Abraham
glossary_termThe man of faith and patriarch of Israel with whom God made a covenant which promised him land in which to live and many descendants, a great people for whom the Lord would be their God. Through Abraham God formed the people to whom he would later give the law by revelation to Moses. With the advent of Christ, the people of Israel would serve as the root to which the Gentiles would be grafted by their coming to believe
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Catechism Passages
Passages ranked by relevance to Abraham, from most closely related outward.
In order to gather together scattered humanity God calls Abram from his country, his kindred and his father's house, 16 and makes him Abraham, that is, "the father of a multitude of nations". "In you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed." 17
God chose Abraham and made a covenant with him and his descendants. By the covenant God formed his people and revealed his law to them through Moses. Through the prophets, he prepared them to accept the salvation destined for all humanity.
The Letter to the Hebrews, in its great eulogy of the faith of Israel's ancestors, lays special emphasis on Abraham's faith: "By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was to go." 4 By faith, he lived as a stranger and pilgrim in the promised land. 5 By faith, Sarah was given to conceive the son of the promise. and by faith Abraham offered his only son in sacrifice. 6
Disfigured by sin and death, man remains "in the image of God," in the image of the Son, but is deprived "of the glory of God," 66 of his "likeness." the promise made to Abraham inaugurates the economy of salvation, at the culmination of which the Son himself will assume that "image" 67 and restore it in the Father's "likeness" by giving it again its Glory, the Spirit who is "the giver of life."
The remote preparation for this gathering together of the People of God begins when he calls Abraham and promises that he will become the father of a great people. 157 Its immediate preparation begins with Israel's election as the People of God. By this election, Israel is to be the sign of the future gathering of All nations. 158 But the prophets accuse Israel of breaking the covenant and behaving like a prostitute. They announce a new and eternal covenant. "Christ instituted this New Covenant." 159
When God calls him, Abraham goes forth "as the Lord had told him"; 8 Abraham's heart is entirely submissive to the Word and so he obeys. Such attentiveness of the heart, whose decisions are made according to God's will, is essential to prayer, while the words used count only in relation to it. Abraham's prayer is expressed first by deeds: a man of silence, he constructs an altar to the Lord at each stage of his journey. Only later does Abraham's first prayer in words appear: a veiled complaint reminding God of his promises which seem unfulfilled. 9 Thus one aspect of the drama of prayer appears from the beginning: the test of faith in the fidelity of God.