St. Rose of Lima, virgin 

＊＊＊1st Reading＊＊＊

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

  There was a famine in the land during the time of the Jud­­ges,

and a man from Bethlehem in Judah departed with his wife and two sons to sojourn in the country of Moab. Naomi’s husband Elimelech died. She was left with her two sons, who married Moabite wo­men, one named Orpah and the other Ruth.

After living in Moab for about ten years, Mahlon and Chilion also died and Naomi was left bereft of husband and two sons.  Having heard that Yahweh had come to help his people by giving them food, Naomi prepared to return home.  Again they sobbed and wept. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good­bye, but Ruth clung to her. Naomi said, “Look, your sister-in-law returns to her people and her gods. You too must return. Go after her.”

Ruth replied, “Don’t ask me to leave you. For I will go where you go and stay where you stay. Your people will be my people and your god, my God. Thus it was that Naomi returned from Moab with her Moabite daughter-in-law and arrived in Beth­lehem as the barley harvest began.

 

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊

Matthew 22: 34-40

 When the Pharisees heard how Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they assembled  together. One of them, a lawoyer, questioned him to test him, ”teacher which commandment of the Law is the greatest?”

Jesus answered, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.   This is the first and the most important of the commandments. The second is like it: You shall love neighbor

as yourself. The whole Law and the Prophets are founded on these two commandments.”

  

Reflection gospel：

“THE TWO COMMANDMENTS.”

What is remarkable about Jesus’ response is that he established the connection between the two commandments. While the love of neighbor flows (1) from the love of God flooding our heart and (2) from our response to that love, the love of God necessarily leads to a love of our neighbor. there is a cyclic dynamism between the two. They cannot be separated; one does not stand alone. By placing them alongside each other, Jesus assigned them “equal weight”(Brendan Byrne).

 

During an interview after the release of Pope Francis, encyclical Laudato Si; Cardinal Peter Turkson, the prefect of the Discastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development, said: “You cannot believe and love God without respecting or caring for what he has created.” In other words, the love of neighbor and the care of God’s beautiful creation are an integral part of loving God. a love of God becomes real and finds meaning only when it is directed to the care of the human person and other forms of life.