Texts taken from the “On Your Word” Missal May-June 2024

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)
3rd week psalter

FIRST READING

From the book of the prophet Ezekiel (Ez 17:22-24)
Thus says the Lord God: “I myself will take a sprig from the crest of the cedar, from its topmost branches I will pluck it and plant it on a high and lofty mountain; I will plant it on the high mountain of Israel. It will put forth branches and bear fruit and become a magnificent cedar. Under it every bird will dwell, every winged creature will rest in the shade of its branches. Then all the trees of the forest will know that I am the Lord, who humbles the high tree and exalts the low tree, makes the green tree wither and the withered tree bloom. I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will do it.” - The word of God.

Commentary on the first reading

The prophet Ezekiel’s words of hope resound more unexpectedly than ever in the heart of the people of Israel, who increasingly perceive themselves as a severed tree, destined for barrenness. Israel is in exile in Babylon; it no longer has a temple in which to offer sacrifices to God, it no longer has a promised land, and it no longer has before it any prospect of a future life. Only the memory of God’s great works remains, but at present nothing is left but a barren, lifeless stump. In this experience, so sad and resigned, the Lord comes to give new hope to his people: “I myself will take a sprig from the crest of the cedar… and plant it on the high mountain of Israel.” We are precisely that “sprig”; the prophet speaks to us and about us. We are the parable that the Lord tells again, to us and to the whole world, to restore hope to everyone. May the Lord help us to read every moment of our lives and of the history we are living in the light of his faithful love, which restores leaves and fruit to the branches of our withered trees, even when barrenness seems to be the only inevitable destiny.

SECOND READING

From the second letter of Saint Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians (2 Cor 5:6-10)
Brothers and sisters, we are always full of confidence, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord - for we walk by faith, not by sight - and we are full of confidence and would rather leave the body and go home to the Lord. Therefore, whether we are at home or away, we strive to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense according to what was done in the body, whether good or evil. - The word of God.

Commentary on the second reading

What confidence is the apostle Paul speaking of? In the context of the second letter to the Corinthians that the liturgy offers us today, this confidence concerns the desire to “go home to the Lord.” This desire does not distract us from the present; on the contrary, it helps us live it wisely, as the setting for our maturation, in view of “the recompense according to what was done.” When the destination is clear and we are certain that the Lord’s help precedes all our efforts, the journey can no longer generate any anxiety. Not only that, but it can be lived in peace and openness toward the brothers and sisters who walk with us, knowing well that, even though we all live “by faith and not by sight,” we are a beloved and fertile land, on the verge of sprouting. At the end of life, when we appear before Christ, we will be judged on the love that illuminated our existence here below; for this reason, the present time, although lived in exile away from the Lord, is the time of faith, hope, and charity.

GOSPEL OF THE DAY

From the Gospel according to Mark (Mk 4:26-34)
At that time, Jesus said [to the crowd]: “This is how it is with the kingdom of God: it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land; he would sleep and rise night and day, and through it all the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how. Of its own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once, for the harvest has come.” He said: “To what shall we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable can we use for it? It is like a mustard seed that, when sown in the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on the ground. But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.” With many such parables he spoke the word to them as they were able to understand it. Without parables he did not speak to them, but to his own disciples he explained everything in private. - The Gospel of the Lord.

Commentary on the Gospel of the day

There is a small seed that could be mistaken for a vegetable seed, but once sown, it quickly grows far beyond a vegetable, becoming a tree-like shrub capable of sheltering birds’ nests. Jesus sows a small seed, and it grows beyond measure, beyond all human expectations. The present time is a time of sowing, and the Lord ensures the seed’s growth. As Saint Ignatius of Loyola teaches, every Christian is asked to act as though everything depended on him or her, while knowing that in reality everything depends on God. This is the awareness that sustains us in the labors of each day. If the parable of the seed focuses on the dynamism of sowing and on the mechanisms of growth that escape our control, the parable of the mustard seed makes us participants in the wonder of the dimensions of this growth. This attitude of wonder must certainly have been that of the first Christian community, which in just thirty or forty years reached the borders of the Roman Empire. What Jesus perceived as hope, the disciples experience as present and project toward an apparently unstoppable future of growth.