On our last day in this great love story, we will focus on the heart of Paul's Letter to the Philippians. By meditating on the Hymn of Philippians 2:6-11 we will understand that we have not only been rescued, but that by being like Christ we participate in this rescue.

We will do well, then, to remember that we are treading on holy ground, a privilege that is given to us not to satisfy our intellectual curiosity, but to transform our lives.

By reading Ruth we have not only received a beautiful story, we have also learned how we can be rescued from our desperate condition. In this gospel reading we will see how our rescue takes place. Our rescuer will die for us. It will be good to read John to understand how we can apply to our own lives what we have read in Ruth.

When reading the Old Testament quite soon we realize that the foundations are being laid here for an event to come. In our readings we have already learned that our common sense does not lead us to God, as the events of the Book of Judges and Elimelech's fateful decision showed. But from Ruth and Naomi we also learned that a "rescuer" can free us from our fate.

The great love story does not end with reading the Book of Ruth, on the contrary, it makes us look at Scripture with different eyes, because we want to see how this redemption comes to us. In the remaining readings in this devotional series we will focus on some passages that will help us see how we, in the third millennium, also enjoy this restoration and rescue.

The fairy tales that we listened to as children, many times ended by saying "and they lived happily ever after." None of those stories take into account the 'forever', it is simply a hyperbole that emphasizes the happy ending of the story. In our case, in this story, we really can say "they lived happily ever after." Because their zeal to act correctly opens a window to eternity for all of us. Here we will learn how normal people can illuminate the history of all humanity. A better way to summarize this beautiful story is to say ‘thanks to them, we are living happily ever after’. Let's enjoy this reading.

In our previous reading, when Ruth comes home, Naomi literally asks her who are you? What Naomi wants to know is whether Ruth is still Mahlon's wife or is she already Boaz's wife. Ruth informs him that she is still Mahlon's wife, but that is soon going to change. Boaz is determined to fix the matter as soon as possible. On giving her barley before returning home, he told her, "Don’t go back to your mother-in-law empty-handed." Today Naomi's future is going to change. Do you remember Naomi’s bitter words when she came back from Moab? ‘I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty’. God, in his mercy, is acting and Naomi will have a family again. Boaz will take care of this.

A feature of any good story is that it engages us. We want to move forward, to know what will happen. When reading a good story we are not passive, the only way to extract all its message is to be active in reading it. This is what happens to us when we read the Book of Ruth, this great love story. We all want to know what will happen in the threshing floor where the barley was harvested! It is no longer just the story of Ruth, it has become our story.

Our previous reading opened up a whole area that we didn't know about. There are those who can rescue these women and get them out of the precarious situation they are in. In this great love story, we can finally see 'the light at the end of the tunnel'. Our passage takes us to "one day", which is not specified, but which is close because it is the time when the barley grain is winnowed. Ruth’s telling Naomi that she was gleaning grain in Boaz's field made her see the situation from another perspective. In his mercy, God had provided a mechanism to prevent a widow from being helpless: there was a "redeemer" who could rescue her. Here we will see how Naomi begins to act proactively to restore her family.

In our previous reading we witnessed the industriousness of Ruth, who leaves her family and country to take care of Naomi, her mother-in-law. In this reading we will witness the conversation of these two women once Ruth returns home after spending the whole day gleaning at the fields. And we will learn more about Boaz. All of this will help us understand why Ruth is a love story that points to THE great love story.

This passage will allow us to have a clear understanding of all the protagonists of this great love story. Here we will meet Boaz, who is presented in very good terms by the author of this book.