Monday in the 29th Week of Ordinary Time, October 20, 2025

Romans 4:20-25

Abraham did not doubt God’s promise in unbelief; rather, he was empowered by faith and gave glory to God and was fully convinced that what God had promised he was also able to do. That is why it was credited to him as righteousness. But it was not for him alone that it was written that it was credited to him; it was also for us, to whom it will be credited, who believe in the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over for our transgressions and was raised for our justification.

We continue reflecting on the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans.

When St. Paul speaks of Abraham in his letter to the Romans, he does not present a man without questions or trials, but a man whose trust in God deepened through them. “Abraham did not doubt God’s promise in unbelief,” Paul writes, “but was empowered by faith and gave glory to God.”  The phrase is striking: Abraham’s faith was not a mere assent of the mind but a giving of glory.  His belief magnified God’s majesty.  By trusting that God could do what he had promised, Abraham proclaimed the divine power more eloquently than words could.

Faith, then, is itself a form of worship.  When we believe that God will be faithful, we glorify him as the One who cannot lie, whose goodness does not fail.  To doubt in despair would be to narrow the horizon of His mercy.  To believe — even when everything in us trembles — is to say with Abraham: “You are able.”

St. Thomas Aquinas explains that Abraham’s faith was counted as righteousness because it aligned the whole man — intellect, will, and heart—with the truth of God.  It was not faith in faith, nor faith in himself, but faith in the living God who can raise the dead.  To believe in such a God is already to begin to live the new life of grace.

Paul then draws the bridge from Abraham to us.  “It was not for him alone,” he says, “that it was written that it was credited to him; it was also for us.”  The story of Abraham is not a relic of ancient nomads wandering through desert sands; it is the mirror in which every Christian must see his or her own pilgrimage.  The promise to Abraham — of a son, of countless descendants, of a homeland prepared by God—finds its perfect fulfillment in Christ.  In Jesus, the true Son is born, the nations become his children, and the homeland of heaven opens before us.

We, too, must believe against hope.  The faith of Abraham is resurrected in us whenever we dare to hope that God’s word will be fulfilled, even when experience seems to contradict it.  “He was fully convinced,” Paul says, “that what God had promised He was also able to do.”  That conviction is not arrogance but humility—the surrender of reason to a Wisdom higher than its own.

The Apostle brings his meditation to its summit in verse 24: “It will be credited to us who believe in the One who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.”  Abraham believed that God could give life to the barren womb; we believe that God has given life to the tomb.  The same power that made Sarah fruitful has made the sepulcher fruitful; from death itself has come forth the new Adam, the beginning of a new creation.  “He was handed over for our transgressions,” Paul continues, “and raised for our justification.”  In these two clauses lies the whole Paschal mystery.  The Cross is the price of our redemption; the Resurrection is the proof of our restoration.  Christ’s death cancels sin; his rising imparts the righteousness of new life.

To believe this is to stand beside Abraham beneath the starlit sky, counting the innumerable mercies of God.  Faith does not make the promise come true — it allows us to enter into what God has already accomplished.  The righteousness imputed to Abraham becomes, through Christ, the righteousness infused into us.  The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead awakens within us the cry of praise, the faith that gives glory to God.