Sunday, March 13 : Book of Genesis 15,5-12.17-18.
The Lord God took Abraham outside and said: “Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can. Just so,” he added, “shall your descendants be.”
Abram put his faith in the LORD, who credited it to him as an act of righteousness.
He then said to him, “I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as a possession.” “O Lord GOD,” he asked, “How am I to know that I shall possess it?”
He answered him, “Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtle-dove, and a young pigeon.”
He brought him all these, split them in two, and placed each half opposite the other; but the birds he did not cut up.
Birds of prey swooped down on the carcasses, but Abram stayed with them.
As the sun was about to set, a trance fell upon Abram, and a deep, terrifying darkness enveloped him.
When the sun had set and it was dark, there appeared a smoking brazier and a flaming torch, which passed between those pieces.
It was on that occasion that the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the Great River (the Euphrates).”
Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team