Ruth’s declaration in today’s first reading speaks volumes about familial love and fidelity. Wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people. Your God, my God.
This then leads us to today’s Gospel, in which the Lord reminds us of how we should love. We should love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. And the second, that we should love one another just as we love ourselves. So can we love anyone else less than how we love ourselves?
Ruth, in the first reading, demonstrated this extraordinary love. When she embraced Naomi, loved and cared for her amidst all the challenges they would face. For widows at that time had no one to care for them, no rights whatsoever. They entrusted themselves to the will of the Lord our God and were taken care of.
When we are obedient to the word and will of God, we know that He is the God of the impossible. He will make clear the paths before us as we glorify Him by the way we lead our lives. Amen.
Our Lady, Mother and Queen 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.’
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