Friday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

Reading 1 Ru 1:1, 3-6, 14b-16, 22

Once in the time of the judges there was a famine in the land;
so a man from Bethlehem of Judah
departed with his wife and two sons
to reside on the plateau of Moab.
Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died,
and she was left with her two sons, who married Moabite women,
one named Orpah, the other Ruth.
When they had lived there about ten years,
both Mahlon and Chilion died also,
and the woman was left with neither her two sons nor her husband.
She then made ready to go back from the plateau of Moab
because word reached her there
that the LORD had visited his people and given them food.

Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye, but Ruth stayed with her.

Naomi said, "See now!
Your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her god.
Go back after your sister-in-law!"
But Ruth said, "Do not ask me to abandon or forsake you!
For wherever you go, I will go, wherever you lodge I will lodge,
your people shall be my people, and your God my God."

Thus it was that Naomi returned
with the Moabite daughter-in-law, Ruth,
who accompanied her back from the plateau of Moab.
They arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

Responsorial Psalm Ps 146:5-6ab, 6c-7, 8-9a, 9bc-10

R.(1b) Praise the Lord, my soul!
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD, his God,
Who made heaven and earth,
the sea and all that is in them.
R. Praise the Lord, my soul!
The LORD keeps faith forever,
secures justice for the oppressed,
gives food to the hungry.
The LORD sets captives free.
R. Praise the Lord, my soul!
The LORD gives sight to the blind.
The LORD raises up those who were bowed down;
The LORD loves the just.
The LORD protects strangers.
R. Praise the Lord, my soul!
The fatherless and the widow he sustains,
but the way of the wicked he thwarts.
The LORD shall reign forever;
your God, O Zion, through all generations. Alleluia.
R. Praise the Lord, my soul!

Alleluia Ps 25:4b, 5a

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Teach me your paths, my God,
guide me in your truth.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel Mt 22:34-40

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees,
they gathered together, and one of them,
a scholar of the law, tested him by asking,
"Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?"
He said to him,
"You shall 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 is like it:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."

For the readings of the Optional Memorial of Saint Rose of Lima, please go here.

From: Ruth 1:1, 3-6, 14b-16, 22

Elimelech and his family migrate from Israel

[1] In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a cer-
tain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and
his wife and his two sons.

[3] But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two
sons. [4] These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the
name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years; [5] and both Mahlon
and Chilion died, so that the woman was bereft of her two sons and her husband.

Ruth the Moabitess leaves her land and goes to Judah

[6] Then she started with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab,
for she had heard in the country of Moab that the Lord had visited his people and
given them food.

[14] Then they lifted up their voices and wept again; and Orpah kissed her mo-
ther-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. [15] And she said, “See, your sister-in-law has
gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” [16] But
Ruth said, “Entreat me not to leave you or to return from following you; for where
you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge; your people shall be my people,
and your God my God;

[22] So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess her daughter-in-law with her,
who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the be-
ginning of barley harvest.

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Commentary:

1-5. We are told why a family from Bethlehem in Judah had to leave their country
and migrate to Moab. The book of Judges reported on how the Moabites oppress-
sed the Benjaminites at the time of Eglon of Moab (Judg 3:12-14); however, there
is no sign here of Elimelech and his family being anyway wary of the Moabites.
They settle down in Moab peacefully and the two boys take Moabite wives. A
similar mutual respect is to he seen in David’s friendship with the king of Moab
which is recorded in some traditions (cf. 1 Sam 22:3-4).

The name Elimelech means “my God is king”, and that of Naomi, “my delight”;
Mahlon means “pain”; Chilion, “destruction”; Orpah, “she who turns her back”;
Ruth, “she who comforts”. All the names say something about the people who
bear them.

1:6-22. Naomi does not mislead her daughters-in-laws, to get them to go with
her. On the contrary, she spells out exactly what they find if they stay with her.
In the explanations she gives (vv. 11-13) one can see that she is thinking of the
law of levirate whereby if a man died without issue, his brother was supposed to
take his wife and the first born-son of that marriage would be the son of the first
husband in the eyes of the law (cf. Deut 25:5-10). This means that if Naomi were
to marry again and have another son, he would be a new brother-in-law to Ruth
and Orpah and, through the law of levirate, he would take them as wives. But
that law could be of no help in this particular situation.

Orpah makes a perfectly reasonable decision; she sorrowfully says goodbye
to Naomi and returns home. Maybe this makes Ruth’s decision all the more im-
pressive: she opts to leave her land and her family and accompany Naomi; back
to her dead husband’s country, where she (Ruth) had never been. Her determina-
tion says much for her fidelity to the God she came to know in her husband’s fa-
mily: “Where you go, I go, and where you lodge, I will lodge” (v. 16). Ruth did not
belong to Israel by birth; the text repeatedly mentions that she was a Moabitess
(1:4, 22; 2:2, 6, 21; 4:5, 10), a foreigner (2:10). But when she comes to know the
people of God, she decides to become a member of it and makes a binding oath
to this effect (v. 17). It was customary to spell out the penalties that would apply
if one failed to keep an oath. However, in the sacred text, those words, which
were usually rather chilling, are replaced by a general form of words such as
“May the Lord do so to me and more also” (v. 17; cf. 1 Sam 3:17; 2 Sam 3:9;
etc.).

Christian tradition has seen in Ruth the Church of the Gentiles — all those men
and women of every background who, coming to know the Lord through the wit-
ness borne by others, become part of the People of God: “In her [Ruth] we are
given a symbol of all of us who have been drawn from among all the peoples to
form part of the Church” (”Expositio Evangelii secundum Lucam, 3, 30)

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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

From: Matthew 22:34-40

The Greatest Commandment of All

[34] But when the Pharisees heard that He (Jesus) had silenced the Sadducees,
they came together. [35] And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, to
test Him. [36] “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” [37]
And 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. [38] This is the great and first com-
mandment. [39] And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as your-
self. [40] On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”

*********************************************************************************************
Commentary:

34-40. In reply to the question, our Lord points out that the whole law can be con-
densed into two commandments: the first and more important consists in uncon-
ditional love of God; the second is a consequence and result of the first, because
when man is loved, St. Thomas says, God is loved, for man is the image of God
(cf. “Commentary on St. Matthew”, 22:4).

A person who genuinely loves God also loves his fellows because he realizes
that they are his brothers and sisters, children of the same Father, redeemed by
the same blood of our Lord Jesus Christ: “this commandment we have from Him,
that he who loves God should love his brother also” (1 John 4:21). However, if we
love man for man’s sake without reference to God, this love will become an obsta-
cle in the way of keeping the first commandment, and then it is no longer genuine
love of our neighbor. But love of our neighbor for God’s sake is clear proof that we
love God: “If anyone says, ‘I love God’, but hates his brother, he is a liar” (1 John
4:20).

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself”: here our Lord establishes as the
guideline for our love of neighbor the love each of us has for himself; both love of
others and love of self are based on love of God. Hence, in some cases it can
happen that God requires us to put our neighbor’s need before our own; in others,
not: it depends on what value, in the light of God’s love, needs to be put on the
spiritual and material factors involved.

Obviously spiritual goods take absolute precedence over material ones, even
over life itself. Therefore, spiritual goods, be they our own or our neighbor’s, must
be the first to be safeguarded. If the spiritual good in question is the supreme one
of the salvation of the soul, no one is justified in putting his own soul into certain
danger of being condemned in order to save another, because given human free-
dom we can never be absolutely sure what personal choice another person may
make: this is the situation in the parable (cf. Matthew 25:1-13), where the wise
virgins refuse to give oil to the foolish ones; similarly St. Paul says that he would
wish himself to be rejected if that could save his brothers (cf. Romans 9:3) — an
unreal theoretical situation. However, what is quite clear is that we have to do all
we can to save our brothers, conscious that, if someone helps to bring a sinner
back to the Way, he will save himself from eternal death and cover a multitude
of his own sins (James 5:20). From all this we can deduce that self-love of the
right kind, based on God’s love for man, necessarily involves forgetting oneself
in order to love God and our neighbor for God.

37-38. The commandment of love is the most important commandment because
by obeying it man attains his own perfection (cf. Colossians 3:14). “The more a
soul loves,” St. John of the Cross writes, “the more perfect is it in that which it
loves; therefore this soul that is now perfect is wholly love, if it may thus be ex-
pressed, and all its actions are love and it employs all its faculties and posses-
sions in loving, giving all that it has, like the wise merchant, for this treasure of
love which it has found hidden in God [...]. For, even as the bee extracts from
all plants the honey that is in them, and has no use for them for aught else save
for that purpose, even so the soul with great facility extracts the sweetness of
love that is in all the things that pass through it; it loves God in each of them,
whether pleasant or unpleasant; and being, as it is, informed and protected by
love, it has neither feeling nor taste nor knowledge of such things, for, as we
have said, the soul knows naught but love, and its pleasure in all things and
occupations is ever, as we have said, the delight of the love of God” (”Spiritual
Canticle”, Stanza 27, 8).

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

Scripture readings from the Jerusalem Bible by Darton, Longman & Todd

Readings at Mass

Liturgical Colour: Green.

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.

Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 145(146):5-10 ©