XI Biblical Week in Camaldoli: The Calling of Abraham

From July 10 to 15 the XI Bible Week will be held in Camaldoli and will dedicated to the cycle of Abraham. The speakers for the said convention will be André Wenin, Gabriele Boccaccini and Giuseppe Pulcinelli.  In comparison to the stories of Jacob and Joseph that are narrated within a specific plot, Abraham’s story seems to consist mostly of independent episodes. However, despite being of little visibility, the red thread of the story is no less strong. From the beginning where Abraham received the order to leave “his father’s house” (Gn 12:1), until the end where he himself became a father, he was asked to renounce his son (22:1-2). YHWH did not stop accompanying him step by step, to do for him and with him what he immediately announced: “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless and magnify your name” (12,2a). Throughout history, with orders and instructions, announcements and promises, actions and dialogues, God gradually educates Abraham despite his resistance and slowness to make successive renunciations so that greed and the desire to possess and control do not prevent the blessing promised to him and intended for “all the families of the earth” (12,3b). History, therefore, derives its coherence not from a crisis to be resolved, but from the relationship that God patiently weaves with Abraham and the evolution that he carries out in this context until the definitive confirmation of the blessing (22:16-18). Its realization recorded in 24.1: “Abraham was old, years old, and YHWH had blessed him in everything”.

Download the program for all necessary the informations.