Friday in the Ninth Week Of Ordinary Time, June, 4, 2021

Tobit 11:5-17

Anna sat watching the road by which her son was to come. When she saw him coming, she exclaimed to his father, “Tobit, your son is coming, and the man who traveled with him!”  Raphael said to Tobiah before he reached his father: “I am certain that his eyes will be opened. Smear the fish gall on them. This medicine will make the cataracts shrink and peel off from his eyes; then your father will again be able to see the light of day.”  Then Anna ran up to her son, threw her arms around him, and said to him, “Now that I have seen you again, son, I am ready to die!” And she sobbed aloud. Tobit got up and stumbled out through the courtyard gate. Tobiah went up to him with the fish gall in his hand, and holding him firmly, blew into his eyes. “Courage, father,” he said. Next he smeared the medicine on his eyes, and it made them smart. Then, beginning at the corners of Tobit’s eyes, Tobiah used both hands to peel off the cataracts. When Tobit saw his son, he threw his arms around him and wept. He exclaimed, “I can see you, son, the light of my eyes!” Then he said: “Blessed be God, and praised be his great name, and blessed be all his holy angels. May his holy name be praised throughout all the ages, Because it was he who scourged me, and it is he who has had mercy on me. Behold, I now see my son Tobiah!”  Then Tobit went back in, rejoicing and praising God with full voice for everything that had happened. Tobiah told his father that the Lord God had granted him a successful journey; that he had brought back the money; and that he had married Raguel’s daughter Sarah, who would arrive shortly, for she was approaching the gate of Nineveh. Tobit and Anna rejoiced and went out to the gate of Nineveh to meet their daughter-in-law. When the people of Nineveh saw Tobit walking along briskly, with no one leading him by the hand, they were amazed. Before them all Tobit proclaimed how God had mercifully restored sight to his eyes. When Tobit reached Sarah, the wife of his son Tobiah, he greeted her: “Welcome, my daughter! Blessed be your God for bringing you to us, daughter! Blessed is your father, and blessed is my son Tobiah, and blessed are you, daughter! Welcome to your home with blessing and joy. Come in, daughter!” That day there was joy for all the Jews who lived in Nineveh.

The events described in the Book of Tobit would have taken place during the exile of the Jews to Babylon approximately from 597 to 539 B.C.  The story concerns a Jewish man, Tobit, who lives righteously according to the Law despite his exile, the destruction of the Temple and the Kingdom of Judah, and no realistic prospects that any of this will change.  Despite his piety, Tobit loses his sight and is compelled to call in loans he had made during the time of his prosperity.  He sends his son Tobiah to one such family to whom he had loaned money in a distant land, and he is accompanied there by the Archangel Raphael, sent by God, and who has taken the form of a member of Tobit’s family.  Together, they venture to the home of Raguel and his daughter Sarah, who has lost seven consecutive husbands on their wedding nights to a demon named Asmodeus.  Urged on by the disguised Raphael, Tobiah asks to marry Sarah, and Raphael protects them on their wedding night.  Returning to his father with his bride, Tobiah is able to cure him, or, rather, Raphael cures him through a medicine he had prepared and given to Tobiah.  At the end of the book, Raphael dramatically reveals himself as an Angel of God and then departs for heaven.  Fragments of this book have been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls and it is found in its entirety in the three earliest complete Greek Bibles that we have.  It is not accepted as canonical by the Jews because it was not originally written in Hebrew, and the Protestants, who take their Old Testament canon from the Jews, do not regard it as canonical either.  Inasmuch as it was part of the Septuagint, which the Apostles used, it has been accepted by the Catholic Church.  It is a lovely and lively book and makes delightful reading.  It is a book about the holiness of marriage and the care God renders to his faithful ones through his angels.  It is also a book about perseverance in times of trouble, showing the examples of Tobit, who has gone blind; and Sarah, who has married and lost seven husbands.  True to the Law of God despite their terrible misfortunes, they are rewarded with great blessings.

With rapturous words, the newly healed Tobit, whose son has just returned from his long journey, greets the woman his son has married, as she enters the great city of Nineveh: “Welcome, my daughter! Blessed be your God for bringing you to us, daughter! Blessed is your father, and blessed is my son Tobiah, and blessed are you, daughter! Welcome to your home with blessing and joy. Come in, daughter!”  How very like the ecstatic words the Lord will say to those who were faithful to him on earth when he welcomes them into the kingdom of heaven: “Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world!” (Matthew 25, 34).