Relating well with people is a powerful virtue. Those who have it spread goodness everywhere because they move about with pleasantness and compassion. Another name for this is love, which is a deep feeling of friendliness and goodwill towards another. All these are captured in the readings of today.
Naomi and Ruth as Examples of Love and Compassion
The story of the two women, Naomi and Ruth, which is introduced in the first reading of today from the book of Ruth is a powerful lesson in love and compassion. The story begins with the report of a famine that constrains the man Elimelech to leave his town of Bethlehem of Judah and migrate to a foreign town in Moab with his wife, Naomi, and two sons, Mahlon and Chilion. What unfolds is one pathetic event after another. First the man Elimelech dies, and few years later his two sons also die without having children even though they had married two Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth. The hapless widow, Naomi, was now left without the consolation of her two sons. She is only left with the two childless young widows of her two sons. The status as a widow is already miserable, but a widow without a child is like a piece of dried wood.
The story takes on a new dimension as Naomi decides to return to Bethlehem. Naomi persuades her two daughters-in-law to return to their people, but they insist on following her. Finally, Orpah decides to go, but Ruth no. The eagerness of these two young widows to stay with their mother-in-law speaks volumes of the rapport between them and their mother-in-law. Unlike many situations in both the traditional and modern societies where mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law are usually at daggers draw or in cold war, Naomi’s case was different. Incidentally, the name Naomi in Hebrew means “pleasant, gentle, compassionate” while Ruth means “friend”, derived from the Hebrew word re’uth (friend).
The meanings of the names of these two women express eloquently the parts they play in the story. Naomi tries all her persuasive tactics to convince Ruth to go back, but she is decided. Her love for her mother-in-law is unquantifiable. Ruth tells Naomi in clear words that have become the toast of writers, musicians, movie stars and lovers: “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. Where you die, I shall die and there I shall be buried. Let Yahweh bring unnamable ills on me and worse ills, too, if anything but death should part me from you!” (1:16-17). In these words, Ruth also expresses the import of her name which is that of being a compassionate friend.
Power of Loving
The great love which Ruth shows her mother-in-law goes a long way not only to prolong the old lady’s life but also to provide a lasting posterity for the entire family. This is what love means. It adds new spices to people’s life through friendship and compassion. This is why Jesus stresses love (agape) as the best way of living out the commandments.
In the Gospel of today from Matt 22:34-40, Jesus interprets the love of God and love of neighbour as the greatest of all the commandments of the Jewish law. Love is the total self disposition and solicitude for the other. It is a sacrificial self-giving for the good of the other. We see this self-giving in what Ruth does for her mother-in-law. She so completely identifies with Naomi that she becomes a representation of Naomi herself. She completes what is lacking in the old lady. Love is a way of sharing in the lives of others that we are ready to stand for them in all circumstances and complete whatever is lacking in their lives. In such moments of sharing and empathy, living becomes very joyful despite the realities of pain and hardship.
