23 August. Friday of the Twentieth Week

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Ruth 1: Ruth, an immigrant from Moab, staty with her mother-in-law after both are widowed.

Matt 22:34ff. Jesus affirms the centrality of love, first for God  and then for neighbour.

First Reading: Rt 1:1, 3-6, 14-16, 22

In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and two sons. But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. When they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Chilion also died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.

Then she started to return with her daughters-in-law from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab that the Lord had considered his people and given them food. Then they wept aloud again. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.

So she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” But Ruth said, “Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.

So Naomi returned together with Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, who came back with her from the country of Moab. They came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

Gospel: Matthew 22:34-40

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Love Rewarded

In Ruth’s story, we see how a foreign woman was absorbed into the family of Israel. Her love-story blends nicely with Our Lord’s teaching, identifying the focus of  God’s will as the supreme law of love. The Book of Ruth has served many purposes. In its earliest form it may come from David’s time as it supports his legitimacy  as God’s choice for king, despite his partly foreign ancestry. In postexilic times Ruth served the purpose of those  opposed the idea of separating Jews from all foreigners. With time her story was linked with the feast of Pentecost and the wheat harvest. As Pentecost also commemorated the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, the Book of Ruth mysteriously pointed to another Pentecost, coming after the death of Jesus, when Jews from many nations were welcomed into the Church. The book tells a lovely story, interweaving personal loss with a rebirth of hope, and highlights the mutual loving concern of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. The latter, Ruth, is drawn by affection for Naomi to join her faith, “Wherever you go I will go, .. your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”

If Jesus begins with the love of God and links it to love of neighbour, in Ruth the reverse process is at work: starting from her loyalty to Naomi she arrives at the love of God. Elsewhere, too, the Bible affirms that natural neighbourly love has its source in divine love. We can love, because God first loved us. Naomi and Ruth return to Bethlehem as widows, with little to show for their life so far. Frequently in salvation history God revives people on the verge of death: from slavery in Egypt, from near conquest by the Philistines, from Babylonian exile. That a child was born to a childless couple also affirms God’s power to create hope where all hope seemed lost.

The Gospel gives Jesus’ reply to a lawyer’s question. First the lawyer intends to trip him up, but Jesus transcends all sense of intrigue and argument, and in simple, moving words declares the greatest commandment of the law, “You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart… soul… mind.” And the second is like it, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” These two principles already existed in the Torah of Moses, but Jesus brings them to the very centre of his vision for life.

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