What a long reading we had today from the book of Tobit. If we read small parts of it spread out over two or three days though, we wouldn’t get the whole picture. We would get caught up in the little details and lose sight of the big picture. The first reading today cuts you off like a good suspense series on television, where you have to wait for the following week to find out “the rest of the story”. Tobiah and Sarah went to sleep for the night and we will have to wait to find out if he lived through the night or not. This reading does not continue on Friday though, so we may have to finish the reading in the bible ourselves if we can’t wait to learn how this story ends.
The society that Tobiah lived in sure did things a lot different than we do now. It sounds like Tobiah and Sarah did not have to be married by a priest and that a marriage contract was drawn up by the parents themselves and once it was signed, that was all they had to do. It was an admirable thing that Sarah’s father told Tobiah very clearly ahead of time what was the situation was, so that Tobiah knew in advance what he was getting himself into and could decide if he wanted to marry Sarah or not. Hopefully, couples that are dating will pay attention to this, because the right thing to do is to be honest with each other about their lives and hopes for the future. Problems can crop up in a marriage later if there was a serious concern that was not revealed prior to getting married, like not wanting to have children or a drug or alcohol problem that was concealed. It can cause a lot of misery later in life if issues like this was not known prior to getting married and in Tobiah’s case it could have cost him his life if he did not know about the circumstances he was getting himself into.
Tobiah is awesome though. What is so awesome about Tobiah is that he put God first and did everything the right way and even prayed for Sarah and himself on their wedding night. Now, how many newly weds these days pray on their wedding night? Hmmmm. Tobiah’s prayer and the fact he carefully followed the angel Raphael’s instructions, as well as setting things right with Sarah’s father saved his life though.
And that is pretty much what the Gospel is about today too. In fact the first reading about Tobiah and Sarah actually sheds a new light on the Gospel too. We are supposed to love God above all others. We are supposed to love God first. Nothing else falls into place in the right way unless we give God the first priority in our lives. It is very obvious that Tobiah had his priorities set right. There are a lot of people who get these two commandments reversed and that can cause a lot of problems in life, because our belief in God is the foundation of our lives. Human beings, not even a spouse, come before our relationship with God. This commandment should never be glossed over as we move on to the second great commandment.
Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel that the second greatest commandment is “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. This too could use a little clarifying, because Christ never said we are to love others more than ourselves. We are to love other people just as much as we love ourselves. This respects our human dignity and everyone else’s too. The challenge is to live our lives this way. It’s easier said than done.
This is the clarity that we may need to be reminded of from time to time.Our relationship with God comes first. We are to love Him before anyone else in our lives. But, for some of us it is harder to love ourselves. It is easier to love others more than ourselves, but that isn’t really what Christ said to do.Self love is not a sin. It is not a sin to love yourself and want what is best for you sometimes too. It isn’t selfish as long as you think about how your actions affect others and give them the same love, respect and consideration that you do for yourself.
Today, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to be good to yourself just a little, if you are the type of person who always takes care of other people first. And it’s not selfish to take a little time for your own spiritual life either, by going on a retreat, visit an adoration chapel or maybe attend an extra mass or two during the week. It might actually help your life be drawn back into focus a lot more and heal whatever rough spots that you may be experiencing in your own life too.
