Month: June 2021

Anna sat watching the road by which her son was to come.
When she saw him coming, she exclaimed to his father,
“Tobit, your son is coming, and the man who traveled with him!”

Raphael said to Tobiah before he reached his father:
“I am certain that his eyes will be opened.
Smear the fish gall on them.
This medicine will make the cataracts shrink and peel off from his eyes;
then your father will again be able to see the light of day.”

Then Anna ran up to her son, threw her arms around him,
and said to him, 
“Now that I have seen you again, son, I am ready to die!”
And she sobbed aloud.

Tobit got up and stumbled out through the courtyard gate.
Tobiah went up to him with the fish gall in his hand,
and holding him firmly, blew into his eyes.
“Courage, father,” he said.
Next he smeared the medicine on his eyes, and it made them smart.
Then, beginning at the corners of Tobit’s eyes,
Tobiah used both hands to peel off the cataracts.

When Tobit saw his son, he threw his arms around him and wept.
He exclaimed, “I can see you, son, the light of my eyes!”
Then he said: 

    “Blessed be God,
        and praised be his great name,
        and blessed be all his holy angels.
    May his holy name be praised
        throughout all the ages,
    Because it was he who scourged me,
        and it is he who has had mercy on me.
    Behold, I now see my son Tobiah!”

Then Tobit went back in, rejoicing and praising God with full voice 
for everything that had happened.
Tobiah told his father that 
the Lord God had granted him a successful journey;
that he had brought back the money;
and that he had married Raguel’s daughter Sarah,
who would arrive shortly,
for she was approaching the gate of Nineveh.

Tobit and Anna rejoiced 
and went out to the gate of Nineveh
to meet their daughter-in-law.
When the people of Nineveh saw Tobit walking along briskly,
with no one leading him by the hand, they were amazed.
Before them all Tobit proclaimed
how God had mercifully restored sight to his eyes.
When Tobit reached Sarah, the wife of his son Tobiah,
he greeted her: “Welcome, my daughter!
Blessed be your God for bringing you to us, daughter!
Blessed is your father, and blessed is my son Tobiah, 
and blessed are you, daughter!
Welcome to your home with blessing and joy.
Come in, daughter!”
That day there was joy for all the Jews who lived in Nineveh.

R. (1b) Praise the Lord, my soul!
or:
R. Alleluia.
Praise the LORD, O my soul;
    I will praise the LORD all my life;
    I will sing praise to my God while I live. 
R. Praise the Lord, my soul!
or:
R. Alleluia.
The LORD keeps faith forever,
    secures justice for the oppressed,
    gives food to the hungry.
The LORD sets captives free.
R. Praise the Lord, my soul!
or:
R. Alleluia.
The LORD gives sight to the blind.
The LORD raises up those who are bowed down;
    the LORD loves the just.
The LORD protects strangers.
R. Praise the Lord, my soul!
or:
R. Alleluia.
The fatherless and the widow he sustains,
    but the way of the wicked he thwarts
The LORD shall reign forever,
    your God, O Zion, through all generations! Alleluia.
R. Praise the Lord, my soul!
or:
R. Alleluia.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Whoever loves me will keep my word,
and my Father will love him
and we will come to him.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

As Jesus was teaching in the temple area he said,
“How do the scribes claim that the Christ is the son of David?
David himself, inspired by the Holy Spirit, said:

    The Lord said to my lord,
    ‘Sit at my right hand
    until I place your enemies under your feet.’

David himself calls him ‘lord’;
so how is he his son?”
The great crowd heard this with delight.

Grief-stricken in spirit, I, Tobit, groaned and wept aloud.
Then with sobs I began to pray:

    “You are righteous, O Lord,
        and all your deeds are just;
    All your ways are mercy and truth;
        you are the judge of the world.
    And now, O Lord, may you be mindful of me,
        and look with favor upon me.
    Punish me not for my sins,
        nor for my inadvertent offenses,
        nor for those of my ancestors. 

    “We sinned against you,
        and disobeyed your commandments.
    So you handed us over to plundering, exile, and death,
        till you made us the talk and reproach of all the nations
        among whom you had dispersed us.

    “Yes, your judgments are many and true
        in dealing with me as my sins
        and those of my ancestors deserve.
    For we have not kept your commandments,
        nor have we trodden the paths of truth before you.

    “So now, deal with me as you please,
        and command my life breath to be taken from me,
        that I may go from the face of the earth into dust.
    It is better for me to die than to live,
        because I have heard insulting calumnies,
        and I am overwhelmed with grief.

    “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!”

On the same day, at Ecbatana in Media,
it so happened that Raguel’s daughter Sarah
also had to listen to abuse,
from one of her father’s maids.
For she had been married to seven husbands,
but the wicked demon Asmodeus killed them off
before they could have intercourse with her,
as it is prescribed for wives.
So the maid said to her:
“You are the one who strangles 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!”

The girl was deeply saddened that day,
and she went into an upper chamber of her house, 
where she planned to hang herself.

But she reconsidered, saying to herself:
“No! People would level this insult against my father:
‘You had only one beloved daughter,
but she hanged herself because of ill fortune!’
And thus would I cause my father in his old age
to go down to the nether world laden with sorrow.
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.”

At that time, then, she spread out her hands,
and facing the window, poured out her prayer:

    “Blessed are you, O Lord, merciful God,
    and blessed is your holy and honorable name.
    Blessed are you in all your works for ever!”

At that very time, 
the prayer of these two suppliants
was heard in the glorious presence of Almighty God.
So Raphael was sent to heal them both:
to remove the cataracts from Tobit’s eyes,
so that he might again see God’s sunlight;
and to marry Raguel’s daughter Sarah to Tobit’s son Tobiah,
and then drive the wicked demon Asmodeus from her.

R. (1) To you, O Lord, I lift my soul.
In you I trust; let me not be put to shame,
    let not my enemies exult over me.
No one who waits for you shall be put to shame;
    those shall be put to shame who heedlessly break faith.
R. To you, O Lord, I lift my soul.
Your ways, O LORD, make known to me;
    teach me your paths,
Guide me in your truth and teach me,
    for you are God my savior.
R. To you, O Lord, I lift my soul.
Remember that your compassion, O LORD,
    and your kindness are from of old.
In your kindness remember me,
    because of your goodness, O LORD.
R. To you, O Lord, I lift my soul.
Good and upright is the LORD;
    thus he shows sinners the way.
He guides the humble to justice,
    he teaches the humble his way. 
R. To you, O Lord, I lift my soul.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the resurrection and the life, says the Lord;

whoever believes in me will never die.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection,
came to Jesus and put this question to him, saying,
“Teacher, Moses wrote for us,
‘If someone’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no child,
his brother must take the wife
and raise up descendants for his brother.’
Now there were seven brothers.
The first married a woman and died, leaving no descendants.
So the second brother married her and died, leaving no descendants,
and the third likewise.
And the seven left no descendants.
Last of all the woman also died.
At the resurrection when they arise whose wife will she be?
For all seven had been married to her.”
Jesus said to them, “Are you not misled
because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?
When they rise from the dead,
they neither marry nor are given in marriage,
but they are like the angels in heaven.
As for the dead being raised,
have you not read in the Book of Moses,
in the passage about the bush, how God told him,
    I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, 
    and the God of Jacob?
He is not God of the dead but of the living.
You are greatly misled.”