The Power of Love, Human and Divine

In today’s first reading, Tobit 6: 10-11; 7: 1abcde, 9-17; 8: 4-9a, we are told the story of Tobiah’s marriage to Sarah, daughter of Raguel. Sarah was married seven times before and each of her husbands died the night of their marriage before having relations with Sarah.  For Tobiah to be given to Sarah in marriage was, to say the least, a great risk. Would harm come to him as well and would Sarah again be devastated by acute loss, shattered dreams, by the death of yet another husband.  Sarah’s mother, in preparing her daughter for this eighth marriage, says to her: “Be brave, my daughter. May the Lord grant you joy in place of your grief. Courage, my daughter.”  Sarah’s father says to Tobiah: “Your marriage  to her has been decided in heaven! Take your kinswoman; from now on you are her love, and she is your beloved. She is yours today and ever after. And tonight, son, may the Lord of heaven prosper you both. May he grant you mercy and peace.”  That night, Tobiah says to Sarah, “My love, get up. Let us pray and beg our Lord to have mercy on us and grant us deliverance.” The couple prayed and begged the Lord for deliverance that night, blessing the Lord, praising His name, calling upon the heavens and all of creation to praise God. And then said to God: “You made Adam and you gave him his wife Eve to be his help and support; and from these two the human race descended…Now, Lord, you know that I take this wife of mine not because of lust, but for a noble purpose. Call down your mercy on me and on her, and allow us to live together to a happy old age.”

What love! What an intimate relationship with the Lord. God must have smiled on both of them. Several lessons emerge for me from this story, as I reflect upon this Scripture passage: 1) every vocation is made in heaven, 2) Putting God at the center of each of the events in our lives is important, and especially when choosing our vocation, 3) Intimacy with the Lord is a lifetime task that needs to be taught to our children/grandchildren early in life, 4) Taking risks is possible when our faith/hope is anchored in the Lord, 5) Love must be the motivator of our choice of vocation or any other choice, not lust, not power, not “It is going to be my way or the highway; I’m the boss here.” 

What lessons emerge for you? What is God saying to you in this passage?

No Where to Turn

In today’s first reading, Tobit 3: 1-11a, 16-17, we encounter two very grief-stricken persons: Tobit and Raguel’s daughter Sarah. Tobit wanted God to take his life.  Tobit says to God: “It is better for me to die than to live, because I have heard insulting calumnies, and I am overwhelmed with grief.”  Sarah, who lost seven husbands  because of “the wicked demon Asmodeus [who] killed them off before they could have intercourse with her” is taunted by her maid. This maid accused her of strangling “your husbands! Look at you! You have already been married seven times, but you have had no joy with any one of your husbands. Why do you beat us? Is it on account of your seven husbands, because they are dead? May we never see a son or daughter of yours!”

Both Tobit and Sarah have recourse to God. Tobit cries out:  “Lord, command me to be delivered from such anguish; let me go to the everlasting abode; Lord, refuse me not. For it is better for me to die than to endure so much misery in life, and to hear these insults!”  Sarah comes to realize that “it is far better for me not to hang myself, but to beg the Lord to have me die, so that I need no longer live to hear such insults.”  Neither one of them hides their agonizing pain from the Lord.  Their honesty with the Lord in prayer leads to relief in a way they could never have imagined. In short, God works miracles by sending the angel Raphael to heal Tobit’s physical blindness and  “to marry… Sarah to Tobit’s son Tobiah, and then drive the wicked demon Asmodeus from her.”

When you and I are at our lowest, are we honest with God in prayer or do we hide our pain?  To whom  or to what do we have recourse when we can’t take it anymore?  Drugs? Sex? Shopping? Overeating? Starving ourselves? Gambling?  God?  Do we still believe miracles are possible, that God is listening to us when no one else seems to care?

Blocked from Rejoicing with Others

In the first reading of today’s liturgy, Tobit 2: 9-14, Tobit becomes very angry when his wife, Anna, brings home a goat. He angrily says to her: “From where did you get this goat? It is probably stolen and, in no way, are we going to eat meat of a stolen animal.”  He does not even wait for his wife’s explanation and when he hears it, he does not believe her.  Sound like you and me when we vehemently object to something we think is untrue? What prompts us before, and even after, hearing the truth to angrily charge another of inappropriate behavior, of, in fact from our retorts, lying to us?  When we take that stance, it is certainly not out of humility! What stops Tobit from appreciating the fact that his wife was given that goat as a bonus for her work? Why was he not rejoicing with her, believing her story? What stops you and me when we adamantly confront a child, our spouse/fellow religious, a friend even before the person tells us what happened? And once we start ranting and raving that what the person is telling us is untrue, our objections escalate! And what effect does our behavior have on the person who comes home excited about the good news he/she is about to share with us?  Envy and jealousy, wanting to be better than the other person, projecting our anger about something else going on within us on those close to us, even onto God, is not uncommon .  We need to take stock of our behavior at the close of every day, asking the Lord to show us the truth within us, to give us the grace to claim that truth and, if like Tobit, we have offended others by our arrogance, envy, pride, jealousy, ask pardon of that person, of God, and of ourselves.

In today's Gospel, Mark 12: 13-17, we also see envy and jealousy at work in the Pharisees and Herodians sent to confront Jesus. When, we need to ask ourselves, are we trying to ensnare others as these men were? When are our statements fueled by our low self-esteem, jealousy, envy, pride and anger? When are we projecting our problems on to others in this way?

The Holy Trinity

THE HOLY TRINITY

Three persons in one God!

Holiness in its fullness belong to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit!

Ever ending is the Father’s communication with the Son, the Son’s obedience to the Father and the Holy Spirit’s loving union with the Father and the Son.

Handing His plan for the salvation of the world to His Son Jesus, Jesus, in turns, carries it out in His humanity.

Only to do what the Father tells Him to do is the Son’s resolve.

Little, or no concern, for the cost of obedience is Jesus’ disposition toward the Father.

Yesterday, today and tomorrow, God is always the same in His love for us.

Three persons in one God; one God in three Divine Persons.

Ready to carry out the Father’s will, Jesus does not cling to the glory that was His but becomes human.                                                                                                                 

In sync  with the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit descends down upon Jesus at His baptism while the Father’s voice is heard proclaiming: “This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”

Never cowering from His mission, Jesus follows the Spirit out into the desert where He is tempted.

In accord with the Father’s will, the Spirit descends upon the apostles and disciples on Pentecost.

Throughout His life, Jesus seeks time alone with the Father and, with the Spirit, casts out demons, heals the sick, the blind, the deaf and the dumb.

Yesterday, today and tomorrow, we encounter the Spirit  whom Jesus promised to send once He returned to His Father in heaven.

The Vineyard God Entrusted to Us

In today’s Gospel, Mark 12: 1-12, Jesus speaks to us in a parable of the vineyard that a man planted and then leased to tenants to cultivate and ultimately to harvest,  as the owner left on a journey. At harvest time the owner sent servants to collect the produce.  Each of the servants was beaten and sent away empty-handed. One was even killed. So the owner sent his son, thinking that the tenants would certainly respect his son. Him, too, they seized and put to death.

You and I are both the vineyard and the tenants .  Each of us is expected to till the soil of our souls, our minds, our hearts so that rich, ripe, delicious fruit is brought to maturity within us. We are responsible that the gifts of the Holy Spirit—counsel, understanding, knowledge, wisdom, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord—seeds planted within us at our baptism and confirmation—bear abundant fruit in our lives: joy, justice, charity, forgiveness, honesty, humility, generosity, compassion, prudence, temperance, and so on.  The “seeds” need to be “watered” by prayer, spiritual reading, study of the Scriptures, involvement in Church services and reception of the sacraments.  Our vineyard will also be cultivated when we are open to those sent into our lives to question us when we go astray. Cultivating or weeding our vineyard involves being corrected us when we are moving in a direction away from the Lord, making choices that weaken our resolve, erode our faith, and thwart our progress toward holiness and wholeness.  Will we “beat” those servants, “kill” them by our aggression and/or rejection of the truth that we need to face? If our vineyard is going to yield a rich harvest, we need to live a disciplined life and at times be disciplined by others.  We need to learn from what we suffer, from the mistakes we make. At times, we need  to submit to being “pruned” of dead “branches,” diseased, rotting fruit so as to continue growing in holiness, deepening our faith and trust in our Owner, God Himself.  The Owner will return to take us into heaven, the rewards of our labors. 

Will we have been good tenants of the vineyard entrusted to us: that of our own being (body, mind, and spirit) and vineyards that involves others and the world in which we live?