Mass Readings for August 25, 2023

Ruth 1:1,3-6,14-16,22
Psalms 146:5-10
Matthew 22:34-40

Ruth 1:1,3-6,14-16,22
(1) In the days when the judges judged, there was a famine in the land. A certain man of Bethlehem Judah went to live in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons. (3) Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died; and she was left with her two sons. (4) They took for themselves wives of the women of Moab. The name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other was Ruth. They lived there about ten years. (5) Mahlon and Chilion both died, and the woman was bereaved of her two children and of her husband. (6) Then she arose with her daughters-in-law, that she might return from the country of Moab; for she had heard in the country of Moab how Yahweh had visited his people in giving them bread. (14) They lifted up their voices, and wept again; then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth joined with her. (15) She said, “Behold, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people, and to her god. Follow your sister-in-law.” (16) Ruth said, “Don’t urge me to leave you, and to return from following you, for where you go, I will go; and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God my God. (22) So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, with her, who returned out of the country of Moab. They came to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest.

Psalms 146:5-10
(5) Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in Yahweh, his God: (6) who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps truth forever; (7) who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. Yahweh frees the prisoners. (8) Yahweh opens the eyes of the blind. Yahweh raises up those who are bowed down. Yahweh loves the righteous. (9) Yahweh preserves the foreigners. He upholds the fatherless and widow, but the way of the wicked he turns upside down. (10) Yahweh will reign forever; your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise Yah!

Matthew 22:34-40
(34) But the Pharisees, when they heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, gathered themselves together. (35) One of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him. (36) “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” (37) Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ (38) This is the first and great commandment. (39) A second likewise is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ (40) The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”