Friday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time
August 25, 2023
Daily Reading from the USCCB: Ruth 1:1, 3-6, 14b-16, 22
Ruth is a story about family. Ruth is a foreigner, a Moabite woman married into an Israelite family which had moved to Moab in a time of famine in Israel. Soon the Israelite husband dies and his two sons likewise. This leaves Naomi, his Israelite wife, and two Moabite daughters-in-law.
Naomi urges the daughters-in-law–one of whom is Ruth–to find husbands among the Moabites, while she Naomi, goes back home to Israel. Ruth refuses to leave her mother-in-law. “Wherever you go, I will go,” Ruth says to Naomi. “Your people shall be my people and your God my God.”
Ruth has formed a deep bond with Naomi’s people–who are God’s people. Their affection leads to results that no one could have foreseen.
