1st Reading: Ruth 1:1, 3-6, 14-16, 22
Gospel: Mt 22:34-40It is undeniable that no one can come to know God and love God as an isolated individual.
Because it is with others and from others that we come to know what is kindness and compassion, love and forgiveness, truth and beauty.
And then we want to believe in what they believe in, so that we also can be like the goodness they radiate.
In the 1st reading, Ruth had the freedom and the choice to leave her mother-in-law, Naomi, and to go back to her own people.
Yet Ruth chose to follow Naomi and go to a foreign land and be a stranger and a foreigner.
She chose to do that because she saw the goodness of Naomi.
Subsequently she even accepted Naomi's people as well as the God that Naomi believed in.
Certainly in Naomi and Ruth, we see the commandment of love that Jesus talked about, being practised in reality.
Whenever we meet with conflicts in relationships, whether between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, father-in-law and son-in-law, or superior and subordinates, let us remember today's 1st reading about Naomi and Ruth.
When we commit ourselves to the commandment of love, then others will know that we really care about them.
Otherwise we will be living isolated and lonely lives.