The sixth division of the Book of Tobit narrates the return of Tobiah (Tobit’s son) to Nineveh and Tobit’s healing. It begins with a section subtitled, “Anxiety of the parents”. Tobit and Anna are “keeping track of the time Tobiah would need to go and come” (Tb 10:1). Anna is losing hope of seeing her son again (Tb 10:5, “Alas, child, light of my eyes, that I have let you make this journey!”). Later Tobiah is reunited (Tb 11) with his parents. Tobiah’s mission is accomplished, a great treasure is restored to Tobit, Tobit’s blindness healed. And what’s more, Tobiah has vanquished the demon and brought home his beautiful bride, Sarah. Tobit then exclaims, “I can see you, son, the light of my eyes!” (Tb 11:14).
The Stubborn Opacity of the Unknown
As a parent, what I find most interesting is Tobit and Anna’s experience in the “fog of the unknown.” They are marking time until Tobiah’s return. Like Tobit, in relation to their children, every parent of every age lives in that perpetual state of sightlessness, a stubborn opaqueness of the future that compounds the anxiety of the latest vicissitude befalling the child. There is no amount of technological progress, now or in any age to come, that will ever eliminate that anxiety or opacity. It is that waiting for the resolution, albeit in hope, which is the struggle. A struggle marked by that balancing act between hope and despair. Anna weeps and wails over her son (Tb 10:4), while Tobit keeps telling her “Be still, do not worry” (Tb 10:6).
Meanwhile, Tobiah, aware of the anxiety of his parents, turns down Raguel’s (his father-in-law’s) offer to send messengers. He insists that he should return home (Tb 10:8). He understands that only his own coming home, with his bride, will ultimately satisfy his parents and furthermore, remove that opacity from their eyes, bringing their waiting, in anxiety, to an end. The scales drop from Tobit’s eyes only when the son is home and applying the “innards of the fish” to them.
Stillness, in Faith
There isn’t much of a mystery here. The exile from Eden has been imposed on every parent. Both the “toil of childbearing” (Gen 3:16) and a spiritual blindness. It may seem as if this were a curse; some sort of eternal revenge for disobedience and we couldn’t be more wrong. The layered metaphors of the book of Tobit are but a foretelling of the mission of the Son of God, Christ our Lord. A mission, in short, to vanquish the age of the demon, destroy the “fruit of the fall,” death. And bring the bride back home to Eden. In a sense, like Tobit, our Father in heaven is “keeping track of the time” until His children return to Him. In this, the Imago Dei doesn’t fall far from the tree. What we experience, particularly as parents, in relation to our own children, is but a participation in God’s own “anguish” of that expectant waiting for His children to return.
As a parent, I do take comfort in Tobit’s words. “Be still, do not worry”, Tb 10:6, while being assailed by that temptation to despair. To “weep and wail” (Tb 10:4) over the latest vicissitude to strike. Tobit’s words mirror the words of the Psalmist (“Be still, and know that I am God”, Ps 46:11). St Paul expands on this pithy promise in 1 Cor 10:13. “God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength; but with the trial he will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it”. The two-fold parental participation in God’s will lies in the stillness of faith, while resisting the temptation to despair. The Lord works best in that stillness to bring forth deliverance. Amen.
