Sunday 9 December 2012

Ruth and the Mother of God. Advent

Night Office Readings.
The Venerable Godfrey of Admont is best known to us for his Sunday and Feast Day Sermons.



SECOND WEEK OF ADVENT
SUNDAY Year I
First Reading    Ruth 1:1-22
http://www.bible-art.info/Ruth.htm 
      Responsory                                                  Rv 1:16-17
Do not urge me to leave you, to return from following you, for wherever you go, I will go, and where you live, I will live. + Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die and there will I be buried.
V. May the Lord do so to me and more also if even death parts me from you. + Your people shall ...

Second Reading
From a homily by Godfrey of Admont (Homiliae Festivals: PL 174, 1026-1028)
Your gifts
In the Book of Ruth we can find something that may rather fittingly be applied to the Mother of God. In her own person Ruth was quite praiseworthy, in her family she was conspicu­ous, being born of the base and accursed people of Moab. She chose to leave her relatives and the land of her birth and to re­side in a land not her own. There, because of the great integrity of her life and habits, she was joined in marriage to a distin­guished man of the Israelite people, named Boaz, and by him she had a son named abed, who was father of the father of King David, of whose seed Christ, the Son of God, was born.

The name "Ruth" means "hastening," and the name, we think, is suited to the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was always "hastening," that is, fervent in holy and good works. Ruth was descended from the base and accursed race of the Moabites; Mary was born of that people whom the blame for original sin had rendered ignoble and accursed. Ruth left her native land and her relatives in order to practice the faith of her mother-in-law, and she resided in a land not her own. Mary left her native place and her parents when, in order to remain faith­ful to God the Father and preserve her own chastity, she sepa­rated herself from the common life of the world. She regarded  herself as an exile and pilgrim in this world, for she contemned everything that the present world loves, and she was hastening to the only true and endless glory of the heavenly homeland. From the lineage of Ruth King David was born; from the vir­ginal flesh of the Virgin Mary was born our true David, of strong arm and comely face, our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the entire world has been saved.

Tamar prayed: Most merciful Judge, recognize in me faith and hope and love of you. These are your gifts, which you have given to me; as best I could, with your help, I have preserved them as a testimony to my salvation and have brought them back to you. Since these gifts have been acknowledged by Ju­dah, that is, by God the Father, the soul shall be received into the joys of everlasting blessedness through him who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.

Responsory                                                           Is 40:10; In 10:1
See, the Lord God will come with power. He will pasture his flock like a shepherd. + He will gather his lambs into his arms and hold them close; he himself will carry the ewes.
V. I am the Good Shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. + He will gather ...

19 Dec 2010
Sunday, 19 December 2010 Fourth Sunday of Advent. Not Trivia Pursuits in Bible. Genealogy: Mt 1:1-23, 1 Tamar, 2 Rehab, 3 Ruth, 4 Betsheba. I have a picture of the OT women in the mosaic on the shrine of the Dormition of ...



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