Wednesday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time
(Tobit
3:1-11a.16-17a; Mark 12:18-27)
If today’
first reading sounds like a melodrama, it’s being read correctly. The Book of Tobit
was written as a novel during persecution to shore up the hopes of Jews. It narrates the ordeals of ancestors living similar
ordeals in exile five hundred years earlier.
In the story the archangel Raphael rescues the titular character as a manifestation
of God’s mercy.
The reading
today focuses on two characters undergoing hardships as they strive to be
faithful to God. Tobit had been known
for carrying out all the precepts of Scripture.
Now, stricken with blindness, he has become cynical. Sarah has experienced a comedy of misfortune as
she has lost seven husbands on her wedding night. Significantly, both Tobit and Sarah appeal to
the Lord for help with prayer.
Although they
differ greatly in intensity, trials are part of everyone’s life. We should not run from them or to bemoan them
incessantly. As the Tobit and Sarah demonstrate,
we do well to bear them patiently while asking God’s assistance. It may be said that God has countless angels
like Raphael to send to us.
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