“You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second resembles it: You must love your neighbour as yourself.”
Easy enough commandments to follow till we are met with challenges and difficulties. Then we must lean into our integrity and our faithfulness in the Lord our God and to one another. Ruth is such a model of fidelity! She embraced her mother in law as her own blood and chose not to leave her side no matter what came their way. She was a foreigner which doubled the challenges she would face. Yet with such resolve and faith she declared ‘Your people shall be my people,
and your God, my God.’
How is it that we find it hard to even recognise our fellow sisters and brothers; perhaps not of blood but nonetheless fellow children of God our Heavenly Father? How faithful then are we to Him and our fellow brethren?
Lord Jesus let my love for You and brethren go beyond the surface. “Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; All Your waves and billows have gone over me” Amen (PS 42:7)
Saints Louis and Saint Joseph of Calasanz, Pray for us…
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First reading
Ruth 1:1,3-6,14-16,22 ·
Ruth the Moabitess is brought to Bethlehem by Naomi
In the days of the Judges famine came to the land and a certain man from Bethlehem of Judah went – he, his wife and his two sons – to live in the country of Moab. Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died, and she and her two sons were left. These married Moabite women: one was named Orpah and the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years. Then both Mahlon and Chilion also died and the woman was bereft of her two sons and her husband. So she and her daughters-in-law prepared to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard that the Lord had visited his people and given them food. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law and went back to her people. But Ruth clung to her.
Naomi said to her, ‘Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her god. You must return too; follow your sister-in-law.’
But Ruth said, ‘Do not press me to leave you and to turn back from your company, for
‘wherever you go, I will go,
wherever you live, I will live.
Your people shall be my people,
and your God, my God.’
This was how Naomi, she who returned from the country of Moab, came back with Ruth the Moabitess her daughter-in-law. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.
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Gospel
Matthew 22:34-40
The commandments of love
When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees they got together and, to disconcert him, one of them put a question, ‘Master, which is the greatest commandment of the Law?’ Jesus said, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second resembles it: You must love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments hang the whole Law, and the Prophets also.’
CatholicJules.net 
Kyrkan attackerad av sina fiender
Kriget som förs mot religionen i västerländska samhällen är verkligen ett verk av filosofiska strömningar som främjar en aggressiv ateism. Det finns ett djävulskt försök att rasera kyrkan, att eliminera alla uttryck för hennes gudomliga skönhet, genom att direkt attackera hennes tro, moral, disciplin och tillbedjan, och genom att försöka undergräva hennes grundläggande övertygelser och hennes synliga struktur. Men vid sidan av dessa direkta attacker finns det också en spridning av lömska manövrer, särskilt för att föra kyrkan in i den stora globalistiska rörelsen som främjar utrotningen av alla skillnader. Genom att gömma sig bakom FN trummar några mycket mäktiga lobbygrupper upp budskapet att mänskliga rättigheter är överlägsna alla seder, alla traditioner, alla kulturella värderingar och alla religiösa övertygelser och därför är överlägsna Gud. På detta sätt drömmer de om att skapa en världsreligion utan Gud, ingen dogm, ingen moral: en ny kejsarreligion, som gör det möjligt att på politisk nivå smälta samman alla folk, nationer och kulturer till en enda massa som kan underkastas ett världsstyre som skulle göra slut på nationell suveränitet. På samma sätt som kommunismen försökte göra slut på privategendomen – i samma slag beröva människan hennes personliga värdighet
som att göra honom till ett anonymt redskap i ett monstruöst politiskt maskineri. Ett olyckligt exempel på denna världsomspännande rörelse mot planetarisk jämlikhet, trots nationernas kulturella och andliga arv, är den vändning som i dag tas av de aktuella händelserna i Europeiska unionen, som gör anspråk på att ideologiskt beskära de värderingar som ärvdes från århundraden av kristendom och gav form åt dess medlemsländer. I många avseenden visar den internationella hanteringen av covid-19-pandemin de oroande dragen i det betungande inflytande som ett litet antal kan utöva på människors och individers liv för att gradvis förändra dem.
—Utdrag ur det andliga livets katekes
@Card_R_Sarah