God tested Abraham by asking not for an ordinary sacrifice, which would have been a partial burning with the meat divided between God and the people and eaten by those who sacrificed, but for a holocaust, a total burning of the sacrificial animal. This type of sacrifice consecrated the entire offering to God alone.

If there is one word that stands out in today’s readings, it is “covenant.” God’s faithfulness and goodness serve as examples to us of how to live.

Today’s Gospel centers on the plight of a leper and Jesus’ response of healing. In Hawaii, the bacterium that causes leprosy probably entered from China in the mid-1800s, and the native islanders were susceptible to the dreaded disease. In 1866, the government literally dumped the sufferers on a remote and virtually inaccessible island peninsula with towering cliffs. Thrown off ships into the sea, the sick people were told to swim for the beach and head for caves, and for seven years the only supplies were similarly cast into the sea to drift ashore.

We’re reading St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians these days. What was Corinth like? It had a beautiful setting on an isthmus, about fifty miles from Athens. The location makes for very easy exchange by sea routes between Greece and Italy, a factor in its economic success even today. In Paul’s day it was a cosmopolitan and wealthy city with inhabitants drawn from all over the world, including a sizeable Jewish community.