Two Types of Healing in the Book of Tobit

In our first lesson today at the Midweek Mass, we heard about how God sent St. Raphael the Archangel to bring healing to Tobit and to Sarah. Both had cried out to God, because Tobit had become blind, and Sarah had suffered the loss of seven husbands by the working of a demon. “At that very moment, the prayers of both of them were heard in the glorious presence of God. So Raphael was sent to heal both of them: Tobit by removing the white films from his eyes, so that he might see God’s light with his eyes, and Sarah, daughter of Raguel, by giving her in marriage to Tobias son of Tobit, and by setting her free from the wicked demon Asmodeus” (Tobit 3:16-17).

What I found interesting about this passage is that it acknowledges that there are two different kinds of healing: physical and spiritual. Tobit was healed physically: he was cured from his blindness. But the passage says that Sarah’s healing was from the effects of slander and the loss of seven husbands, caused by the demon Asmodeus. So in her marriage to Tobias, God gave her, through his archangel, a healing which was relational, emotional, and spiritual.

I found this interesting because after this service, people often come forward for anointing not only for physical healing, but for these other types of healing, too; and Scripture here seems to indicate that those types of healing are no less real or important. So we offer our prayers for healing, both physical and spiritual, that God’s “never-failing providence [would set] in order all things both in heaven and earth.”