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Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday in the Twentieth Week of Ordinary Time, 25 August 2023
Ruth 1:1, 3-6, 14-16, 22 <*{{{{>< + ><}}}}*> Matthew 22:34-40
O how often, Lord Jesus Christ that we ask you until now the same question by a scholar of the law: "Teacher, which commandment of the law is the greatest?" (Matthew 22:34).
And we have always known your answer, which is, loving God with one's total self and loving others as we love our very selves.
But why do we keep on asking the same question until now? Because, we have always believed that loving is having, that loving is fullness, when in fact, it is the exact opposite: loving is not having, loving is being poor, loving is emptiness, loving is letting go, loving is surrendering for the one you love.
Just like Ruth, that Moabite woman, a pagan who left everything to join her widowed mother-in-law Naomi to go back to Bethlehem; both of them were widowed, both were childless and empty, so poor without anything except each other and God.
Let the words of Ruth be our prayer today to those we love without if nor buts, especially those empty and poor, sick and dying: "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 by my people, and your God my God" (Ruth 1:16).
God our Father, help us to remain faithful and to keep loving when in the midst of sufferings and trials, of emptiness and nothingness like Ruth to Naomi; how lovely to recall that Ruth's love for Naomi led to her becoming the grandmother of King David and one of the four women in Matthew's genealogy of Jesus for it is loving without nothing in return that we gain, and it is in loving even in losing ourselves that we find ourselves in you. Amen.
