Last week's reading at Mass features Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac his son.

Recall that Isaac was a gift to Abraham, of sorts. God had promised Abraham (then Abram) that he would be the father of many; that his descendants would even outnumber the grains of sand of the beach or the stars of the sky.

So after receiving this son, who was surely Abraham's only hope in the fulfillment of God's promise, Abraham was called upon by God to sacrifice this son. We aren't given any specific look into the anguish Abraham felt, but we can well imagine it. We also don't get to see how he may have struggled with himself over his trust of God. What we know is that, in the end, Abraham did what God asked. He prepared to sacrifice his son to God. Of course, we know the ending of that story: God didn't actually let him carry out the deed.

We also know that the story of Abraham presages another, to take place centuries later. However, in the later story, the deed was permitted to reach completion.

The later story is, of course, the Father's gift of His Son to us, at Christmas, and the Son's gift of Himself to the Father, on Good Friday.

We see once again: God's love is never out-done. He always gives more of Himself than He asks of us.