Memorial of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary
The Bible is rich with examples of faith, and more often than not, that faith begins when someone encounters an evangelizer—someone who proclaims the Word of God. The story of Ruth offers a particularly beautiful and unusual example. Ruth came to know God through her mother-in-law, Naomi, who became, perhaps unintentionally, her evangelizer.
Naomi tried to dissuade Ruth: “See now! Your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her god. Go back after your sister-in-law!” But it wasn’t Naomi’s words that won Ruth over—it was the love between them. A love that radiated something deeper than instruction. Ruth’s response is one of the most inspiring declarations of faith in all of Scripture: “Wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you lodge, I will lodge. Your people will be my people, and your God, my God.”
Pope Paul VI, in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, reminds us that “evangelical zeal must be rooted in personal holiness.” In other words, it’s not the eloquence of our speech that leads others to faith, but the witness of our lives. It’s in living the Gospel with authenticity—manifesting the fruits of the Holy Spirit—that the Holy Spirit begins to stir in others. Only then do our words find fertile ground.
Our own Rule of Life puts it this way in Section 2, Our Ideal: “Our ideal is to live the mystery of the Eucharist fully and make known its meaning.” Toward the end of the Rule, we are reminded that the Eucharist—source and summit of all evangelizing—is meant to permeate all human realities.
And what are these realities? They are the everyday ways we live: in our families, our communities, our work, and our witness. May Mary, Queen of Heaven, inspire us to bring the love of her Son into all these realities.
Let Us Pray:
“Christ has no body now but yours: no hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes with which He looks compassion on this world, Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good, Yours are the hands with which He blesses all the world.” (Saint Teresa of Avila’s Prayer)
