“YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD…[AND] YOUR NEIGHBOUR AS YOURSELF (Matt 22:37-39)

⏰Friday of the Twentieth Week of Ordinary Time (23 August 2019)

📖Ruth 1:1, 3-6, 14b-16, 22; Ps 146:5-6ab, 6c-7, 8-9b, 9bc-10 (R.v.1b); Matt 22:34-40

We can never say it enough, neither can we put it better than the love evangelist himself who said, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ while he hates his brother, he is a liar. How can he love God whom he does not see if he hates his brother whom he can see?” (1 John 4:20).

There is a necessary correlation between the love of God and the love of neighbour. That could be why Jesus brought both into answering one question as to what constitutes the greatest commandment (cf. Matt 22:36ff).

Love is infectious. When we love genuinely and perfectly, the beneficiaries of such love would likely want to be like us and do what we do. That could be an explanation as to why Ruth refused to go back to her people when Naomi asked her to (cf. Ruth 1:11-17).

The Book of Ruth did not tell us much about their early life together. But Ruth’s insistence that Naomi’s people and God would be hers too (Ruth 1:16) is a sign that Naomi must have loved them as herself. Through that presumed action of Naomi, the love and reign of God were felt in a foreign land and led to the conversion of Ruth.

Do you know you can convert souls to Christ by loving much? Love conquers all and it is love that gives us our identity as disciples of Christ (cf. John 13:35).

May Christ teach us to love as he loved, and grant us the courage to embrace the demands of love. Amen. 

Have a lovely day ahead. Peace be with you.