Breaking the Word

20^th Week in Ord. Time, Saturday – 26^th August 2023 – Ruth 2,1-3.8-11; 4,13-17; Mt 23,1-12

Blessings of Perfection

In today’s reading, Boaz, a kinsman of Naomi’s dead husband, has heard how Ruth came back to the land of Judah with her mother-in-law. Boaz respects Ruth for her care and concern for Naomi. He allows her to continue gleaning in his field what was left behind. Finally, Boaz marries Ruth and has a son, called Obed, the grandchild of Naomi. In doing so, he ensures his kinsman’s lineage to continue through him. Of the joys, pleasures, and comforts, which Naomi had been deprived of through the death of her husband and her two sons, her grandson is seen as a redeemer, who will care for in her old age. Her daughter-in-law’s selfless devotion and affection to Naomi receives its supreme accolade in the statement, “[she is] … more to you than seven sons…” Since seven was considered a number of completeness and perfection, to have seven sons was the epitome of all family blessings in Israel. There could be no higher praise than this. Indeed, God through Ruth put an end to Naomi’s barrenness and emptiness.

20^th Week in Ord. Time, Friday – 25^th August 2023 – Ruth 1,1.3-6.14-16.22; Mt 22,34-40

Blessings of Loyalty

The first reading sets the scene for explaining how one of the ancestors of King David was a non-Jew named Ruth. It presents the desire of Ruth, a Moabite, to go with her widowed mother-in-law back to the land of Israel, to the tribe of Judah. She chooses Yahweh’s territory and his people. According to the law of the time, the two women who had married the sons of Elimelech-Naomi were free to return to their own people after their husband’s death. However, the narrative tells the privilege of a woman of Moab to become the great-grandmother of King David. Ruth goes to Judah and remains with her mother-in-law because she is moved by the love to accompany and take care of an elderly widow, Naomi. God can truly make awesome things happen from apparently hopeless situations. Naomi was able to be one of the ancestors of the future King David even though her two sons were dead. Ruth, a non-Jew by birth, also becomes part of the lineage which will produce a royal offspring. Her loyalty to her mother-in-law brings in singular blessings. Hence, she becomes an ancestor of Jesus and one of the four women listed in Mathew’s genealogy of Jesus.  God loves those who love the Lord and those who love others unconditionally.