Readings for June 3, 2009

Tb 3:1-16
1 Distressed, I wept and prayed and expressing my sorrow, I said, 2“You are just, O Lord; all your actions and all your ways are merciful and just; your judgments are always true and just. 3Remember me, Lord, and look on me. Do not punish me for my sins nor for the wrongs I have committed through ignorance. Pardon the sins which my fathers have committed in your sight, 4for they disobeyed your commandments. You have allowed us to suffer pillage, captivity and death. You have allowed us to be mocked by all the pagan nations among whom we have been dispersed. 5Ah well! All your judgments are just when you choose to punish me for my sins and those of my fathers, because we have not accomplished your will, nor have we sincerely obeyed your commands. We have not walked before you in truth.
6Do with me as you will. Order my life taken from me, and turn me into dust, because I prefer death to life. In this way free me and let me return to dust. It is better for me to die than to live, because these unjust reproaches have caused me great distress. Command that I be now released from trials, and let me enter my eternal dwelling place. Do not turn your face away from me.”
7That same day, at Ecbatana in Media, Sara, the daughter of Ragouel, was insulted in a similar way by her father’s young maidservants. 8Sara had had seven husbands, but the demon Asmodeus had killed each one of them before the marriage had been consummated. The maidservants said, “It was you who killed your husbands. You have had seven husbands and you have not enjoyed marital relationship with any of them. 9Why do you punish us? Since they are dead, go and join them. May we never see a son or daughter of yours!”
10That same day Sara was so distressed in mind that she went to the upper room in her father’s house. She wished to hang herself. But she thought better of it and said: “If people ever reproached my father and said to him: ‘You had an only daughter whom you cherished and she hanged herself because she was unhappy,’ I would cause my father in his old age to die of grief. It is better for me not to hang myself but to ask the Lord that I may die and not live to hear any more insults.”
11At that moment she stretched forth her hands towards the window and prayed, saying, “You are blessed, O Lord my God, and blessed is your holy and glorious Name throughout the ages. May all your works praise you forever. 12Lord I have turned my eyes and my face towards you. 13Command that I be set free from the earth and that I may hear no more insults. 14You know, O Lord, that I am pure of all contact with man; 15that I have not defiled my name, nor my father’s name in the country of my captivity. I am my father’s only daughter. He has no other son or daughter who can inherit from him, neither has he a close relative who can be given to me as a husband. So, after my seven husbands are dead, I have no one to live for. If it does not seem good to you, O Lord, that I should die, command that people will respect me and have pity on me and that I may hear no more insults.”
16The Lord in his glory heard the prayer of Tobit and of Sara 17and he sent Raphael to heal them both – to give back his sight to Tobit and to give Sara, the daughter of Ragouel, to Tobit’s son Tobias, as his wife. Also, Raphael would enchain the wicked demon Asmodeus so that Sara would be the wife of Tobias.
At the same time Tobit, who had gone for a short walk, returned to the house; and Sara, the daughter of Ragouel, came down from the upper room.

Commentaries: He has dedicated his life in faithfulness to God and now finds himself poor, blind and, even, insulted by his wife Anna. How does he react? He presents his problem to God without complaining about anyone, not even about his wife.
In the Bible we repeatedly see that God tests us before granting us a special favor. We will really understand when we hear what Christ says to the disciples of Emmaus: “Did not the Messiah have to suffer all this to enter into his glory?” (Lk 24:26).
He is in solidarity with his sinner people and finds it just to be punished, even though he asks to be freed from this punishment.
He feels incapable of fighting alone in life, and asks for death, but leaves everything in God’s hands.
His prayer is to ask for strength and the ability to fulfill what God says and demands and not to present to God his own plan and ask him to realize it, as we often do when we pray.


Psalms 25:2-9
2In you my God I trust; let me not be put to shame, let not my enemies exult over me.
3Those who hope in you will never be humbled; those who turn away from you will suffer disgrace!
4Teach me your ways, O Lord; make known to me your paths.
5Guide me in your truth and instruct me, for you are my God, my savior; I hope in you all day long.
6Remember your compassion, O Lord, your unfailing love from of old.
7Remember not the sins of my youth, but in your love remember me.
8Good and upright, the Lord teaches sinners his way.
9He teaches the humble of heart and guides them in what is right.


Mk 12:18-27
18The Sadducees also came to Jesus. Since they claim that there is no resurrection, they questioned him in this way, 19“Master, in the Scriptures Moses gave us this law: ‘If anyone dies and leaves a wife but no children, his brother must take the wife and give her a child who will be considered the child of his deceased brother.’ 20Now, there were seven brothers. The first married a wife, but he died without leaving any children. 21The second took the wife and he, too, died leaving no children. The same thing happened to the third. 22Finally the seven died leaving no children. Last of all the woman died. 23Now, in the resurrection, to which of them will she be wife? For the seven had her as wife.”
24Jesus replied, “You could be wrong in this regard because you understand neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. 25When they rise from the dead, men and women do not marry but are like the angels in heaven.
26Now, about the resurrection of the dead, have you never reflected on the chapter of the burning bush in the book of Moses? God said to him: I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. 27Now, he is the God, not of the dead but of the living. You are totally wrong.”

Commentaries: Mark’s intention has been to put side by side the confrontations of Jesus with the two most important parties of the Jewish people: the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Sadducees – the chief priests – are the managers of God’s people. They do not believe in the spiritual nor in the resurrection. According to them these are disastrous innovations that weaken the national spirit and the power of the central system. Their Bible is limited to the Pentateuch where much is said of priests and nothing at all about resurrection.

THE RESURRECTION
What is “resurrection”? When Jesus called the daughter of Jairus (Mk 5:21) and Lazarus (Jn 11:1) back to life, they only recovered the life they had before. The daughter went back to her dreams, Lazarus went to work in his garden and after this both had to die again. This was not really resurrection.
Many people think that there is “something” after death and that something in us, called “soul,” survives. This belief is partly true but it is not the most important aspect. The resurrection points, not to a survival of “something of us,” but to a transformation and raising up of our whole person. This will be through grace and the work of God: we will be reborn of God himself.
We would like to know what we shall be once risen, but that is impossible. If we think back on what Paul tried to make us understand on this subject in 1Cor 15:35-57, this we must admit: as long as we are in the present world, a world where material things and time are our natural lot, it is impossible to imagine “the new heavens and the new earth” announced by the prophets and by Jesus (Is 65:17; Rev 21:1-4).
Let us come back to Paul’s comparisons: if someone has never seen more than the seeds of plants or trees, how could she imagine the plant covered with flowers or the tree fully grown? What common feature is there in appearance between the colorless, lifeless little seed and the plant with its flowers swaying in the wind? Whoever looks at the tree or plant knows well the source of this life that she admires. It is today impossible for us to imagine what we shall become, in the totality of our human being, after this transfiguration to which God calls us. When it has taken place we shall understand the vital link between what we shall be then and what we are today.
With this, we understand the double reproach of Jesus to the Sadducees:
You don’t understand the power of God. They only imagine a caricature of the resurrection.
You don’t understand the Scriptures. Very few books of the Hebrew Bible speak of the resurrection, but all of them refer to a living God who makes us his friends.
I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob (v. 26). If God committed himself to them, could he be indifferent to their death and let them disappear forever, while he enjoys himself in his glory?