Saturday of Ninth Week in Ordinary Time, June 9, 2007

Scripture: Tobit 12:1-5,20. Psalm taken from Tobit 13:2,6-8. Mark
12:38-44. Lectionary # 358:

Henri Nouwen sees blessing as part of the Eucharist. We bless God because
God blesses us with our life and its gifts. We are the image and likeness
of God. We can bless others by telling them their gifts and virtues and
praising them for their edifying use of these blessings. Today's final
reading from Tobit reminded me how often he and his family blessed people
and were so generous in extending hospitality. Though the book is a
novella and a melodrama, its lessons and prayers are beautiful, simple, and
amusing as we take time to read or listen to them. Graces are surprises and
we all are surprised by God's joy in giving us his blessings and graces.
Sometimes after long periods of struggle, agony, loss, and even deaths of
friends, we realize God gives us graces through these happenings and
experiences in our lives. This is what Tobit is all about...the wonderful
healing surprises of God under the workings of his angel called Raphael,
the Healing Angel of God. In today's reading Raphael finally reveals who
he is and he encourages the family to keep praying and blessing God.
Almsgiving, hospitality, and the corporal works of mercy were the reasons
why Tobit was graced. He showed us what it means to love our neighbors.
Jesus has given us the supreme example of this with his life and his saving
activities among us. In the Gospel he is aware of the widow who is putting
in her last bit of money into the Temple as an offering. She is
immortalized in this narrative, and even though we do not know her name,
Jesus does. He looks on us as he did the widow who put in that last coin
she had. Today we are encouraged to give generously of ourselves and our
time. We are to thank God for those wonderful surprises of grace that God
gives us through prayer, through friends, and through the Holy Spirit who
blesses us with the sevenfold gifts that are already in us through our
baptism and confirmation. Raphael, who is known to us through the book of
Tobit says in today's reading, "Bless God each and every day...sing God's
praises.!
Amen.