Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (To the Greater Glory of God)
For: Friday, August 19, 2011
20th Week in Ordinary Time
Optional Memorial: St John Eudes, Priest
From: Ruth 1:1, 3-6, 14b-16, 22
Elimelech and his family migrate from Israel
[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
[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.
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.
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (To the Greater Glory of God)
For: Friday, August 19, 2011
20th Week in Ordinary Time
Optional Memorial: St John Eudes, Priest
From: Matthew 22:34-40
The Greatest Commandment of All
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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).
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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.