Sunday 13 June 2021
11th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Liturgical Colour: Green.
Readings at Mass
Entrance Antiphon
Cf. Ps 26: 7, 9
O Lord, hear my voice, for I have called to you; be my help.
Do not abandon or forsake me, O God, my Saviour!
Collect
O God, strength of those who hope in you,
graciously hear our pleas,
and, since without you mortal frailty can do nothing,
grant us always the help of your grace,
that in following your commands
we may please you by our resolve and our deeds.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
First reading
Ezekiel 17:22-24 ·
I will plant a shoot on the high mountain of Israel
The Lord says this:
‘From the top of the cedar,
from the highest branch I will take a shoot
and plant it myself on a very high mountain.
I will plant it on the high mountain of Israel.
It will sprout branches and bear fruit,
and become a noble cedar.
Every kind of bird will live beneath it,
every winged creature rest in the shade of its branches.
And every tree of the field will learn that I, the Lord, am the one
who stunts tall trees and makes the low ones grow,
who withers green trees and makes the withered green.
I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will do it.’
Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 91(92):2-3,13-16
Lord, it is good to give thanks to you.
It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to make music to your name, O Most High,
to proclaim your love in the morning
and your truth in the watches of the night.
Lord, it is good to give thanks to you.
The just will flourish like the palm tree
and grow like a Lebanon cedar.
Lord, it is good to give thanks to you.
Planted in the house of the Lord
they will flourish in the courts of our God,
still bearing fruit when they are old,
still full of sap, still green,
to proclaim that the Lord is just.
In him, my rock, there is no wrong.
Lord, it is good to give thanks to you.
Second reading
2 Corinthians 5:6-10 ·
We want to be exiled from the body and make our home with the Lord
We are always full of confidence when we remember that to live in the body means to be exiled from the Lord, going as we do by faith and not by sight – we are full of confidence, I say, and actually want to be exiled from the body and make our home with the Lord. Whether we are living in the body or exiled from it, we are intent on pleasing him. For all the truth about us will be brought out in the law court of Christ, and each of us will get what he deserves for the things he did in the body, good or bad.
Gospel Acclamation
Jn15:15
Alleluia, alleluia!
The seed is the word of God, Christ is the sower;
all who come to him will live for ever.
Alleluia!
Gospel
Mark 4:26-34
The kingdom of God is a mustard seed growing into the biggest shrub of all
Jesus said to the crowds: ‘This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man throws seed on the land. Night and day, while he sleeps, when he is awake, the seed is sprouting and growing; how, he does not know. Of its own accord the land produces first the shoot, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when the crop is ready, he loses no time: he starts to reap because the harvest has come.’
He also said, ‘What can we say the kingdom of God is like? What parable can we find for it? It is like a mustard seed which at the time of its sowing in the soil is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet once it is sown it grows into the biggest shrub of them all and puts out big branches so that the birds of the air can shelter in its shade.’
Using many parables like these, he spoke the word to them, so far as they were capable of understanding it. He would not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything to his disciples when they were alone.
Prayer over the Offerings
O God, who in the offerings presented here
provide for the twofold needs of human nature,
nourishing us with food
and renewing us with your Sacrament,
grant, we pray,
that the sustenance they provide
may not fail us in body or in spirit.
Through Christ our Lord.
Communion Antiphon
Ps 26: 4
There is one thing I ask of the Lord, only this do I seek:
to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.
Or:
Jn 17: 11
Holy Father, keep in your name those you have given me,
that they may be one as we are one, says the Lord.
Prayer after Communion
As this reception of your Holy Communion, O Lord,
foreshadows the union of the faithful in you,
so may it bring about unity in your Church.
Through Christ our Lord.
For practical reasons, the readings at Mass are relatively short while the First Readings in the Office of Readings are longer. Here, for your private study, are passages from the Office of Readings that contain the readings you have just heard at Mass.
Ezekiel 17:3-15,19-24
An oracle regarding ruin and restoration
The word of the Lord was addressed to me as follows:
‘Say, “The Lord says this:
A large eagle, with huge wings
and a wide span,
covered with speckled feathers,
came to Lebanon.
He took hold of the top of the cedar,
plucked off the top branch,
carried it off to the land of merchants,
and set it down in a city of shopkeepers.
Then he carried off a seedling vine,
and planted it in fertile soil;
by the side of a wide stream,
as a border he set it.
The seedling grew, and turned into a vine,
not tall but well spread out;
its branches grew up towards the eagle,
its roots grew down.
It turned into a vine;
it sent out stems and put out sprays.
There was another large eagle,
with huge wings and thickly feathered.
And now the vine twisted its roots toward him,
stretched its branches towards him
away from the bed where it was planted
for him to water them.
It was in a fertile field,
by the side of a wide stream,
that the vine had been planted,
to grow shoots, bear fruit
and become a noble vine.”
Say, “The Lord says this:
Will this vine thrive?
Will not the eagle break its roots,
and snap up the fruit,
so that all the new leaves will wither when they shoot?
It will take no effort and no strong nation
to pull it up by the roots.
It is planted there; will it thrive?
Will it not shrivel when the east wind blows?
It will wither on the soil where it was growing.”’
The word of the Lord was addressed to me as follows:
‘Say to that set of rebels, “Do you not know what this means?” Say this, “Listen; the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem; he carried away the king and the princes, and took them to where he lives in Babylon. He took a member of the royal family and made a treaty with him, forcing him to swear loyalty, after having already deported the chief men of the land, so that the kingdom would remain modest and without ambition and so maintain his treaty faithfully. But the prince rebelled and sent envoys to Egypt, asking for horses and a large number of troops. Is he going to thrive? Will a man who has done this go unpunished? Can he break a treaty and go unpunished?
‘“And so, the Lord says this: As I live, I swear: my oath which he has ignored, my treaty which he has broken, I will make them both recoil on his own head. I mean to throw my net over him and catch him in my mesh; I mean to take him to Babylon and punish him there for breaking his oath to me. The pick of his army will fall by the sword, and the survivors be scattered to all the winds. And so you will learn that I, the Lord, have spoken.
‘“The Lord says this:
From the top of the cedar,
from the highest branch I will take a shoot
and plant it myself on a very high mountain.
I will plant it on the high mountain of Israel.
It will sprout branches and bear fruit,
and become a noble cedar.
Every kind of bird will live beneath it,
every winged creature rest in the shade of its branches.
And every tree of the field will learn that I, the Lord, am the one
who stunts tall trees and makes the low ones grow,
who withers green trees and makes the withered green.
I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will do it.”’
2 Corinthians 4:16-5:10
There is no weakening on our part, and instead, though this outer man of ours may be falling into decay, the inner man is renewed day by day. Yes, the troubles which are soon over, though they weigh little, train us for the carrying of a weight of eternal glory which is out of all proportion to them. And so we have no eyes for things that are visible, but only for things that are invisible; for visible things last only for a time, and the invisible things are eternal.
For we know that when the tent that we live in on earth is folded up, there is a house built by God for us, an everlasting home not made by human hands, in the heavens. In this present state, it is true, we groan as we wait with longing to put on our heavenly home over the other; we should like to be found wearing clothes and not without them. Yes, we groan and find it a burden being still in this tent, not that we want to strip it off, but to put the second garment over it and to have what must die taken up into life. This is the purpose for which God made us, and he has given us the pledge of the Spirit.
We are always full of confidence, then, when we remember that to live in the body means to be exiled from the Lord, going as we do by faith and not by sight – we are full of confidence, I say, and actually want to be exiled from the body and make our home with the Lord. Whether we are living in the body or exiled from it, we are intent on pleasing him. For all the truth about us will be brought out in the law court of Christ, and each of us will get what he deserves for the things he did in the body, good or bad.
Copyright © 1996-2021 Universalis Publishing Limited: see www.universalis.com. Scripture readings from the Jerusalem Bible are published and copyright © 1966, 1967 and 1968 by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc, and used by permission of the publishers. Text of the Psalms: Copyright © 1963, The Grail (England). Used with permission of A.P. Watt Ltd. All rights reserved.
