Saturday of the Twentieth week in Ordinary Time

Book of Ruth 2:1-3.8-11.4:13-17.
Naomi had a prominent kinsman named Boaz, of the clan of her husband Elimelech.
Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go and glean ears of grain in the field of anyone who will allow me that favor.” Naomi said to her, “Go, my daughter,”
and she went. The field she entered to glean after the harvesters happened to be the section belonging to Boaz of the clan of Elimelech.
Boaz said to Ruth, “Listen, my daughter! Do not go to glean in anyone else’s field; you are not to leave here. Stay here with my women servants.
Watch to see which field is to be harvested, and follow them; I have commanded the young men to do you no harm. When you are thirsty, you may go and drink from the vessels the young men have filled.”
Casting herself prostrate upon the ground, she said to him, “Why should I, a foreigner, be favored with your notice?”
Boaz answered her: “I have had a complete account of what you have done for your mother-in-law after your husband’s death; you have left your father and your mother and the land of your birth, and have come to a people whom you did not know previously.
Boaz took Ruth. When they came together as man and wife, the LORD enabled her to conceive and she bore a son.
Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed is the LORD who has not failed to provide you today with an heir! May he become famous in Israel!
He will be your comfort and the support of your old age, for his mother is the daughter-in-law who loves you. She is worth more to you than seven sons!”
Naomi took the child, placed him on her lap, and became his nurse.
And the neighbor women gave him his name, at the news that a grandson had been born to Naomi. They called him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.

Psalms 128(127):1-2.3.4.5.
A song of ascents. Happy are all who fear the LORD, who walk in the ways of God.
What your hands provide you will enjoy; you will be happy and prosper:
Like a fruitful vine your wife within your home, Like olive plants your children around your table.
Just so will they be blessed who fear the LORD.
May the LORD bless you from Zion, all the days of your life That you may share Jerusalem’s joy

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 23:1-12.
Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples,
saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses.
Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice.
They tie up heavy burdens (hard to carry) and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them.
All their works are performed to be seen. They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels.
They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues,
greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation ‘Rabbi.’
As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’ You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers.
Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven.
Do not be called ‘Master’; you have but one master, the Messiah.
The greatest among you must be your servant.
Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

Commentary of the day : Saint Isaac the Syrian
“Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted”

Friday of the Twentieth week in Ordinary Time

Book of Ruth 1:1.3-6.14-16.22.
Once in the time of the judges there was a famine in the land; so a man from Bethlehem of Judah departed with his wife and two sons to reside on the plateau of Moab.
Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons,
who married Moabite women, one named Orpah, the other Ruth. When they had lived there about ten years,
both Mahlon and Chilion died also, and the woman was left with neither her two sons nor her husband.
She then made ready to go back from the plateau of Moab because word reached her there that the LORD had visited his people and given them food.
Again they sobbed aloud and wept; and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye, but Ruth stayed with her.
“See now!” she said, “your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her god. Go back after your sister-in-law!”
But Ruth said, “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.
Thus it was that Naomi returned with the Moabite daughter-in-law, Ruth, who accompanied her back from the plateau of Moab. They arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

Psalms 146(145):5-6.7.8-9.10.
Happy those whose help is Jacob’s God, whose hope is in the LORD, their God,
The maker of heaven and earth, the seas and all that is in them, Who keeps faith forever,
secures justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets prisoners free;
the LORD gives sight to the blind. The LORD raises up those who are bowed down; the LORD loves the righteous.
The LORD protects the stranger, sustains the orphan and the widow, but thwarts the way of the wicked.
The LORD shall reign forever, your God, Zion, through all generations! Hallelujah!

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 22:34-40.
When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together,
and one of them (a scholar of the law) tested him by asking,
Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?
He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
This is the greatest and the first commandment.
The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

Commentary of the day : Clement of Alexandria
The two commandments

Thursday of the Twentieth week in Ordinary Time

Book of Judges 11:29-39.
The spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah. He passed through Gilead and Manasseh, and through Mizpah-Gilead as well, and from there he went on to the Ammonites.
Jephthah made a vow to the LORD. “If you deliver the Ammonites into my power,” he said,
“whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites shall belong to the LORD. I shall offer him up as a holocaust.”
Jephthah then went on to the Ammonites to fight against them, and the LORD delivered them into his power,
so that he inflicted a severe defeat on them, from Aroer to the approach of Minnith (twenty cities in all) and as far as Abel-keramin. Thus were the Ammonites brought into subjection by the Israelites.
When Jephthah returned to his house in Mizpah, it was his daughter who came forth, playing the tambourines and dancing. She was an only child: he had neither son nor daughter besides her.
When he saw her, he rent his garments and said, “Alas, daughter, you have struck me down and brought calamity upon me. For I have made a vow to the LORD and I cannot retract.”
“Father,” she replied, “you have made a vow to the LORD. Do with me as you have vowed, because the LORD has wrought vengeance for you on your enemies the Ammonites.”
Then she said to her father, “Let me have this favor. Spare me for two months, that I may go off down the mountains to mourn my virginity with my companions.”
“Go,” he replied, and sent her away for two months. So she departed with her companions and mourned her virginity on the mountains.
At the end of the two months she returned to her father, who did to her as he had vowed. She had not been intimate with man. It then became a custom in Israel

Psalms 40:5.7-8.9.10.
Happy those whose trust is the LORD, who turn not to idolatry or to those who stray after falsehood.
sacrifice and offering you do not want; but ears open to obedience you gave me. Holocausts and sin-offerings you do not require;
so I said, “Here I am; your commands for me are written in the scroll.
To do your will is my delight; my God, your law is in my heart!”
I announced your deed to a great assembly; I did not restrain my lips; you, LORD, are my witness.

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 22:1-14.
Jesus again in reply spoke to them in parables, saying,
The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.
He dispatched his servants to summon the invited guests to the feast, but they refused to come.
A second time he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those invited: “Behold, I have prepared my banquet, my calves and fattened cattle are killed, and everything is ready; come to the feast.”‘
Some ignored the invitation and went away, one to his farm, another to his business.
The rest laid hold of his servants, mistreated them, and killed them.
The king was enraged and sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.
Then he said to his servants, ‘The feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy to come.
Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find.’
The servants went out into the streets and gathered all they found, bad and good alike, and the hall was filled with guests.
But when the king came in to meet the guests he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment.
He said to him, ‘My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?’ But he was reduced to silence.
Then the king said to his attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’
Many are invited, but few are chosen.”

Commentary of the day : Saint Augustine
The wedding garment