4 June 2015 - first in our hearts

“Which is the first of all the commandments?”
Jesus replied, “The first is this:
Hear, O Israel! 
The Lord our God is Lord alone!
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, with all your mind, 
and with all your strength.

This morning we are called to make sure we put first things first.

We are called to make sure that nothing, not even things which are are genuinely good, come before God in our lives.

We can't put even burnt offerings and sacrifices before God himself. These, for the speaker, are things which are good. They are things which God commands. It seems that they cannot be neglected. They seem absolute. Yet God himself who commands them must always be the priority of our hearts.

This is a secret which Tobiah realizes as he approaches his marriage with Sarah. Perhaps it is all the suffering which they both witness and endure that helps him to get it. Perhaps it is knowing that the seven men who married Sarah before him all died early. The temporary nature of life here below is on full display. Tobit, Tobiah, and Sarah are forced to realize that, except for God, even the greatest goods are temporary. They do not give up on these goods but instead place them in God's hands.

When the girl’s parents left the bedroom
and closed the door behind them,
Tobiah arose from bed and said to his wife,
“My love, get up.
Let us pray and beg our Lord to have mercy on us
and to grant us deliverance.”

At a moment in their relationship when it would be the easiest to forget God and be overwhelmed by genuine but lesser goods they choose instead to make him a priority. Tobiah is blessed because he fears the Lord. He is the man whom the psalmist describes.

Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine
in the recesses of your home;
Your children like olive plants
around your table. 

God uses circumstances to bring Tobiah to the place where he can truly love the Lord his God with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his mind, and with all his strength. Because Tobiah chooses to do this in his marriage with Sarah his is able to love her better than he could on his own. He receives from God the power and ability to love his neighbor as himself.

May Saint Raphael the Archangel himself intervene in our lives so that the earthly goods we encounter will be ordered by our love for God. Whether relationship, work or hobby, may all the goods of this life be lived as offerings to God. May God alone be first in our hearts.

Behold, thus is the man blessed
who fears the LORD.
The LORD bless you from Zion:
may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem
all the days of your life. 

This is what Paul commends us when he says, "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship" (cf. Rom. 12:1).