Domingos Sequeira: Tobias Heals the Blindness of his father Tobit
As a Noontimecompanion, you will know that this book is a favorite. This story is full of fidelity, promise, hope, healing, courage, desperation, prayers answered and the mystery of how we gain most in ourselves by trusting God. The story tells us of the importance of the mystery of trust. We see God move not only through the disguise of the archangel Rafael, but also through people who respond to God’s call – even when it places them in danger.
Today’s excerpt is brief but we gain much if we spend some of our time with these verses. They are a wonderful antidote for a dispirited day. The story reminds us of all the Old Testament foretells, all the prophets predict, all the wisdom books proclaim, and all that Jesus comes to fulfill. We have valuable lessons here. On this second weekend of Lent, we serve ourselves well by reflecting with these verses and taking in their lessons.
First: Tobit shows us that God is good, and we are good. It also shows us that although life is brutal and unpredictable, it is good because it brings us to God.
Second: The faithful need not fight, they only need to stand and refuse to do anything that causes them to abandon their God. We need to kill people with kindness, we need to make our hearts open and vulnerable to God, we must become Christ’s hands and feet, head and heart through the act of healing one another, and through the act of interceding for one another, even our enemies.
Tomorrow, we discover how these lessons teach us the importance of the mystery of wisdom and trust. If we take an hour or so to read more than these verses this weekend, we will not regret our decision to use our time in this way.
Adapted from a reflection written on March 10, 2008.
Titian: Judith and the Head of HolofernesThis is one of my favorite stories – perhaps because the protagonist is a woman. A good commentary will let us know that there were Hebrew, Latin and Greek versions of this story and that while no one knows the actual events which this narrative describes, it is meant as a text that will bolster the peoples’ faith in the presence of God among them. It is “a tract for difficult times; the reader, it is hoped, would take to heart the lesson that God was still the Master of history, who would save Israel from her enemies. Note the parallel with the time of Exodus: as God had delivered his people by the hands of Moses, so he could deliver them by the hand of the pious widow Judith”. (Senior 520)
Chapter 7 tells of the siege of the town Bethuliaby the Assyrian troops of King Nebuchadnezzar under the military leadership of Holofernestogether with local tribes; and it sets the story. If you have time today or this evening, read the entire story. I promise you will not be disappointed.
It is fascinating to read about these two groups of men who take into account both the small details and the broad strategies in order to lay out the best plans. They reconnoiter approaches, locate water sources, assess troop strength, close off escape routes, and store up resources. Meanwhile, the Israelites watch and pray. Their leader tells them: Let us wait five days more for the Lord our God, to show his mercy toward us; he will not utterly forsake us. Still, because the odds were so stacked against them, the Hebrew people of Bethulia mourned. They saw no hope of deliverance and believed they would all be killed or enslaved.
They were in a desperate place with desperate circumstances, yet they hoped. And a woman acts to save them. As we have observed, it is a great story.
As we reflect on this story we arrive at this thought: If we always turned to God at the first moment an army amassed itself against us, and if we would be willing to trust an unlikely agent – such as the widow Judith – we might find ourselves less anxious and more joyful.
Today’s Psalm at Mass is 112 with the repeated antiphon: The heart of the just one is firm, trusting in the Lord. One of the stanzas reads: An evil report he shall not fear; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord. His heart is steadfast; he shall not fear till he looks down upon his foes.
If we might trust as Judith trusts, if we might steady our hearts to make them steadfast and focused on Christ – the rescuer who rescues all who turn to him – we might find more success and less war. When we hear evil reports as we do each day when we tune into the news, we would tremble less. When we hear rumors about family, friends and colleagues, we might wait five days or so and petition God for advice in the meantime. When we fear that we have gone wrong and have lost our way, we might rely on God’s mercy, knowing that he will not forsake us.
If you have time today to spend with some ancient people who thought they faced extinction and yet were saved, you will be rewarded with a story about a pious widow who saves a town . . . and your heart may move closer to firmness, to justice, to trust in the Lord.
Senior, Donald, ed. THE CATHOLIC STUDY BIBLE. New York, Oxford University Press, 1990.520. Print.
Written on June 2, 2009 and posted today as a Favorite.
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