The First Sunday after Easter “I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the Earth; Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him.” (Isaiah 43:6-7) God addressed these words through his Prophet Isaiah to Jacob, to the head and personification of his Chosen People Israel. Jacob, you will recall, was given the name “Israel” by God, and he was the father of the twelve sons who became the patriarchs of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. These words of God are specifically a promise, first and foremost, in the historical time of Isaiah, when the Chosen People were about to be taken into captivity by their enemies. God will bring his scattered children home from the lands of their captivity in the “north” and in the “south,” and he will return them to the Promised Land, where he will restore their life as a nation under his protection. It may seem to us that God is doing things “the hard way,” recalling his Chosen [...]![]()
