St. Bernard, abbot & doctor

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊       

Ruth 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.

 

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

Praise the Lord, my soul!

 

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊     

Matthew 22:34-40

 When the Pharisees heard how Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they came together. One of them, a teacher of the Law, tried to test him with this question, “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the Law?”

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. But after this there is another one very similar to it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole Law and the Prophets are founded on these two commandments.”

 

 Gospel Reflection：

The religious authorities are now ganging up on Jesus. The Sadducees are the first to have a showdown with Jesus. They come out worse in the encounter, having been silenced by the Lord's grasp of the spirit of the law.

Now the Pharisees are going to challenge Jesus. They come prepared to test him on some points of the law. Their aim is not to know the truth but to bring down Jesus. He is already an irritant to their otherwise comfortable status quo in society.

He cannot be allowed to continue. And so they asked him about the most important commandment of all in the Law. And Jesus summed up the spirit of the law with only one word, that is, love. Any people of goodwill should love God and his or her neighbor. The law of love is the most supreme law of all. That is why Saint Augustine said, “love and do what you will.”