We come towards
the end of the book of Tobit which we have been reading all week. The ending
will be that they all lived happily ever after. Tobit is cured of his blindness,
Sarah is freed from her demon, Tobias finds a good wife, and Anna can relax
because the family is now prosperous and secure. The archangel Raphael has been
with them, guiding and healing them, seeing to it that this family of faithful
people will be able to live happily into the future.
Since last week we have remembered many martyrs, Justin, Marcellinus and Peter, Charles Lwanga and his
companions, Peter of Verona the first Dominican martyr, and Boniface,
apostle of Germany, bishop and martyr. We remember them and celebrate them for
their courage in remaining faithful even to the point of death. We celebrate
them also because we share the same hope with them, the hope of living happily
ever after in the kingdom of God. This hope enabled the martyrs to accept
suffering and even death, confident that the Lord would bring them to his
kingdom to be happy with him forever.
Today’s gospel
reading is a bit puzzling. It is not clear why there was such delight among the
people at the question Jesus puts to his opponents. Maybe it is that he has
begun to fight back and they are pleased at this. We have seen a whole range of
groups and individuals approaching him to ask questions, questions designed to
corner him and embarrass him. Now he asks a question of his own, one not easy
to understand and so not easy to answer. Maybe the people are delighted that he
has done this, that he has put his opponents on the back foot for a change.
It could be for
other reasons that they are delighted. The question of Jesus contains a prediction
of his Ascension to the right hand of the Father. The psalm he quotes, Psalm
110, is used by the Church to illustrate his Ascension. When his work on earth was
complete, the Incarnate Word returned to the Father to take his place at the
Father’s right hand, to reign forever in glory. He is to be there happily ever
after and perhaps the people are delighted because they sense something of this
in what he is saying.
In his divine
nature he is always the Eternal Son of the Heavenly Father and so is always
with God in the kingdom of heaven. In his human nature he stepped down from
that place of glory, to take on the tasks of salvation and redemption, but now
that his victory has been won he returns there, where the glory that is his as
the Only Son from the Father and the glory that is his as the Leader and Guide
of all people are now one in an eternal joy which all are called to share.
To live happily
ever after … it is the lot of Tobit and his family in this life, just as it is
what the martyrs hope for in eternity. Jesus’ question, showing that the
Messiah was there before David spoke of him, shows that there is an eternal
happiness shared between Father and Son, a happiness ever before, which is opened up for humanity
through the work of the Son. We pray that this gift may be ours now and in the end when, delighted, we will possess this happiness securely and live in it ever after.
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