Tobit 2

We are often asked: "If we celebrate the day of Pentecost because of the coming of the Holy Spirit, why do the Jews celebrate Pentecost?" For they too have Pentecost. You heard this morning, those of you who were attentive, when the reading from Tobit was read in memory of the blessed Theogenes, that on the day of Pentecost he prepared a meal, intending to invite some of his own who were worthy to share the table with him, because of their fear of the Lord. He says, "On the day of Pentecost, which is holy from the weeks." For seven times seven make forty-nine: one is added here for unity, so that we return to the head, because unity confirms all multitude, and multitude, unless bound by unity, is contentious and quarrelsome; but a multitude that consorts makes one soul, just as those who received the Holy Spirit, as Scripture says, had one soul and one heart towards God. Therefore, fifty are made, which is the sacrament of Pentecost. Why then do the Jews celebrate it, unless because it was a figure there? Pay attention: you know - and there is no Christian at all who is ignorant of what I am going to say - that the lamb is killed among the Jews and the Passover is celebrated as a figure of the future passion of the Lord. For this was also commanded to them, to seek a lamb from goats and sheep. Where can a lamb be found from goats and sheep? But what was commanded there as impossible was announcing the future possibility of the Lord: for a lamb was found from goats and sheep, because our Lord Jesus Christ, according to the flesh born from the seed of David, has his origin from sinners and the just. You find in the origin of the Lord, according to the generations that the evangelists recount, both many sinners and the just: therefore, he also called such, that is, sinners, because he came through such. For he gathers his Church from the just and sinners.

We understand how devoted he was who, as he himself maintained, left his dead father so as to lay hold of the Lord of life. For he says, "First permit me to go and bury my father." The one whom he had left behind as dead he begs that he might return and bury. Sorrow did not hold him nor death detain him, because he was hastening to life. He had not yet closed the eyes of the dead man, not yet buried the stiff limbs, but as soon as he learned that the Lord had come he forgot the feeling of paternal piety, believing that there was a greater piety in loving Christ more than one's parents. Perhaps he had read the prophetic passage that says, "Forget your people and your father's house." So he forgot his father and remembered his Savior. Perhaps he had also heard the Lord's Gospel words: "The one who loves his father or mother more is not worthy of me." Thus, as Tobit is justified because he abandons his meal for the sake of a burial, this man is approved because he abandons the burial of his father for the sake of Christ. For the one is not afraid to pass over his meal because of some earthly work intervenes, while the other fears lest some delay cause him to omit the eating of heavenly bread. Thus, although in consideration of Christ we owe burial to everyone, this man forsook his father's burial out of love for Christ.

The people once "was falling in the desert" and dying. Aaron the high priest came and "stood in the midst of those who were dying and those who were living," lest the devastation of death should advance further even upon the rest. Now too my true high priest, the Lord, has come and has interceded in the midst between the dying and the living — that is, between those who from among the Jews received his presence, and those who not only did not receive it, but slew themselves rather than him, saying: "his blood be upon us and upon our children!" Hence also "all the righteous blood which has been shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah whom they killed between the temple and the altar, shall be required of that generation" which said: "his blood be upon us and upon our children." These, then, are the portion of the people that is dead, because they keep neither the unleavened bread nor the feast days fittingly, but "their feast days are turned into mourning and their songs into lamentation"; who, even if they wished, could not celebrate the feast day in "that place which the Lord God has chosen." And we indeed did not say to them that "there shall be for you no portion" in this altar or in the inheritance of the Lord, but they of their own accord refused the true altar and the heavenly high priest, and were brought to such a pitch of unhappiness that they lost even the image and did not receive the truth, and therefore it is said to them: "behold, your house shall be left to you deserted." For the grace of the Holy Spirit has been transferred to the nations, the solemnities have been transferred to us, because there has passed over to us also a high priest not imaginary but true, "chosen according to the order of Melchizedek": and it is necessary that he offer true victims, that is, spiritual ones, among us, where the temple of God is built out of "living stones," "which is the church of the living God," and where the true Israel is.

Tobias' relatives mocked him, and his wife reproached him, as if he had served God in vain. Rebuking and instructing them, he turned to God in prayer. In that people, there were some who, with foolish rashness, insulted the miseries of the people, which now differed greatly from the former happiness of the holy fathers, who once served God sublimely among them. The same people diligently cared to correct them through their teachers and chosen ones and turned themselves to implore God's mercy for the attainment of eternal life. It should not be seen as inappropriate that the same Tobias, both blind and preaching the word of God, is said to signify both the reprobate and the elect. For even the patriarch Jacob, wrestling with the angel, was made both lame and blessed; signifying, in his lameness, the unfaithful of his people, and in his blessing, the faithful.

Tired from burial, Tobias came into his house, . . . . . and became blind. Do not be surprised, reader, that sometimes good deeds symbolically signify evil, and sometimes evil deeds signify good things. If this were not allowed, God would never be written with black ink but always with bright gold, because He is light. But even if you write the name of the devil on a white stone, it still signifies deep darkness. Therefore, blind Tobias signifies what the Apostle says, "Blindness has happened in part to Israel" (Rom. XI). He was tired from burial and became blind, because he who persists tirelessly in good works is never deprived of the light of faith. Spiritually, he lies and sleeps tired, who neglects to watch and stand in faith, to act manfully, to be strengthened. To him well applies the apostolic word: "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light" (Eph. V). Swallows, because of their light flight, represent pride and lightness of heart, whose impurity quickly blinds those over whom they rule. For it is as if one sleeps under the nest of swallows, who incautiously subjects his mind to lightness, wantonness, and pride. This blindness, however, prevailed over the people of Israel, especially with the imminent coming of the Lord in the flesh, when they were oppressed by the yoke of Roman servitude and violated the commandments of the divine law by living wickedly.

The righteous are tested in order to bring about their improvement. This is why we must be strong in the face of temptations, knowing they do not occur in order to humiliate us but in order to make us grow if we face them with a serene mind for the sake of Christ.