

In this lecture, we focus on days four, five, and six during which we see the creation of the vegetative life, the heavenly objects, the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, the domesticated animals, creeping thing, and wild animals; in sum, the whole of Universe is complete except for man.

As with the rest of our study, we find that to properly understand the meaning of the text we need to focus on the context. The Jews were living in Babylon and were confronted with a powerful culture centered on an omnipresent mythological system that described in detail the creation of the world and the present order.

The creation of the universe is then cast as a silent polemic against the prevailing view and rejects the pantheistic, animist view of the world that was shared by all cultures surrounding the people of God. As we move forward in this study it becomes more and more evident that the book of Genesis is the single most important event of antiquity for it presents a rational view of the world that strips it from all shadows of superstition and fills it instead with the glory of God.

Verses 26 and 27 of the first chapter of Genesis read as follows:

26. Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. 

27. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.

And these two verses are the subject of this lecture.

What does it mean to be created in the image of God? Why was the word image chosen to convey the mystery of Man? All commentators point out that the word image is repeated four times in these verses and four is symbolic in Scripture for universality, the whole world so then it follows that the author wants us to understand that all of humanity is compassed by this act of creation, that all men share a common universal nature since they are all a reflection of the Divine.

Still, what does it mean to be created in the image of God? In this series we explore this idea and reflect on the relationship of man and God; a relationship that governs our lives and can lead us to everlasting happiness or everlasting damnation. Needless to say, this relationship is the foundation and cornerstone of all that we are and all that we are meant to be.

Photo by Davide Cantelli on Unsplash

Verse 28 of the first chapter of Genesis begins with these words: "And God blessed them..."

What does it mean for God to bless? Especially when God's creation was certified by him as good and the creation of man as very good. If this is so, what does a blessing confer beyond this initial goodness?

To fully understand the purpose of a blessing, we need to consider curses for that is what God does later on when Adam and Eve disobeys. Blessings and curses are fundamental to the covenant that God establishes with them and this lecture then focuses on the establishment of this covenant and its ramification.

Closely associated with the notion of a blessing is that of dominion over the rest of the created world. Man (as the generic expression for man and woman) is seen as the summit of creation in the spiritual order and to them is given dominion over the world. But why does God do that? What is the purpose of it all if He already knows what they are about to do shortly? How could He say that creation is very good if it seems to be fundamentally flawed since Adam and Eve will disobey?

Verses 1 through 14 of Chapter 2 recounts the creation of Eden. They provide a second account of the creation of man and describe his initial dwelling: the Garden of Eden.

Two popular misconceptions need to be cleared: 'Eden' is not the name of the Garden; rather it is the name of a location where the garden was situated and secondly, the tree of knowledge of good and evil is not an apple tree and Eve did not eat an apple (granny smith? Red delicious?) and gave one to Adam to eat.

The first obvious question we need to deal with is this: why a second account? A popular theory states that the first and second accounts were written by different authors (the Yahwist and the Elohist) due to the fact that the word 'Lord' in the original is YHWY in one text and Elohim in the other; a hypothesis that may or may not hold true. What is apparent is that the order of these accounts is significant and that the Narrator who wrote or combined both accounts in this fashion did so because he was inspired by a unified vision. These passages do not repeat each other, rather they reveal important truths about human nature.

A second important element of this text is the four rivers. Four, as we indicated elsewhere is symbolic for universality, completeness and while the geographic location of these rivers is somewhat important, what is fundamental is the idea that the garden is the center of life and that life flows from the garden outward and nourishes the world. This image is found in the vision of Ezekiel and ultimately is fully realized by the Cross and by the Catholic Church.

Verses 15 through 24 of Chapter 2 provides us with a second account of the creation of man and woman; an account focusing on relationships and intimacy.

Throughout these verses, God's solicitude toward man is marvelous especially when one considers the manner in which the gods are said to treat man in the Babylonian, Greek, Egyptian, Phoenician, and Roman mythologies. Here, we see the love of a Father toward his child rather than the love of a Creator toward his creature.

Equally deafening is the silence of Adam.

Why is it that God says "it is not good that man be alone"? Is it that God recognizes that He made a mistake in the creation and that the world after all was not as good as He affirmed to be? Could it be that Adam's silence holds the key to this apparent contradiction?

Even more surprising is the fact that God does not create Eve right away; rather he brings all the animals to Adam first and waits to see what Adam would do. Is God misguided? Is He at a loss?

Is Adam's silence the key that could explain these strange verses?

When Adam sees Eve he exclaims "at last this one is flesh from my flesh, bones of my bones," which is definitely a very good thing to say but, once more, what is it that he does not say? What is it that should have been said and was not said?

Is Adam's silence the key to the whole passage?

The Fall remains a mystery.

The account of the fall given in verses 3:1 through 3:7 is terse and to the point, yet it is deep in meaning and needs to be studied carefully.

Adam and Eve were two perfect beings who were given the opportunity to live forever in the strength of their youth without sickness, toil, or sweat. They had everything they needed to be happy. Why then did these two beings, superior in intellect, beauty, and strength, lose it all by stealing what God wanted to give them?

On the one hand, one must come to terms with the power of the enemy for the devil is like a lion prowling about seeking whom he may devour as St. Peter warns us and most of us underestimate the angelic power whose nature is vastly different from ours.

The devil is pure evil; something we cannot understand for none of us in the natural order has the intellectual capacity to fully comprehend extremes but we can all understand that he hates us and wants us damned.

On the other hand, we tend to overestimate the devil's responsibility and exonerate Adam and Eve. Another common error is to lay the blame squarely on Eve's shoulder and declare Adam innocent from the guilt. Nothing could be further from the truth.

This lecture takes us to the heart of the matter. We study the fall carefully, slowly, methodically to understand what took place and most importantly to realize that we are all in danger of committing the same sin that Adam and Eve committed. This in turn should increase our deep gratitude for the Lord Jesus Christ whose Grace overcomes our sin and strengthens our weaknesses and allows us -- if we choose so -- to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect.

What a pitiful sight this must have been: the man and the woman hiding away from God.

The remainder of Chapter 3 from verses 8 through 24 presents us with a pathetic spectacle: Adam and Eve whose intelligence is dulled, whose passions have become unbridled, whose strength is waning, and whose mind is confused attempt to hide from God.

Yet the text grows strange when we hear God asking "Where are you?" Could it be that God does not know where they are and cannot see them?

Likewise, God asks them a series of questions that He should know the answers for. If He knows why is He asking? And if He asks does it mean that He does not know?

This apparent conundrum reminds me of the nonetheless apparent paradox: Can God creates a rock so heavy that He cannot lift? If we answer 'yes', then this implies that God cannot lift the rock which contradicts his omnipotence. If we answer 'no' then God cannot create that rock and again his omnipotence is in question.

The answer is that God cannot do everything: God cannot sin and God cannot perform a self-contradictory act since it is against the truth. So then since God knows all things, and He knows the answers to the questions He addresses to Adam and Eve, why does He bother posing them?

Is He toying with them?

Obviously not.

Then what is it? What is God up to here and what is the meaning of this text? Furthermore, does the curses that God proclaims applicable to Adam and Eve only, or do they concern us as well?

Adam and Eve have been sent away from the Garden.

The Cherubim and the Sword guard the gates so that they can never come back.

Chapter 4 is the unfolding of the human drama as a consequence of original sin. It is also the demonstration that original sin affects us all and that nothing can take it away except the Lord Jesus.

In this lecture, we begin our study of this very important and rich chapter with a contemplative view. We walk slowly through its pages and observe Cain and Abel offer sacrifice, the murder of Abel by Cain, and the development of the Cainite civilization. We see the birth of Seth and his son Enosh.

Consider what this must have meant for Adam and Eve. Consider them hopeless to stop their older son from murdering his brother. We hear the voice of Eve for the last time in Scripture while once more the silence of Adam is deafening.

The Kingdom of Jesus Christ extends to the whole of Earth and this means that every family falls under the same covenant established with Adam and Eve with its accompanying blessing: Be fruitful and multiply and its curse: curse be the ground ... You are dust and to dust you shall return.

What is the effect of contraception on the family?

Is Respect due to the father a right or a privilege?

Could it be that the breakdown in the family that we witness today is modeled after the breakdown of Adam's family as seen in this chapter?

How do we explain the murder of Abel by Cain?

Did Cain truly kill his brother because his sacrifice was not accepted and Abel's sacrifice was accepted?

Certainly, this event was the catalyst that led Cain to kill but if we stop there we run the risk of not understanding Cain's motives and when we do not understand someone's motives, we can easily conclude that whatever caused him to act as he did does not concern us; we will not do as he did.

While murder is -- thank God -- far away from our daily lives other mortal sins can be closer: gluttony and lust are all too common and so is the root of all evil: pride. While they may not compare to murder, nevertheless they can land us in Hell if we die unrepentant. Therefore, whenever we encounter a sin we do not understand it is time to roll up our sleeves and study deeper and longer in order to receive the graces that God has reserved for us in Scripture.

Here we take a critical detour via the theory of mimesis that Rene Girard has developed and which helps us to unlock this difficult chapter and provide a rich and insightful explanation to seemingly strange utterance by God such as when he puts a mark on Cain's forehead after exiling him so that he may be protected. Why does God protect Cain when he clearly deserves to die for killing his brother? What is the purpose of this mark and why does God declare that anyone who kills Cain will face a sevenfold vengeance?

Rene Girard expounded his theory in a series of books culminating in his most important work things hidden since the foundation of time. This lecture provides an overview of his theory, explains why it is important, and shows how illuminating it can be when applied to Scripture. Using it we get to discern Cain's motive and understand what led him to kill his brother.

Beginning with verse 17 and covering the rest of Chapter 4 is the civilization that issues forth from Cain. One of the key rules derived from the principle of mimetic violence may be stated as follows: Every empire is built upon a tomb.

Bishop Sheen who was aware of this principle puts it this way: "every civilization is built upon a tomb except the Catholic Church which is built upon an empty tomb."

Cain being exiled and obliged to live under a second curse ("And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand"), determines that the best thing to do would be to erect a city. Thus, the city is seen as a means of survival away from Eden and in conditions where the soil is incapable of producing what is required for man's need.

This view of the technological advancement of man permeates the accounts of the Cainite civilization. The Sacred Author narrates their achievement and their lineage but does not state their age or the time of their death. As with the rest of Genesis, the context determines the original meaning and the silent polemic with the Babylonian culture is visible here as much as everywhere else.

The names mentioned in this passage are not mentioned again in the Old Testament or the new with the exception of the first letter of St. John chapter 3 verse 12 and the letter of St. Jude chapter 1 verse 11. It is as if the entire civilization passes away into oblivion leaving not a trace.

Could this be a pattern that may be applicable to our time? Could it be that a civilization obstinate in flaunting God's law and his patience will also pass into oblivion leaving behind it a faint echo of the height of power and might it had once achieved?

This is the crux of the matter, the core of this lecture.

This lecture covers Chapter 5 of the Book of Genesis describing the line of Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve mentioned by name. This line is the righteous line from which the Savior will one day be born.

Its proximate importance stems from the contrast the ten names mentioned here offer with the descendants of Cain. The line of Cain makes mention of profession and technology whereas the line of Seth mentions age and length of life. The line of Cain centers around power, might, and revenge, that of Seth around man's weakness and calling upon the name of the Lord. It is this line that leads to Noah, the one with whom God will renew the Covenant and who will evade the devastating flood.

This account is written against a Babylonian mythological background that retells the feat of ten kings, the last of which is also a hero of the flood. That similar accounts of the flood are shared by neighboring nations should not come as a surprise for a catastrophic event of a magnitude comparable to the first or second world war would have been long remembered and thus passed on in a variety of forms. This is therefore not surprising. Nevertheless, the account in Scripture has traits so utterly unique that lead us to ask the question why? What was it that provided the narrator of Genesis an intuition that none of his contemporaries had?

This question and others like it impress upon the mind of the attentive reader that the Book of Genesis is indeed a unique masterpiece of antiquity written by an author who transcended his time and had left us an incredible legacy and those of us who have a deep abiding faith and some familiarity with the Presence of God have come to know that this is indeed the work of the Holy Spirit.

This study gives an overview of the entire flood drama and focuses on Chapter 6 verses 1 through 9. Chapters 6 through 9 describe a ten parts drama seen from God's vantage point; all covenantal related: It is apocalyptic in nature even though this is not apparent.

1. The Trigger: verses 1-2
2. The First Proclamation: verse 3
3. The Confirmation in Sin: Verses 4 - 5
4. The Second Proclamation: Verses 6 - 7
5. The Remnants: Verse 8-9
6. The Revelation of God's Plan 11 - 22
7. The Covenantal Execution: Chapter 7
8. The Covenantal Renewal: Chapter 8
9. The Covenantal Blessing: Chapter 9

Its main purpose is to serve as a pattern for God's interaction with man. It succinctly describes God's perennial attitude toward mankind and His constant care for His Church throughout the ages. The drama that unfolds before our eyes in these chapters helps us understand God's providence that operates across the ages to bring about the salvation of souls for the greater glory of God.

In this study, we focus on select parts of chapter 7 through the beginning of chapter 9 and we consider the following questions:

Was the deluge a historical phenomenon?

If indeed the flood is historical, did it cover the entire Earth? We consider two options: The geographical universality of the flood and the Anthropological universality of the flood.

Next, we focus on the arc, its meaning, and its symbolic import. The Fathers have always seen in the arc a symbol of the Church (Anagogical meaning of scripture? (See the Four Senses of Scripture) and have derived from that study the necessity of the Catholic Church for the salvation of man.

We then take on the meaning of the '40' days of rain (Why 40?), the difficulty with the clean and unclean animals in Chapter 7 verses 2 and 3 that seem to contradict the general statement about two pairs of animals in Chapter 6 and explain the meaning of the raven, the dove, the olive branch and the sacrifice that Noah offered once he reaches dry land.

Lastly, we cover the covenant that God establishes with Noah and point out how man is now allowed to eat meat (whereas before he was not) as a recompense for the work that Noah and his family performed on the ark. We explain why man is not permitted to eat any animal with its blood and point out the fundamental link between this passage and John chapter 6 where Jesus insists that man eats his blood and drink his blood. How could Jesus ask us to drink his blood if the Covenant with Noah explicitly forbids it? The answer is both profound and surprising.

Lastly, we explain how the covenant with Noah establishes a biblical basis for capital punishment and discuss how the constant view of the Catholic Church on the issue of capital punishment differs from the current penal code in the United States.

Noah has a grand-son. His name is Canaan. Presumably, Noah has more than one grand-son but Canaan is mentioned because he plays an important role in the human drama.

Noah plants a vine, makes wine, and gets drunk in his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, sees his father's nakedness and tells his brothers. Upon waking up, Noah finds out what his son did and he curses his grandson.

Why did Noah curse Canaan when Ham was the one responsible for "seeing his father's nakedness" and what does this expression mean? Does it mean what a literal reading would seem to imply? If so how could we explain the evident disproportion between the action (seeing his father lying naked in his tent) and the curse of the grandson?

This question is all the more important since it has far-reaching consequences as seen for instance in Deuteronomy 20:16 and following; a theme we shall explore in the following study when we take on the genealogies of the nations. But over and above these historical consequences lie the apparent contradiction between the communal responsibility exemplified by the curse of the son because of the sin of the father and found elsewhere as in 2nd Samuel 12:13-14, 1st King 14:12-13, and chapters 25-29, Jeremiah 32:18 and Exodus 20:5 on the one hand and the personal responsibility that we find in Jeremiah 31:29-31, Ezekiel 18 and Luke 13:1-5. How can God say on one hand he will punish the sinner down to the fourth generation and yet state that if a man is righteous, he will not be affected by the sins of his father?

We study and explain how this apparent contradiction is resolved.

Chapter 10 introduces the Table of Nations, a document unparalleled in the ancient world. It affirms that all men are members of the same family and that all nations are composed of men.

While these two statements may seem trivial today, we would do well to remember that the Egyptians of antiquity reserved the word 'man' to themselves and the Greeks called any non-Greek a 'barbarian'. But in Scripture, the universal trait of man is affirmed, and when we study this chapter in the larger context of Genesis we understand that all men are brothers.

Like the Table of Nations that we studied in the previous talk (Genesis 10: The Table of Nations), Chapter 11 has no parallel in Mesopotamian literature.

Chapter 11 displays an intimate acquaintance with Babylonian construction techniques, a familiarity with some characteristic formulas of cuneiform royal building inscriptions.

But familiarity does not mean similitude. If anything, this chapter is a spiritual and ideological tract against the Babylonian ambitions to conquer the sky. A key expression, repeated 5 times, is "all the earth," for the entire human race is presumed involved in the sinful construction of the tower.

What is being condemned here is not human enterprise, for after all God told Adam to subdue the Earth (that is, use the resources that I, the Lord, have placed at your disposal to better your life, but do so responsibly). What is condemned is human hubris, the folly of man to build a tower for the sole purpose of escaping a second flood, even though the Lord promised not to punish the world by water.

The net result of this whole messy affair is that God has to start again and this time with Abram.

How do you leave what you know and love and move on to a place you know nothing about?

"Go to a place I shall show you..."

Abram (the former name of Abraham) was not even told where he was supposed to go. How did this man who knew very little about God put his faith in him and follow his calling across hundreds of miles to his destination?

How did he convince his followers to accompany him? Why did they not label him as a lunatic?

What would you do if you received such a call, to go to a place you know nothing of, abandoning all that you know, all your family and friends, and walk into uncertainty as if it was the best thing that happened to you?

At last, Abraham leaves Egypt with Sarah and goes back to the Promised Land. St. Ambrose tells us that Sarah represents virtue, so that, even though Abram lived in Egypt, he remained faithful to virtue and did not depart from her side.

Once in the Promised Land, he must fight for water and he manages to do it amicably, not clinging to his rights but finding a peaceful solution with the Lot's herdsmen. And God who sees all remembers Abram and visits him with a second promise:

Lift up your eyes, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land which you see, I will give to you and to your descendants forever. I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your descendants also can be counted. Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you." So Abram moved his tent, and came and dwelt by the oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron; and there he built an altar to the LORD.

Abram then prefers the spiritual blessings to the goods of this world. He pins his hope on God's promise instead of a well. He does not expect the Earth to feed him, rather he believes that God will provide.

How is his situation different from ours? How are we true followers of Abram when we contracept and refuse to have more children because "the Earth will not provide?"

Chapter 14 exhibits an unparalleled concentration of unique or rare features of all kinds.

1. First biblical report of warfare.
2. Abram as a remarkable military chief and hero
3. He is given the epithet "The Hebrew"
4. He comes into contact with a Canaanite priest
5. Two uncommon divine titles are used here: God Most High and Creator of heaven and earth. The latter never reappears in the OT. It appears in the NT.
6. The contrast between the anonymity of the Pharaoh in 13 and the rich list of names of kings here is striking.
7. The list of the eastern kings is presented in strict alphabetical order while the names of the Canaanite Kings are arranged in two pairs: Bera-Birsha and Shinab-Shember.
8. The name "Abram" occurs seven times
9. Each of Melchizedek's two blessings contains seven words.
10. Excluding proper names, 11% of the words in this chapter never occur or rarely so in the rest of the OT.

Even though this chapter was written to render an account of Abram's saving Lot, the first 11 verses have nothing to do with Abram and his family and could have been avoided if the usual austere narrative style had been used.

Throughout Hebrew literature, the central narrative of this chapter is known by the name ha-berit bein ha-betarim, "The covenant between the pieces". This name derives from the covenant ceremony (berit), the climactic point which is the passing between the pieces of meat described in verse 17.

God then passes between the pieces of the sacrifice he had instructed Abram to prepare. What does it mean for God to pass between the pieces? What is the purpose of this gesture? Furthermore, why does God consume these pieces by fire?

The Covenant and its structure make this text intelligible. What is important to realize is that God Almighty is binding himself to a covenant with a party (man) who is utterly incapable of fulfilling his end of the bargain and who will betray God at every turn.

The irony is that man does not know it and God does.

God had promised Abram and Sarai a son.

Just as he has promised to take care of our family's needs.

But Sarai and Abram grew impatient or perhaps they thought they ought to take matters into their own hands for after all did not God instruct Adam to "guard and till" the Land? If then Man shall eat by the sweat of his brow, it would be natural to take charge of his own fertility and to do what makes the most sense to him based on his own situation.

This would make sense with the things that God gave man charge over.

Where in Scripture does it say that God gave man charge over his children (or his wife for that matter) the way he gave him charge over the animals?

Nowhere.

A wife is a gift.

So are the children.

And we ought to wait for the giver; neither forcing his hand nor refusing him.

That is the covenant.

This is Christian living.

This is part one of the study on the Abrahamic covenant. This talk delves into the covenant God will institute with Abram with the annunciation of the birth of Isaac.

Thirteen years came and went without a word from God.

Thirteen years of complete silence.

Sometimes the silence of God is a sign of the listener's holiness; but more often than not, it is the sign of the listener's obduracy and refusal to obey.

Few people realize that the only prayer the Lord will hear from the mouth of a sinner is the prayer of forgiveness. All other prayers will go unheeded.

If you are tempted to say "God does not answer my prayers," examine your life first. Perhaps confession is in order.

You may not have killed anyone, you may not have stolen from anyone.

You may be using contraception.

You may be evading your taxes

You may be flirting with the web when you should be spending time with your family.

So why does God speak to them after 13 years and tell them of the son to be born and the new covenant in the flesh?

Because he has promised and his word will never pass away.

This is part two of the study on the Abrahamic covenant. We delve into the covenant God will institute with Abram with the annunciation of the birth of Isaac.

Thirteen years came and went without a word from God.

Thirteen years of complete silence.

Sometimes the silence of God is a sign of the listener's holiness; but more often than not, it is the sign of the listener's obduracy and refusal to obey.

Few people realize that the only prayer the Lord will hear from the mouth of a sinner is the prayer of forgiveness. All other prayers will go unheeded.

If you are tempted to say "God does not answer my prayers," examine your life first. Perhaps confession is in order.

You may not have killed anyone, you may not have stolen from anyone.

You may be using contraception.

You may be evading your taxes

You may be flirting with the web when you should be spending time with your family.

So why does God speak to them after 13 years and tell them of the son to be born and the new covenant in the flesh?

Because he has promised and his word will never pass away.

In between the promise made of the coming child and his birth a dramatic event is inserted: the visitation of the Lord to Abraham by the Oak of Mamre and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra.

This arrangement may seem strange at first because the narrative expands from the hopes of a couple to have a second unhoped-for child to geo-political events involving two centers of economic powers, two exuberant cities not unlike say LA or San Francisco.

Why are these two stories interweaved into a single narrative?

The answer will be found in the decrees of the Covenant. Whosoever opposes God's covenant and becomes a hindrance to its execution is removed. This was true of Sodom and Gomorra, of Nineveh, Babylon, and even Jerusalem. The first forty chapters of Isaiah are littered with the ruins of cities and kingdoms who opposed the Covenant of God and as a result disappeared or shrunk into insignificance.

Many today claim the death of the Catholic Church.

Yet, the Catholic Church always buries her undertakers...

As the JPS commentary on Scripture states "Events now move rapidly toward a horrifying but retributive climax.

The drama unfolds through quickly-paced scenes that are presented in three parts: the demonstration by the Sodomites of their irredeemable evil; the deliverance of Lot; the devastation of the region. In an epilogue, we are told of the incestuous act of the daughters of Lot."

In these events can be a seen a summary view of the way in which God governs the world: those who oppose his Church -- The Catholic Church -- are visited by angels and are given a chance to redeem themselves and if they don't their powers are taken away from them.

Care must be made to distinguish between the way God deals with us (the fall of communism is a good example) and the way we deal with each other when we decide to take matters into our own hands (the later crusades are a good example of this as is much of the way Europe's monarchs ruled their people, although there are notable exceptions like King St. Louis IX.).

We are always tempted to resort to the quick and easy, the simple and simplified no matter who we are and Catholics are no exceptions. Therefore when we speak of those who oppose the Catholic Church we speak of those who embrace a lifestyle and teach others to do the same when this lifestyle is in direct opposition with the magisterial teachings of the Church.

Our duty is to teach, defend the faith and share the truth in love and concern for our neighbor, always being respectful of their right to determine their own fate just as we determine our own fate by our actions.

The Truth sets people free. The sword divides.

As we have said in the previous talk, anyone who opposes the Covenant of God faces his wrath.

Case in point: Abimelech.

How ironic that this man is given the eponym Abi Melek (father of the King) when in fact he has no control over his passions. With him it's What you Want is What you Get. There is no thoughtful process, no reflection, no pondering. The man lives in the fast lane, in the now, in a world centered around himself.

Come to think of it, he would have loved many of our social networking platforms, with their capacity to act as a supreme mirror of vanity.

As would any tyrant small or big.

In a dream, the Lord intervenes and warns him not to take what is not his own.

With us, God does not have to speak in dreams. He speaks plainly through the teachings of the Church.

Abimelech headed the word of the Lord and saved himself and all those he had charge of.

Do we?

The birth of Isaac is the cause of the first disunity in Abraham's family.

Because Isaac is born, Abraham sends away, that is, he separates himself from the son he loved: Ishmael.

This separation has continued down the generations and is the cause of the endless strife and killing between the sons of Isaac today and those of Ishmael.

Who would ever have thought that such a seemingly insignificant event as a divorce within a family would yield such bitter fruits down the ages and affect so many people?

What about your own life? Your own strife?

Where will they go down the centuries? Who will suffer because of them?

God only knows.

In this talk, we go over the most dramatic events in the life of Abraham: the sacrifice of Isaac and the Great Covenant.

We might be tempted to dwell on the sacrifice as though it was the main event.

It wasn't.

Many folks sacrifice their children. Some to ambition, others to freedom, others to live their life the way they want to so much so that many today turn their wombs into an altar of sacrifice for themselves.

Abraham was faced with two difficulties: on the one hand, the sacrifice of his son whom he loved must have wrenched his heart and tormented him. Yet he was a man of faith who struggled to understand how God could keep the covenant he made with him in Isaac: By your seed shall all nations be blessed.

If that is to be so, then God must raise Isaac from the dead ...

And his hope in the Lord was reckoned to him because he believed.

To believe requires an extraordinary amount of work on our part. The thought that faith is a static statement we do like a signature at the bottom of a bank statement or on a check. Faith is like electricity on a wire; the wire must be always able to pass it on and although electricity is natural to a wire it will kill us.

Grace enables us to pass it on.

But we must work to do so and this means to believe day in day out that God will raise us from the dead.

What is truly amazing in this chapter and constantly overlooked is the fact that God after saving Isaac placed himself under a curse when he said "By my name I will..."

A curse he bore all the way to the Cross.

We all live we all die.

But should we have to barter so that we could bury our dead?

That is what Abraham had to do. He was an alien in the Land promised to him by the Lord and he lived like an alien and sojourner but when the time came to bury Sarah he needed some assurance that he would find for her mortal remains a final abode where she can rest in peace.

Ask yourself this question: If Abraham was a man of faith beloved by God why did he have to go through so many hardships?

If you are still thinking that health and wealth are a sure sign of God's blessing, listen to this talk and see how God dealt with the father of faith.

With the exception of the wedding of St. Joseph to Our Lady, the wedding of Isaac and Rebekah is perhaps the most beautiful wedding ever recorded in Scripture.

If we consider the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph we notice that two of them, Abraham and Jacob, were polygamous (involved with more than one woman at the same time) while the other two, Isaac and Joseph were monogamous and that it is they who had the least strife and worries caused by their children.

In the case of Isaac, his wedding begins with a prayer and ends in prayer. God brings him Rebekah and they fall in love with one another. In fact, we could also say they did not fall in love; they stood in love and stayed together until death did them apart.

Are you alone? Are you searching for a husband or a wife? Are you searching in the wrong places or without God?

Listen to this talk and see how good is the Lord.

Abraham lived another 35 years and saw his great-grandchildren down to the fifth generation. Following Isaac's marriage, nothing is reported about Abraham's activities because Scripture is not trying to be exhaustive; instead, it follows the Covenantal path as it moves down the generation so intend it is on the coming of the Messiah in whom and through whom everything takes its true meaning.

In the generations that flow from Abraham, we see a glimpse of the tragedies to come. The divisions that started within the family echo through history like a powerful river overturning its banks and leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.

The talk will explain the importance of these genealogies and the role they play in Scripture.

Very little is said about Isaac just as very little is said about St. Joseph, the greatest of all saints after Our Lady.

Isaac is the only one who did not go down to Egypt because of the famine. God intervened and told him to stay in the Promised Land.

In effect, Isaac is the only patriarch to be born, to have lived, and died in the Promised Land.

In this talk, we walk with him and learn from this holy man how he deals with difficulties and trials and how through all his troubles God blesses him.

Lest we be tempted to think this was solely due to him, we would do well to recall the very first chapters of Genesis when Adam and Eve lived in the garden as husband and wife in the blessed obedience of God. It is the union between Isaac and Rebekah that brings an abundance of blessing on them.

Would you want any other type of marriage?

If we follow the Covenantal trail from Adam down to Jacob we are struck by the fact that seldom does the firstborn receive the blessing intended to make him a ruler of nations. More often than not it is the youngest that receives the blessing.

In this case, Esau had already sold his birthright for a bowl of lentil soup but Isaac who has grown old and who in his old age still enjoyed a good meal wanted to give his older son the blessing that was rightfully his for Isaac was unaware of the fact that Esau sold his birthright to Jacob.

Yet Rebekah knew.

When the twins were contending in her womb she had received a word from the Lord that the younger will rule over the older and being obedient to his call understood the blessing was meant for Jacob.

In this, she images Our Lady who with great wisdom, love, and care brings her children to their father so that they may be blessed in this life and in the next.

Those who are not devoted to her are in for a surprise.

Painting of Isaac blessing Jacob by Govert Flinck - Web Gallery of Art

Jacob must now deal with the wrath of his brother. He flees but not before receiving his father's blessing for the journey.

Unlike Abraham who sent his faithful servant to find his son a wife, Jacob is alone on the journey without any material support beyond his own means. He did not go with a caravan full of gits nor with a large company; he was alone.

It is often the case that God needs us to be alone before he reveals himself. Moses was alone when he saw the burning bush and Our Lady was alone when the Angel visited her and God came to Solomon in the solitude of the prayer.

Alone does not mean lonely.

It means present, attentive, and available to the calling of God.

Oddly, alone means with God.

Can you be alone?

Jacob is given Leah in marriage when his eyes were for Rachel.

Jacob loved Rachel but nowhere does Scripture says that she was meant for him according to God's plan.

So often we confuse what is lovely with what is lovable by us

A woman may be ravishing, immeasurably beautiful but if she is not the one that God has intended for me, she and I will be unhappy beyond measure.

Jacob was going to learn this lesson the hard way.

Do you have to?

Have you asked the Lord to show you whom he has in mind for you?

The Person he chose from before the foundation of the world for you?

Or will you follow the dictate of your eyes?

Listen to the tale of the two wives and learn from someone else's mistakes...

Painting of Rachel and Leah by By Dante Gabriel Rossetti

What were Leah and Rachel competing for?

Why did they give their handmaids to Jacob?

Simple: attention.

Jacob had married Leah and he was unhappy so he married Rachel.

So she was unhappy for she was barren according to Scripture.

And she made him unhappy.

To countermand her bareness, she gave him Bilhah.

Meanwhile, Leah is unhappy because even though she had brought forth four boys already, Jacob's eyes are for Rachel.

So she gives him Zilpah, her handmaid.

And when all is said and done, Scripture does not tell us "they lived happily forever after."

Call it what you want but God's covenant is between one man and one woman.

Anything else is an unhappy state of affairs.

Jacob came to Laban as a fugitive, now he flees from Laban as a fugitive. He had only himself to worry about when he arrived. Now he has four wives and eleven boys and at least one girl (probably more). The maidservants, herdsmen, and the herd.

He needs to move a caravan before his father-in-law catches up with him. As it is Laban did catch up with him but God's providence prevented him from doing evil to Jacob. Particularly when Rachel, his daughter, the woman whom Jacob loved, had stolen the gods of Laban and hid them from his view.

It wasn't Leah who brought into his house foreign gods but Rachel. So often we wonder why our lives are so complicated, restless, and unable to fulfill the deep-seated hunger in our heart for abiding contentment and peace.

And it is often the case that our life is a mirror image of our spiritual life when it is complicated, restless, and hungry for God's love. And most often than not, the trouble is not at work or in the street. The trouble is within. In our family. In our heart.

Riddle me this:

Jacob had married four wives instead of one. The wife he loved best brought with her statues of foreign gods in violation of the most important commandment. Thus on two important counts, Jacob had violated the objective law of God, the one he inscribed in the heart of every man.

Why is it then that God sends an angel to contend with him? After all, your guardian angel contends with you on a daily basis to lead you on the path of holiness and if you cannot hear his voice then your life will seem easy and pleasant because there is no one to contend with.

Did Jacob deserve to have the grace of contending with an angel? Hardly. But God had sworn an oath to Abraham and his world shall not pass.

When he met his brother, Jacob acted prudently. He treated him like a King and stayed away from him.

"May God bless the Czar and keep him far away from us."

Jacob pacified his brother by giving him what his brother had always wanted: material goods.

Is it a surprise that Jacob was munificent in his dealing with his brother? Much has he received and much has he given. Jacob understood the depth of God's love and care for him for after he was gone some twenty-one years and he now managed to come back safe and sound with all those he had charge of. It was God that blessed him and multiplied his numbers it was God who will continue to do so according to the Covenant he had renewed with him. Jacob was not attached to his material goods because he knew the love of God. Esau knew nothing other than self-love so he was very much attached to the material world.

One was rich in the Lord.

The other was wretched.

One stood to the left of the Lord, the other to his right?

Where are you in this picture?

Art by Orlando Paride - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

No sooner had Jacob settled in the Land that tragedy strikes.

His daughter Dinah goes out to town on her own without asking permission or her father's blessing, a clear act of rebellion.

This is not surprising given the state of Jacob's family: when we violate the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman the curses of the Covenant are triggered and one of the bitter fruits of these curses is disobedient and rebellious children.

I sometimes hear parents complain bitterly about their teenagers or worse justify the immoral behavior of their children and I feel like asking them how long they have been contracepting. Clearly, contraception is not the only reason to be plagued by rebellious and troublesome children but it is a prevalent one. So often we miss the central point of the Covenant of marriage: God wants us to find him and to find happiness in marriage. His express wish is to bless us with obedient and godly children who will knock our socks off by the depth of their understanding and knowledge, piety and love of the Lord, children who will make us whisper to one another, "I sure was not that good when I was their age..."

This is God's blessing for us.

But when we rebel, when we decide to take matters in our own hands to the exclusion of God then the blessing turns into a curse -- this should not surprise us (at least if we know Scripture) -- this is the way the Covenant that God established with us works. Blessings for the obedient and curses for the disobedient who persist in their disobedience and refuse to listen to the Church.

So then Dinah and Shechem...

I'll let you listen to the talk and find out what happened to them.

The next tableau in the life of Jacob involves two deaths, one birth, and a change of name.

Deborah, Rachel's nurse died.

Jacob's name was changed to Israel.

Rachel, the love of his life died while giving birth to Benjamin.

His name is now Israel

He has twelve sons.

It is the birth of the nation of Israel, the very beginning of it. Nearly four hundred and fifty years separates Jacob from the fulfillment of the promise and even more if we were to wait for David's conquest of Jerusalem and the establishment of the Kingdom.

Jacob saw none of it.

He lost his wife and his sorrow is passed in silence.

So often God expects us to give and give and give without seeing the fruits of our giving.

It isn't that God is hard or harsh or that he is unjust or uncaring.

The truth of the matter is simple: In God, all our needs are met.

Our problem can be stated thus: we often believe that we are less than human beings and more than the angels.

Less in that we set our sight and the love of our heart on that which is not God and so remain restless.

More in that we tread with great confidence and panache in the Temple of God when the angels cover themselves when in the presence of the Majesty of God.

To be human, fully human is to live in God.

Painting in covert art by Eugene Roger. Peter Willi / Getty Images

The Book of Genesis is also known as the Book of Generations due to the various genealogies it contains. This chapter is one such list dealing with Esau's offspring.

Esau is the older brother of Jacob, the one who forsook his blessing for a bowl of lentil but since he is the son of Isaac, the heir to the Covenant after Abraham the blessings of the Covenant will reach him to the degree that he can appreciate them.

These blessings are not spiritual but temporal and material.

So it is with many of us who long for success, riches and power.

Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and everything else will be added onto thee

This saying from the Gospel of Matthew 6:33 means that we must seek to live according to the Covenant that regulates the Kingdom of God for to seek the Kingdom is to abide by its laws.

Those who are of this earth will be accounted for in the books of the Lord but not in the Book of Life. This chapter of Scripture is a constant reminder that unless we seek the Kingdom of God first our line will end abruptly in the here and now.

Chapter 37 of Scripture is the beginning of the story of Joseph and it will take us all the way until the end of Chapter 49.

The Story of Joseph is well-known at least in its general outline. What is less well-known is the purpose behind it.

Abraham -- Isaac -- Jacob are called the Patriarchs. Not Joseph. He is not a patriarch because God does not speak to him directly nor does the Lord renew with Joseph the Covenant he had established with Abraham and renewed with Isaac and Jacob.

So then who is Joseph and why is his story told in such great detail?

Figuratively, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob represent the priestly line for all three of the Patriarchs offer sacrifice.

Jacob is a layperson. His dealings are with economy, drought, and responsibility to feed the Egyptians and others.

If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were the agents through whom God brought his Covenant, the story of Joseph illustrates the intended fruit of the Covenant. Namely personal holiness.

As we follow Joseph's peregrination, we will learn how God deals with us, on a daily basis, how he can take a vain, pretentious, and ignorant young man and turn him into a Saint.

The story of Joseph is a love story.

And the lover is God.

Chapter 38 is as an interlude in the story of Joseph. It brings up a story concerning Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar who is in the lineage of Christ as recorded in the first chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew.

Why?

Some commentators think that this story was inserted here by a later copyist. Others explain it based on several different sources.

Even if this is the case, it still begs the question why here? why now?

After all, the copyist could have decided to insert this text somewhere else.

Why here?

Why is it inserted right after the beginnings of the story of Joseph?

Think about it and then you might be tempted to listen to this talk...

God threw Joseph in a Pit to teach him a lesson in humility.

Determining that this was not enough, he sells him into slavery.

He lands in a powerful house and has a good master who entrusts him with everything except his wife of course.

So what is Joseph doing in that house alone with her?

She entreats him the first time and he resists, which is very good.

Why does he stay?

Why can't he tell his master: "I am distracted from my work while in the house, bid me build a small side-office where I shall be more productive"?

His master trusted him. He would have agreed, presumably.

The point is simple: if you are in a situation of near occasion of sin and you stay are you not responsible?

Joseph had still a deep well of vanity that needed to be emptied.

Back in the Pit, he went.

What about you?

Are you in a Pit or are you absorbed by vain occupations? 

Egyptian dungeons are hot and smelly.

They are not a place you'd like to spend your vacation.

But they are a wonderful tool to scrub away any remnant of vanity and vices from a godly man.

And what a godly man Joseph was.

Rather we should say "is".

A man who yields to vices would consider himself justified to curse God in such a situation. He would see himself as the victim and God as the torturer.

So often the reality is otherwise: we are the torturers and God is our immolated victim.

Joseph did not complain. He did not offend God with his speech or behavior. He accepted his fate as from God and trusted in Him. We do not know what he thought or what he went through while in Jail but we do know that he remained Godly.

A good and faithful servant, that he was.

Then God gave him wisdom and understanding to interpret dreams.

Understand this: Joseph is not a dream interpreter. He did not have an innate talent to interpret dreams; God gave him wisdom and understanding in specific conditions to help him help others.

And so he did.

And they forgot about him.

For it was not yet his time.

Another two years went by.

2 x 365 days, 730 days.

Have you waited that long?

Did you persevere in prayer?

Did you hope and trust in the Lord?

Pharaoh had a dream and no one could interpret it because no one has the key to the future.

God gave Joseph wisdom and understanding an upright heart and a pure intention. He told Pharaoh the meaning of the dream and he gave him good counsel. There was no guile, no dissimulation, no personal ambition, and no desire for vainglory in Joseph.

Prison had purified him and had brought him closer to God -- even though God never spoke to him directly.

In so many ways, Joseph is like anyone of us.

So often we seek the extraordinary to get us out of the ordinary.

Joseph thought the extraordinary in the ordinary -- and he was found.

What do you do when family comes knocking at the door -- family you wished you would never see again?

Do you slam the door in their faces?

Do you open the door and sing their praises?

Or do you put up with them for as long as politeness demands and send them off with Aunt Mildred's old flower vase when the time comes to take Fido on his walk?

But what would you do if you had absolute power of life and death over your hated relatives?

Joseph did. Joseph had every reason to put his brothers to death; after all, it would be only justice. In fact, no one would have batted an eye if he had put his brothers and their family to death to avoid dealing with pesky avengers.

Not my will be done but your will.

The evangelical message has always been hidden in the heart of Scripture for God is a God of Love.

And Joseph one of his extraordinary ordinary sons.

One brother was detained in Egypt but there was grain for everyone else so life goes on.

But the famine was severe and when the provisions that had brought back from Egypt were about to run out Judah spoke to his father and told him he had to make a choice: either they bring the lad Benjamin to Egypt or they all risk dying from hunger.

Still, Jacob hesitated for he was very attached to Benjamin.

Sometimes God has to speak very loudly to loosen the bonds that hold us back, weigh us down, and prevent us from hearing his voice. These are bonds we create for ourselves in the course of a lifetime and they need not be sinful such as bonds of affection to our loved ones or faithfulness to our state of life.

Yet even these harbor a hidden vice where we may always run the risk of preferring the creature for the Creator. To better understand the risk inherent in the things we care about or the people we love ask yourself this simple question: how can a person who is in heaven be eternally happy when they find out that one of their loved ones (father, mother, or a child) is in hell for all eternity?

Truly the Love of God is not be trifled with nor should it ever be reduced to a vague sensation of comfort.

Joseph must have been a man of prayer.

He was rich beyond belief, probably the second richest and most powerful man in Egypt after Pharaoh.

He had but to reach out and take whatever he pleased, use whomever he pleased in whichever way he pleased.

He could have had as many wives as Solomon and probably more concubines than Solomon had.

The possibilities were endless.

And now right before his eyes, his dream has, at last, come true: his brothers are prostrated before him. His time for glory has come, his time for revenge and self-determination.

So what does this man do?

He glorifies God.

He sees himself as the instrument of Providence, as the tool the Holy Spirit has used to save his brothers. He sees himself as the instrument of salvation for others; his suffering is redemptive.

Christ saved us through the Cross but when we unite our sufferings with those of Jesus on the Cross, he permits us to share in his pain so that we may share in his glory. We are co-saviors with and under Cross, each and every one of us in our own capacity to love, to suffer, and to sacrifice.

If this was not so, the story of Joseph is worthless.

Therefore, nothing you do, the pains, the aches, the frustrations, the failures, and the myriad of small nagging thoughts that fill our days with their insidious whispers, if all of these were offered up to God the Father in union with the suffering of Jesus on Cross, Oh what a crown of glory they would turn into and what fields of wheat for the hungry they would raise up to the Glory of the Most Holy Trinity.

At this juncture it is fitting to quote from the Jewish Publication Society's commentary on Genesis:

"With this narrative, the patriarchal period in the history of Israel comes to an end.

Jacob's descent to Egypt appears at first to be merely a family visit. Yet this visit is presented as being fraught with national significance. It is a summing up of the past as well as a new beginning. Famine drove Abraham to Egypt; now famine impels his grandson in the same direction. Abraham's career opened with a divine revelation; Jacob's closes with a similar experience. Jacob's odyssey began at Beer-sheba; it fittingly concludes with a revelation at the same place. The divine Voice will not be heard again until the advent of Moses."

Indeed the Voice of God will not be heard for 400 years in its liturgical dimension. The liturgical perspective of Genesis is profound and is best understood in light of the Mass. This is important because the 400 years of Silence in Egypt mirror the 490 years of Silence in Babylon (Seven weeks of Years) when the sacrifice had ceased. The same may be said of the stay in Egypt: the liturgical Silence of God is deafening but that does not mean that He had abandoned his people; if anything the story of Joseph stands as an enduring witness to the love and care of God for his people."

Even though Jacob went down to Egypt to live there and even though the conditions of living in Egypt will be better than anything he had so far, he calls his stay there his "Sojourn."

Jacob never ceased to see himself as a "sojourner'; we would say "migrant" today, someone without a fixed address, a known location. Jesus shared this vision of the world when he said, "foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

The logic behind this attitude is simple even though chilling: your eternal fate is determined by your address. Take one down and you will go down, take one up and you will take residence in the heavens above, for the heart of man takes root where his treasure is buried.

A quick examination of conscience: Answer this honestly: how would you feel if you lost your home tomorrow? Now keeping this in mind, how would you feel if you lost heaven today?

Can you say with absolute certainty that the loss of heaven is far more important and materially significant to you than the loss of your home?

Are you a sojourner like Jacob who has been promised land in the far distant future?

Or will your address be down here...forever?

Joseph, upon hearing his father was ill brings his two sons to bless. He wants to receive the blessing of the firstborn and immediately passes it to his children.

Normally the blessing is passed from first-born to first-born but in this case, Joseph does not ask a blessing upon himself, instead, he asks Jacob to bless both of his sons; a sign he has received the double blessing of the firstborn.

There, a curious thing happens, which happened before multiple times: Jacob whose eyes are dim crosses his hands laying his right hand on the head of the younger Ephraim and prophecies that Ephraim shall be greater than Manasseh in the history of Israel. In fact, Ephraim became synonymous with Israel after the kingdom of David was split in two between north and south.

God raises men and women for a special purpose and we often confuse the mission God has for each one of us and his love; somehow we think that God's love for us is proportional to the importance (judged from our vantage point) he wishes to hand to us as if we are competing for his attention.

God does not love us so.

The only divine measure of God's love is the Cross. Since his son died for us on the Cross, the love of God the Father for each of us is measured by the Cross -- it is infinite regardless of the importance or lack thereof that we may ascribe to our lives and our tasks.

Heaven is not a corporation, God is not a CEO. God is a family and heaven is home and God loves us so because he is a Father.

Some years later -- we are not told the exact number, Jacob is on his death bed.

He knows he is going to die so he gathers his sons around him and he gives them his spiritual testament which is far more important than any material testament can ever be for its consequences will be felt down the generations.

Jacob does not speak blessings to his sons. In fact more often than not what he has to say is more like a curse. In a very real sense, the rest of the historical books of Scripture record the unfolding of these words of Jacob in time.

The blessings -- and the curses -- of parents are extremely potent more so than modern man dares to realize. This is why St. Paul admonishes his readers in Roman 12:14 to "bless and not to curse." He was not telling them to "bless" rather than swear (that is to speak foul of others) he meant what he said "do not curse," for he knew the power of cursing which is as real as the power of blessing.

Parents, therefore, should do their utmost to pass on a living faith to their children whom they should bless often by words and by deeds which keep them (the parents) faithful to the Covenant of God otherwise some of them may have bitter things to say to their children on their deathbed; words of power that will affect the lives of the children down the generations.

Genesis is not a book that stands on its own. It is Part 1 of the Pentateuch and can only be understood in the context of the Pentateuch. Therefore, the last chapter of Genesis is a transition into the next major segment of the Pentateuch: Exodus.

Ominously, the last word of Genesis is "Egypt." There the coffin of Joseph will wait for 400 years before being transported out of Egypt in dramatic circumstances.

Yet the events of Exodus have been set in motion long before Moses and the event of Exodus cannot be understood apart from the Book of Genesis to which it is organically united.

The major themes of Genesis are

1. Creation is God's and God's only.
2. Man does not possess himself. He is not the master of his destiny or his life for he has no control over either.
3. Man is intrinsically good for God created him very good. Man is made in the image of God and is destined for greatness.
4. Despite man's repeated failure and mistrust of God, the Lord is always present faithful to his covenant.
5. It is God who takes the first step every step of the way.
6. Blessings and Curses are real, powerful and an expression of the power God placed in the hands of man.
7. God did not abandon his people but out of the great goodness of his heart thought them and guided them to safety.

Genesis is a mirror reflecting our relationship with God. By meditating on the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph we develop a biblical understanding of our life and we begin to live as they did, as stranger and sojourner in a strange land, awaiting the day of our salvation, placing our hope and trust in God and in the surety of the teaching office of the Church and being nourished with the Body and Blood of Jesus, our soul is elevated to things from above and begins to taste here the blessings of Heaven.