FRIDAY JUNE 9, 2017
Introduction
The piety of old Tobias and the endurance in his suffering are finally rewarded. In God’s name, the angel Raphael, whose name means “God heals,” cures Tobias from his blindness.
Using a rabbinic form of argumentation, Jesus states that he is more than a descendant of David. No king would have addressed his son as Lord. The Savior is more than a human being. Early Christianity understood this title of “Son” and “Lord” in the divine sense.
Opening Prayer
Lord our God,
the person who laid down his life
to save us from our human limitations
and to let us live in your world
is your own Son and our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Give us the true wisdom
to accept him as the Lord of our lives
and your presence among us.
Let him lead us to you,
our God, for ever and ever.
Reading 1 TB 11:5-17
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.
Responsorial Psalm 146:1B-2, 6C-7, 8-9A, 9BC-10
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.
Alleluia JN 14:23
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.
Gospel MK 12:35-37
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.
Intentions
– That we may recognize and love Jesus as one of us, who knows us and shares our struggles and concerns, we pray:
– That people everywhere may accept Christ as more than a great human person and as our Lord and Savior, we pray:
– That our communities may recognize Christ and his Spirit as the binding force of love and friendship among us we pray:
Prayer over the Gifts
Lord our God,
accept in this bread and this wine
our faith and our commitment to Jesus
as our Savior and Lord.
May he help us grow
in faith and patience,
in love and constancy,
that we may be ready for any good work
and encounter you and people
through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Prayer after Communion
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
your Son is with us
as our brother and Savior.
It is our joy
that he has become one of us,
human, breathing, living.
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We want to go his way.
Let his suffering be our victory,
his humiliation our honor,
his innocence our justice,
his death our life,
his resurrection our comfort,
for he is our Lord for ever.
(Based on a prayer by Caspar Neumann, +1700)
Blessing
We believe in Jesus Christ, born of the virgin Mary and one of us, human, but more than a human person: the Son of God and our Savior. May Almighty God confirm your faith and bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Today’s passage puzzles the scholars greatly. It could bear several interpretations. The people who were listening to Jesus were clear in their minds that the Messiah would be a descendent of King David—because of a text in their Scriptures, “I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever” (2S 7:13). They were clear: they knew the kind of Messiah they wanted. Whatever interpretation his saying is to bear, it is obvious that he is ruining their clarity. He is either saying that the Messiah will not be a descendent of David, or that he will be much more than a descendent of David.
There are people who insist on clarity above all else, thinking that clarity is a proof of truth. But there are many things that are clear and false. When we think, we have understood something we say “I have it!” We use the words “having”, “grasping”, “holding”, and the like. Even the word “concept” (from Latin capio) means ‘to seize’. These words should make us pause, because fundamentally it is not we who seize the truth, it is the truth that should seize us. As Chesterton put it, we are not here to get the skies into our heads, but to get our heads into the skies. To promote false clarity is to be an enemy of the truth.
