Sometimes we can't see any way forward.

"God renews our hope in him."

 

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊     

Genesis 21:5, 8-20

Abraham was a hundred years old

When his son Isaac was born to him. The child grew and on the day Isaac was weaned, Abraham held a great feast.

Sarah saw the child that Hagar, the Egyptian had borne to Abraham, mocking her son and she said to Abraham,

"Send this slave girl and her son away; the child of this slave must not share the inheritance with my son, Isaac.

 

"This matter distressed Abraham because it concerned his son, but God said to him, "Don't be worried about the boy and your maidservant.

Listen to Sarah and do whatever she says, because the race which is called by your name will spring from Isaac.

But from the son of your servant I will also form a nation, for he too is your offspring."

 

Abraham rose early next morning and gave bread and a skin bag of water to Hagar.

He put the child on her back and sent her away.

She went off and wandered in the desert of Beersheba. When there was no more water in the skin,

she pushed the boy under one of the bushes, and then went and sat down about a hundred yards away,

for she thought, "I cannot bear to see my son die."

 

But as she sat there, the child began to wail. God heard him and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said,

"What is the matter, Hagar? Don't be afraid. God has heard the boy crying. Get up, pick the boy up and hold him safely,

for I will make him into a great nation." God then opened her eyes and she saw a well of water.

She went and filled the skin and gave the boy a drink.

God was with the boy. He grew up and made his home in the wilderness and became an expert archer.

 

Ps 34:7-8, 10-11, 12-13 The Lord hears the cry of the poor.

 

＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊      

Matthew 8:28-34

When Jesus reached Gadara, on the other side, he was met by two men, possessed by devils,

who came out from the tombs. They were so fierce that no one dared to pass that way. They cried out,

"Son of God, leave us alone! Have you come here to torment us before the time?"

 

Some distance away there was a large herd of pigs feeding. So the demons begged him,

"If you drive us out, send us into that herd of pigs."

Jesus ordered them, "Go!" So the demons left the men and went into the pigs. The whole herd rushed down the cliff into the lake and was drowned.

 

The men in charge of the pigs ran off to the town, where they told the whole story;

and also what had happened to the men possessed with the demons.

The whole town went out to meet Jesus; and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their region.

 

Gospel Reflection ：

"God renews our hope in him."

What at first seems to be a story of rivalry and rejection becomes an occasion of God's care.

Hagar and her son are sent into the wilderness with only some bread and a skin of water,

hardly enough for a short journey and certainly not enough to cross the wilderness. Are they being sent away to die?

 

It seems so at first when the water runs out, since Hagar lays the child under the shade of a bush as a last act of comfort and retreats,

unable to watch her child die. Her hope has gone,

but then God gives it back to her by promising that her child would become the beginning of a great nation,

a promise which is given new life by the water of the well. Hagar sees the well and sees new hope and possibility.

Sometimes we can't see any way forward. We feel abandoned and hope seems to have dried up like Hagar's waterskin.

Then God comes to us and helps us to make the next step on our journey. When we are struggling,

may God reveal new possibilities to us and renew our hope in him.