Tobit , in today's readings, I suggest to you, offers a noteworthy challenge to any believer, any follower of Jesus Christ. This Old Testament character is no stranger to what some might call "hard luck" or more cynically "stupidity." He is a man of conviction: A man who walks the walk, putting not just his money but his life where his mouth is. Mindful of the Jewish tradition that the dead are to be buried before sundown, Tobit, upon learning that a fellow Israelite had been murdered, leaves a meal, picks up the dead man's body, puts it into his house until sundown, then buries the man. Noble deed. But where Tobit was that was not permitted. He had subjected himself to capture and his own fatal consequences.Tobit is a man of principles. He is a man of corporal works of mercy. Of more contemporary matters, he might be a man whose life should be considered in the evaluation of politicians and the Church's stand on abortion. Something to think about. Verse 8 from Chapter Two of the Book of Tobit.
The neighbors mocked me, saying to one another: "Will this man never learn! Once before he was hunted down for execution because of this very thing; yet now that he has escaped, here he is again burying the dead!"
Also related: consider the life of Antigone in the Greek tragedy. A similar story.
