The Book of Tobit--A Book of Love

During this past week, the reading of exerts from the Old Testament Book of Tobit (Book of Tobias) was part of the Liturgy of the Word for the weekday Masses. This book is a beautiful love story. A love of a man and a woman, the parents and their son and daughter-in-law, and the providential Love of God. One of my close friends who is a devout Bible reading Catholic and a daily communicant finds this book as one of the most beautiful in the Bible. He recommends this book to whomever he meets. His piety and evangelization efforts outshine most of us.

Unfortionately for our Protestant friends, the Book of Tobit is a "Deuterocanonical" book and therefore is only found in the "Apocrypha" of Protestant Bibles. In this book the Archangel Raphael plays a major role--and archangel I have a special devotion toward. For many Catholics the Archbishop Raphael is an angel to turn to when petitioning for healing and safety in travel. With the recent murder of the late term abortionist Dr. Tiller, I am reminded to ask this great archangel to bring my prayers for those in the medical profession to the feet of Our Lord.