05/06/2023

Tobit and the other exiles were deprived of the centre of their worship. Their temple was no more and they were no longer in the Promised Land. They still remembered Zion and the Lord. This consciousness of their relationship to God manifested itself in their solidarity as a people, continued observance of festivals and corporal works of mercy. 

Tobit is ready to invite a poor man to eat with him but the feeding of the hungry has to wait as he is compelled by his conscience to first bury the corpse abandoned by murderers in the market place. His devotion to God displayed in his care for his "fellow man" is scorned by his neighbours.

Jesus' parable is so obviously about the Father and his love for his Chosen Ones that everyone who heard it, Scribes and High Priests, knew that it was aimed at them. The "clergy" were afraid to act because the listeners seemed to approve of Jesus and his message. They even ignored the blasphemy  implied by "owner's son ". 

We read the parable in the light of 2000 years of Christianity but they who heard it for the first time knew only the Old Testament scriptures. Maybe "Son of God" was so inconceivable a concept that it did not register at first. They went away without acting at that time but later that week it would be part of the main evidence used to justify the Crucifixion.

Dear Lord, let me  maintain the consistency of Tobit in devotion to you. Show us how the Church can be one with you. Help our English clergy to overcome the pressures of our national culture and know that nice living in comfort and pleasant surroundings is an affront to the spirit of the Gospels. May Mary and all the saints support all our priests in their devotion to virtue and avoidance of vice. Send us a new St Boniface to repeat in present day England what he did in Germany and may my sins and those of the Holy Souls become ready to receive your boundless mercy.