Reading 1
Tb 3:1-11a, 16-17a

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.

Gospel
Mk 12:18-27

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."

Something 2 Think About

There is more to life than what is laid out in front of us, and it takes the grace of God to open our eyes to the beauty that surrounds us. That is what I gathered from today's readings. How often has despair or problems at home, work, or school lead us to be "Grief-stricken in spirit." We all seem to have some sort of problem today.

Tobit and Sarah had their own problems to deal with. Tobit had his blindness and Sarah had to deal with a slanderous maid and a foul tormenting demon who made it difficult for her to bear life. Both of them were in such despair that they wanted die, end their life and suffering... "it is better to die than to endure so much misery in life, and to hear these insults... deeply saddened that day, she went into an upper chamber of her house, where she planned to hang herself." But they did not give up, rather in humility they recognized their limitations and prayed for God's mercy ""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... Blessed are you, O Lord, merciful God, and blessed is your holy and honorable name. Blessed are you in all your works for ever!" And thus mercy was given... "the prayer of these two suppliants was heard in the glorious presence of Almighty God."

Now, let's take what is going on in our lives right now with all its "problems" and think for a moment that we can sometimes see ourselves as Tobit and Sarah. "I had a bad day at work, my supervisor yelled at me... I can't seem to catch up on my homework, it's hopeless... I don't think this marriage is going to work, it's just not the same..." whatever complaint we have we best take these complaints before the Lord rather than to bottle them up or bury them deep inside masking suffering with a false outward appearance of joy. Be humble or be humbled. We all have our limitations and faults but we have to learn to accept our imperfections and seek Jesus Christ. Prayer begins with a sense of humility knowing that there is nothing greater than God and that we need His help because we can't do this on our own. Tobit and Sarah knew this, and it is by those humbled prayers that the Lord heard and reached out. When we pray let us not expect immediate results as we live in such a demanding world rather let us know that God does indeed hear our prayers and will answer them in His time and in His manner as we may get the answer to our prayers in such a way that we did not expect. You pray for a Mercedes and God will bless you with a Focus. You pray for peace and God will allow war. God's thoughts and ways are indeed not our thoughts and ways; and His ways are truly beyond our comprehension. As Tobit and Sarah showed us, it is not complicated to know our place in the whole scheme of things and that apart from God we are nothing. Reach for Jesus Christ, seek His guidance in the Church, and begin to be more devout in your faith than you ever thought possible. You may shock yourself. I know I did.

And in knowing that God's thoughts and ways are not our own, we see the Sadducees ever so humbled by Jesus Christ who points out this theological fact that apart from His Heavenly Father we can easily be "greatly mislead" as we live in a world of not only immediate results but in a world where we seek facts rather than truth. There is more to this life than what is laid in front of us. Images can depict the glory of God but we have to allow the Holy Spirit to open our senses to God's presence around us. May God grant us the grace to see and hear Him not only on a Sunday but every day no matter where we are.

What we can come to know in today's reading from the book of Numbers 21:4-9 and the Gospel of John 8:21-30 is to come in humble adoration before the Lord seeking only He who can heal us from our affliction of sin and eternal death. When we are fed the word of God we can reject it, question it, or tire from listening to it as the Israelites grew tired of wandering in the desert and eating manna which God provided to feed His people. In questioning we can be like the Pharisees who are quick to hear and question rather than to come to understand the word of God. But what do the Israelites and the Pharisees have in common in today's readings? They relied on their own strength and understanding complaining and questioning the ways of God rather than to rely on the strength and saving grace of our Lord. To put it in today's perspective, it's like hiring an amateur to do a professional's job. We would not hire or rely on a plumber to do open heart surgery on ourselves. No way! We would seek out the medical professionals, the doctors, to perform such a task. Same thing goes with our faith as Catholic Christians. We have to rely on the one true professional of our faith and that is Jesus Christ. I don't care if you are the world's most awful sinner or the world's greatest priest or theologian. We all need the grace of God to get by the day. A good priest would tell you that they too see Jesus as the high priest and that no authority is greater than His despite what today's culture would say about our practices and traditions as Catholics. If we can get one thing out of today's readings is that we are called to learn more about our faith and that it will take more than reciting the words of God every Sunday at Mass; it will take living the words of God beyond the walls of our Churches taking it out in our daily lives and practicing what we preach no matter what the circumstances may be. Without Christ the stress of the world would eventually crush us so let us seek ye first the Kingdom of God.

"Hi Guys, Remember Me?"
Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Reading 1 Is 65:17-21

Thus says the LORD: Lo, I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; The things of the past shall not be remembered or come to mind. Instead, there shall always be rejoicing and happiness in what I create; For I create Jerusalem to be a joy and its people to be a delight; I will rejoice in Jerusalem and exult in my people. No longer shall the sound of weeping be heard there, or the sound of crying; No longer shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not round out his full lifetime; He dies a mere youth who reaches but a hundred years, and he who fails of a hundred shall be thought accursed. They shall live in the houses they build, and eat the fruit of the vineyards they plant.

Gospel Jn 4:43-54

At that time Jesus left [Samaria] for Galilee. For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his native place. When he came into Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, since they had seen all he had done in Jerusalem at the feast; for they themselves had gone to the feast. Then he returned to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. Now there was a royal official whose son was ill in Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, who was near death. Jesus said to him, "Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe." The royal official said to him, "Sir, come down before my child dies." Jesus said to him, "You may go; your son will live." The man believed what Jesus said to him and left. While the man was on his way back, his slaves met him and told him that his boy would live. He asked them when he began to recover. They told him, "The fever left him yesterday, about one in the afternoon." The father realized that just at that time Jesus had said to him, "Your son will live," and he and his whole household came to believe. Now this was the second sign Jesus did when he came to Galilee from Judea.

Something 2 Think About

"The things of the past shall not be remembered or come to mind... a prophet has no honor in his native place"

Today's reading and Gospel reminds us that in our walk with Christ we leave behind our old bad habits and that when we return to those who knew us before we were renewed in Christ we may either be accepted or rejected. Family & friends will always see us for who we were rather than who we are now. If we were into drunk wild parties before and are now trying to follow Christ example by avoiding those occasions of sin we will face some sort of criticism by our peers. I've come to a point in my spiritual life that I could care less about what people would say because I'm here to do the Father's will and not my own. God's judgement could be far more graver than any criticism from family members or friends. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God. Many friends of the past have come and gone but Jesus remains. Family gatherings are becoming less and less of a massive family reunion, and slowly the celebrations are centered on each individual household; and yet Jesus remains.

This unity with Christ was not to be only experienced with the individual alone but to spread from one person to another. I remember seeing this commercial which one good deed witnessed from a stranger was passed on to another and another. It those thirty seconds, three or five people passed on the message of kindness through their unselfish actions and the thing is that those who showed kindness didn't even realize the effect that simple action had to those around them. It's like what Jesus was trying to explain in today's Gospel. We need no huge sign or miracle to believe in His presence. All we have to do is look around us and know that what God created was good. From random acts of kindness from a stranger to the beautiful sun rise, we see, or eventually will see, that God is present today as He was present before. We just have been blinded by society to not see. By seeing the simpleness of Christ around our everyday life we see God.

And in seeing God, we come to tie in what we see around us to what we hear and read in Scripture and to what we practice in our Traditions as Catholics. We have to see beyond what we see, and hear beyond what we hear. The word of God is so simple that we make it so difficult to follow.

Recommended Reading

The Royal Official’s Request for a Miracle - Father Steven Reilly, LC