In today's first reading, Ruth 1:1, 3-6, 14b-16, 22, we meet Naomi and her daughter-in-law Ruth. Naomi's husband, a man from Bethlehem, and her two sons die. One daughter-in-law returns to Moab while Ruth insists on staying with Naomi: "Do not ask me to abandon or forsake you! For wherever you go, I will go, wherever you lodge I will lodge, your people shall be my people, and your God my God." What love and what loyalty. Ruth will not abandon her mother-in-law!
Jesus, in today's Gospel, Matthew 22: 34-40, is asked which commandment of the law is the greatest. It is the commandment lived out by Ruth. "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind," Jesus responds. Those loyal to their husbands and wives, to their mothers/fathers-in-law, to their daughters/sons-in-law are witnesses to the love Jesus about which Jesus talks.
How loving and loyal am I to the persons God puts in my life, whether married, single or a member of a religious community? Am I willing to leave my homeland for another, as Jesus left heaven for earth to reveal God's love for us? Would I, like Ruth, say to another: "Do not ask me to abandon or forsake you" when I know in my heart of hearts that that is the right thing to do?
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