June 2, 2027

1With sobs I began to pray: 2Tobit’s Prayer for Death - “You are righteous, Lord, and all your deeds are just; All your ways are mercy and fidelity; you are judge of the world. 3And now, Lord, be mindful of me and look with favor upon me. Do not punish me for my sins, or for my inadvertent offenses, or for those of my ancestors. “They sinned against you, 4and disobeyed your commandments. So you handed us over to plunder, captivity, and death, to become an object lesson, a byword, and a reproach in all the nations among whom you scattered us. 5“Yes, your many judgments are right in dealing with me as my sins, and those of my ancestors, deserve. For we have neither kept your commandments, nor walked in fidelity before you. 6“So now, deal with me as you please; command my life breath to be taken from me, that I may depart from the face of the earth and become dust. It is better for me to die than to live, because I have listened to undeserved reproaches, and great is the grief within me. “Lord, command that I be released from such anguish; let me go to my everlasting abode; Do not turn your face away from me, Lord. For it is better for me to die than to endure so much misery in life, and to listen to such reproaches!” 7II. Sarah’s Plight - Sarah Falsely Accused. On that very day, at Ecbatana in Media, it so happened that Raguel’s daughter Sarah also had to listen to reproaches from one of her father’s maids. 8For she had been given in marriage to seven husbands, but the wicked demon Asmodeus kept killing them off before they could have intercourse with her, as is prescribed for wives. The maid said to her: “You are the one who kills your husbands! Look! You have already been given in marriage to seven husbands, but you do not bear the name of a single one of them. 9Why do you beat us? Because your husbands are dead? Go, join them! May we never see son or daughter of yours!” 10That day Sarah was sad at heart. She went in tears to an upstairs room in her father’s house and wanted to hang herself. But she reconsidered, saying to herself: “No! May people never reproach my father and say to him, ‘You had only one beloved daughter, but she hanged herself because of her misfortune.’ And thus would I bring my father laden with sorrow in his old age to Hades. It is far better for me not to hang myself, but to beg the Lord that I might die, and no longer have to listen to such reproaches in my lifetime.” 11At that same time, with hands outstretched toward the window, she implored favor: Sarah’s Prayer for Death - “Blessed are you, merciful God! Blessed be your holy and honorable name forever! May all your works forever bless you. 16An Answer to Prayer. At that very time, the prayer of both of them was heard in the glorious presence of God. 17So Raphael was sent to heal them both: to remove the white scales from Tobit’s eyes, so that he might again see with his own eyes God’s light; and to give Sarah, the daughter of Raguel, as a wife to Tobiah, the son of Tobit, and to rid her of the wicked demon Asmodeus. For it fell to Tobiah’s lot to claim her before any others who might wish to marry her. At that very moment Tobit turned from the courtyard to his house, and Raguel’s daughter Sarah came down from the upstairs room.

2my God, in you I trust; do not let me be disgraced; do not let my enemies gloat over me. 3No one is disgraced who waits for you, but only those who are treacherous without cause. 4Make known to me your ways, LORD; teach me your paths. 5Guide me by your fidelity and teach me, for you are God my savior, for you I wait all the day long. 6Remember your compassion and your mercy, O LORD, for they are ages old. 7Remember no more the sins of my youth; remember me according to your mercy, because of your goodness, LORD. 8II - Good and upright is the LORD, therefore he shows sinners the way, 9He guides the humble in righteousness, and teaches the humble his way.

25Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, 26and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

18Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him and put this question to him, 19saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us, ‘If someone’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother.’ 20Now there were seven brothers. The first married a woman and died, leaving no descendants. 21So the second married her and died, leaving no descendants, and the third likewise. 22And the seven left no descendants. Last of all the woman also died. 23At the resurrection [when they arise] whose wife will she be? For all seven had been married to her.” 24Jesus said to them, “Are you not misled because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God? 25When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but they are like the angels in heaven. 26As for the dead being raised, have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God told him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, [the] God of Isaac, and [the] God of Jacob’? 27He is not God of the dead but of the living. You are greatly misled.” The Greatest Commandment.