GRAVE DIGGER

Tobit 6:10-11; 7:1,9-17, 8:4-9; PS 128 Blessed are those who fear the Lord; Mark 12:28-34

if you looked at the readings for mass today and actually read through them, then you might be a little perplexed by the title of this post.  Why on God's green earth, as they say, would I title it "grave digger" when the first reading is about Tobiah and Sarah on their wedding night?

Am I trying to make a snide remark about marriage?

Or considering the gospel where we encounter the two great commandments, "love the Lord with all your heart, strength mind, and soul and your neighbor as yourself."

Where is any mention of graves and digging them?

I entitle the post grave digger not because of what is contained in the readings for mass today, but rather for what is left out!

As Tobiah and Sarah are on their knees praying for deliverance and seeking God's blessing for their nuptials and their life together, Raguel summons his servants and they went out and dug a grave for he said, "Perhaps Tobiah will die, then we would be a laughing stock, an object of mockery."

Raguel and his family wasn't quite certain that Tobiah and Sarah would make it through the night.

Perhaps they doubted their daughter, perhaps they doubted Tobiah, perhaps they doubted God.  All in all they were half-hearted in their faithfulness to God's ability to deliver Tobiah and Sarah from death.

Where Tobiah and Sarah were both trusting with all their heart, all their mind, all their strength, all their soul the rest were half hearted at best.

Where are we half-hearted in our own lives?  Where are we half-hearted in our daily tasks and duties placed before us?

When will be fully committed?  When will we be fully invested?  When will our strength and our mind and our soul and our heart finally be synchronized?

OR are we going to just be grave diggers?  Are we going to live like the ones who are always hedging their bets or waiting for the next best thing?

Grave diggers are those that spend their life staring in a 6 by 6 hole.

Tobiah and Sarah they directed their gaze upward and trusted with all their heart as they prayed, "call down your mercy on us and allow us to live together to a happy old age."  Then they said together "Amen, Amen."

Tobiah and Sarah were fully synchronized: heart, strength, mind, and soul.

We can be like Tobiah and Sarah and hope for the best while entrusting our life into the hands of living God from whom all hope comes or we can be like Raguel and anticipate the worst.

I guess it is a choice; we must choose.