Thursday, August 20, 2015

20th Week, Ordinary Time, Friday, 21-08-15

Ruth 1:1, 3-6, 14-16, 22 / Matthew 22:34-40

Desperate situations always evoke desperate actions.

Especially when the situation is about survival, then one tends to be just think about oneself and leave out the rest.

It is an instinctive action and it is ingrained in the way human beings think and act.

In the 1st reading, a man had to leave his country with his wife and two sons to the land of Moab in order to survive the famine.

They survived the famine, the two sons even married Moabite women but the inevitability of death takes away the man and his two sons, leaving behind the three women who were almost helpless and defenceless.

So Naomi decided to go back to her own country since there is food there. The other two Moabite women will have to decide where to go in order to have some livelihood and security.

One decided to go back to her own people and it was the most sensible option. The other woman, Ruth, however decided to follow her mother-in-law.

That decision would leave her in a very fragile situation of being helpless in a foreign land.

Other than love for another human being who needed more help and companionship, it is difficult to say why Ruth decided to do this.

In the gospel, Jesus gave two parts of the great commandment - love for God and love for neighbour.

Ruth fulfilled it and her name is now engraved in the genealogy of Jesus.

When we put that commandment into action, our names will also written in the book of eternity.