Your God will be my god (English)

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“Your God will be my God” (Ruth 1,16)
An initial proclamation of love in the family
Sr. Maria Ko
Pope Francis, in the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, writes: “In
and among families, the Gospel message should always resound; the core of that message, the
kerygma, is what is ‘most beautiful, most excellent, most appealing and at the same time most
necessary’ (EG 35)” (58). “Our teaching on marriage and the family cannot fail to be inspired and
transformed by this message of love and tenderness; otherwise, it becomes nothing more than
the defense of a dry and lifeless doctrine.” (59).
In light of what the Pope suggests, we will concentrate our reflection on a biblical book – the Book
of Ruth – from which we can surely take precious inspiration on how to make the initial
proclamation in the family context, but above all in the family spirit.
1. Three widows in solidarity
The Book of Ruth, one of the three biblical writings that have a woman as the principle protagonist,
is a jewel of Hebrew literature. The drama is simple, almost a familiar chronicle with the flavor of
every day. The narration is lively, pervaded with tenderness, with human warmth, with feminine
delicacy, and a bit of serene nostalgia for the lovely olden days in which human relationships were
simpler, more genuine and disinterested. From this modest story of humble people springs forth a
luminous message of acceptance and solidarity.
The episode is situated in the era of the Judges, that is, in a time characterized by the absence of
social organizations. “At that time there was no king in Israel; each one did what seemed best to
them” (Judges 21: 25). To the political insecurity was added the misfortune provoked by natural
events. Bethlehem, the house of bread, was struck by famine. Urged by hunger, Elimelek
abandons his own land and emigrates to ‘the camp of Moab’, beyond the Jordan, with his wife
Noemi and their two sons, who marry two Moabite women. Elimelek soon dies. Unfortunately, the
two sons also die. Within the ten years of their immigration (within five verses of the text), the
family is reduced to three women without husbands or sons; poor, alone, and defenseless.
The life of want becomes unsustainable. They need to make a decision to do something to save
themselves. Noemi, the mother-in-law, decides to return to her country. Unwilling to sacrifice the
youth of her daughters-in-law, she invites them to return to their homes to remarry. With the
renouncement of their company and by placing their good before her own, Noemi reveals herself
to be a noble woman, strong, courageous, refined, loving, full of trust in God, and of affection for
her dear ones. In spite of their being foreigners, Noemi invokes God’s blessing on her daughters-
in-law: “Naomi said to her daughters-in-law, Go back, each of you to your mother’s house. May
the Lord show you the same kindness as you have shown to the deceased and to me. May the
Lord guide each of you to find a husband and a home in which you will be at rest. She kissed them

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good-bye, but they wept aloud” (Ruth 1: 8-9). When the daughters-in-law insist on remaining with
her, Noemi tries to convince them in a simple, pleasant, very human, very feminine way and with
refined humor: “Go back, my daughters. Why come with me? Have I other sons in my womb who
could become your husbands? Go, my daughters, for I am too old to marry again. Even if I had any
such hope, or if tonight I had a husband and were to bear sons, would you wait for them and
deprive yourselves of husbands until those sons grew up? No, my daughters” (Ruth 1: 11-13).
2. God passes to ‘mine’ God passes from “yours” to “mine” (Ruth and Noemi)
Orpah lets herself be convinced by the affectionate solicitations of Noemi. Ruth, instead, does not
desist. “See now,” she said, “your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her god. Go back
after your sister-in-law!” (1,16-17) insists the mother-in-law, trying to do everything to convince
her young daughter-in-law. She, however, is firm in her choice and breaks out in expressions of
fidelity so strong as to seem like a vow, a confession of love, and a profession of faith: “But Ruth
said, “Do not press me to go back and abandon you! 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 will die,
and there be buried!” (1,16-17).
The journey from Moab toward Bethlehem is a journey of faith for the two widows, mother-in-law
and daughter-in-law: they do not have heavy luggage or protection or guarantees. They have only
one treasure: the affection that binds them reciprocally. But the Lord is present and walks with
them.
In the elderly widow of Israel and in the young daughter-in-law of Moab, we have two generations,
two peoples, two cultures, two religious traditions facing each other; and yet love unites them
intimately. They witness that the encounter between cultures, the dialog between generations,
the acceptance of diversity, the universalistic horizon, etc., are all possible when there is love.
Ruth “attaches herself to Noemi” (1,14) with sincere friendship. It is through this intensity of
human relationships that God works marvels. He does not let Himself be found only in great
theophanies and in awesome victories, but also in the domestic sphere in the history of a family
marked by suffering: famine, sickness, death, poverty, insecurity. Here the face of God is reflected
in two little women, widows, without children: one a foreigner and the other an immigrant.
God, who lives in the intra-Trinitarian relationship, loves to reveal Himself in the intra-human
communion. He, who sends His Son to become the brother and friend of humans, loves to make
Himself discovered in the solidarity of friends. He makes Himself be found in the purity and depth
of human love: “Where there are charity and love, there is God”.
It is not rare to hear people affirm even today: “I believe in the God of…”; particularly in the areas
in which God is not known: “If this Christian is so good, so happy, then his God is mine too”.
This is a very successful ‘initial proclamation’! In reality, none of us is born with a clear
consciousness of God. The God who comes to meet us is always the God of a “you”, the God of

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others, the God presented to us by others. God Himself loves to present Himself as “the God of
Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob” (Ex. 3,15), “the God of the Fathers” (At 7,32), a God experienced by
others in the past; a God believed in and loved by others; a God who can be inherited, passed on,
shared; a God to communicate, to hand on, to give to others; a God to be born and grow in the
heart of beloved persons. God loves collaboration and assumes His collaborators in a surprising
way.
Don Bosco understood this dynamic well and chose to make the Preventive System be based on
charity. It is in this sense that he exhorts us to earn the heart of the young, “to make ourselves
loved more than feared”, to “make ourselves love what the young love”.
In a missionary encounter, a group of young people created this slogan: “Is your God dead? Take
mine: He is alive!” It is a beautiful expression of the initial proclamation. God loves to go from the
‘yours’ to mine” across the bridge of friendship.
3. “Password” to the heart (Ruth and Boaz)
If between Noemi and Ruth there is a diversity of culture, of age, of traditions; in the rapport
between Ruth and Boaz this otherness is reinforced even more: man-woman, Israelite-foreigner,
rich-poor. Otherness is not lived as fear, danger, an obstacle to be rid of, but rather as a stimulus
to give oneself to the art of love.
Boaz appears on the scene with a greeting to the harvesters, “the Lord be with you”, to which they
respond, “May the Lord bless you” (2: 4). The blessing of God guides the whole rest of the account
and arouses in Boaz a glance of benevolence and a spontaneous sympathy toward that unknown
woman he sees gleaning in the field. Gaining knowledge of her enterprising activity and of her love
for her mother-in-law, Boaz bestows on the young woman gestures of goodness. Faced with this
exquisiteness, Ruth is confused, surprised, and moved. She never expected all this: “Why should I,
a foreigner, be favored with your attention?” (2,10). Ruth emphasizes the fact that she is a
foreigner, almost fearful that he does not know this.
Boaz instead, is not at all interested in this fact. He tells 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 previously you did
not know”. (2: 11). Facts and deeds speak and spread. Did not Jesus tell us that we know the tree
by its fruit (Mt 7: 20) and that His disciples will be recognized by the love they have for one
another (John 13: 34)? Beautiful actions move and have an effect: it is not important if they are
done by a European, an Asian, an American. Men and women meet in the depths of their
humanity. Ecumenism and universalism; evangelization and the initial proclamation are not
accomplished if not at this profound level.
Ruth is grateful and moved by such goodness. She says to Boaz: “May I prove worthy of your favor,
my lord. You have comforted me. You have spoken to the heart of your servant”… (2: 13).

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Speaking to the heart is a language that gives strength and renews life from within. God makes His
people leave Egypt by speaking to their heart (Hosea 2: 16). He announces to the oppressed and
discouraged people: “Console, console my people… Speak to the heart of Jerusalem and shout
that their slavery is over!” (Is 40: 1-2).
Speak to the heart, find the point most sensitive to the good, as Don Bosco says; finding the
password of access that opens the heart is always fundamental, even in the effort of the initial
proclamation.
The story of Noemi and of Ruth has a happy ending. The two women, in their reciprocal
acceptance, unknowingly accomplish a mysterious plan of God. Ruth married Boaz and from this
happy marriage Obed will be born, and from him David will be born a century later. And a
thousand years later, the Son of God, Jesus, will become the son of David, thus the son of Ruth,
the son of Noemi. Human relationships thus become the ground of miracles, the space in which
God manifests His provident tenderness, the occasion in which He surprises the world.