Gospel of 17 June 2018

XI Sunday of Ordinary Time

Book of Ezekiel 17,22-24.
Thus says the Lord God: “I will take from the top of the cedar, from the tips of its branches I will pluck a twig and plant it on a high, massive 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 him all the birds will dwell, every bird in the shade of its branches will rest.
All the trees of the forest will know that I am the Lord, that I humble the tall tree and raise the low tree; I make the green tree wither and the dry tree sprout. I, the Lord, have spoken and I will do it ”.

Salmi 92(91),2-3.13-14.15-16.
It is nice to praise the Lord
and sing in your name, O Most High,
announce your love in the morning,
your loyalty through the night,

The righteous will blossom like a palm tree,
it will grow like cedar of Lebanon;
planted in the house of the Lord,
they will blossom in the atria of our God.

In old age they will still bear fruit,
they will be alive and luxuriant,
to announce how righteous the Lord is:
my rock, in him there is no injustice.

Second letter of St. Paul the Apostle to Corinthians 5,6-10.
So, therefore, we are always full of trust and knowing that as long as we live in the body we are in exile far from the Lord,
we walk in faith and not yet in vision.
We are full of trust and prefer to go into exile from the body and live with the Lord.
Therefore we strive, both by dwelling in and outside of the body, to be pleasing to him.
In fact, we must all appear before the tribunal of Christ, each to receive the reward of the works done while he was in the body, both for good and for bad.

From the Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Mark 4,26-34.
At that time, Jesus said to the crowd: "The kingdom of God is like a man who sows the seed on the earth;
sleep or watch, at night or during the day, the seed sprouts and grows; as, he himself does not know.
Since the earth spontaneously produces, first the stem, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.
When the fruit is ready, he immediately puts his hand to the sickle, because the harvest has come ».
It said: "To what can we compare the kingdom of God or with which parable can we describe it?"
It is like a mustard seed which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all seeds that are on earth;
but as soon as sown it grows and becomes larger than all vegetables and makes branches so large that the birds of the sky can take shelter in its shadow ».
With many parables of this kind he spoke the word to them according to what they could understand.
Without parables he did not speak to them; but in private, to his disciples, he explained everything.