The Book of Tobit 12:9 Kommentar

It is written that fasting with almsgiving is a good thing. It was necessary to do both, to mitigate the Lord’s indignation. Perhaps you cannot fast, and you cannot because you do not want to—at least give food to someone who is hungry. You who cannot stand to fast for three hours past the usual hour can certainly understand what someone would suffer who unwillingly goes hungry because of his poverty. Your cruelty forces him to fast, you who, fattened by sumptuous banquets, do not think to relieve the poor person’s hunger with even a little food. You point to the possibility of famine, you pretend to be in need, you complain of unfavorable circumstances. You beg more shamefully than that poor person—indeed, you behave toward God like an ingrate with your false complaining. But what if there was a famine? Would you perhaps be the only one to feel it, and not that poor person? How is it that every day you lay out new silver, beautify your houses with marble, buy silk garments, trade necklaces adorned with gold and gems? It is shameful to mention and painful even to think of the number of peasants who, living on the lands of people who live in the luxury we have described, have died of hunger or been supported by the alms of the church.

Perhaps some rich person might object, “Therefore it must have been with malice that God gave us wealth, if because of it the rich are tormented.” Such people, in fact, advance the wrong-headed idea that God wants to see human beings make mistakes and therefore provides not only the mode of sin but also the reason for it. Not out of malice but out of providence has God made you rich. He intended that through your works of mercy you would again find medicine to treat the wounds of your sins. “Certainly alms freely given preserve one from death and purify from every sin.” The rich man was not tormented because he was rich but because Lazarus suffered hunger while he banqueted. Although holy Abraham had been a rich man, he was a servant of the poor and indigent. Also, holy Job possessed the kingdom of Arabia, but, as it is written, no one was deprived, no poor person left his house empty-handed. And then, when he came to find himself in pain, he was excoriated by his wife for his works of mercy that she implied he had kept working at in vain. “And now,” she says, “here you are suffering.” Whew! See how astutely this poisonous snake offers her venom! Since she could not make him recede from the good works he was doing as a servant of God, she was given to make him repent of the good he had accomplished because he lost the fruit of his goodness. The rich, therefore, should beware of the terrible example of those who enrich themselves at the expense of mercy so that they do not undergo similar tortures. Rather, they should practice almsgiving with generosity, frequency and joy; “God in fact loves one who gives with joy.” They distribute their wealth to the poor, acquiring “treasures in heaven where neither rust nor moth destroy or thieves dig and steal.” Thus, leaving this world, they will be able to find rest in the truly rich bosom of Abraham.