Year B
Discover the deeper meaning and connections found in this week's readings, through these great commentaries written by our priests.
Explore this week's readings and hear what God is saying to us through His Word.
Find out more about how we can mark this special day in our liturgy.
See our music recommendations for the liturgy.
First Reading: Ezekiel 17:22-24
Responsorial Psalm 91:2-3.13-16
Second Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians
Gospel According to Mark 3:1.8-1
I The poetic imagery of Ezekiel describes an atmosphere of a creative and protective God who wishes to engage in dialogue with his people and the whole of creation; this is a fruitful and fertile image (the tree of life) that can be the difference between discord, power and exploitation, and the restorative care for all that promises harmony amongst nations.
The image of the fruitful tree, planted on the highest mountain (Zion) gives protection to the birds of the air, and provides shade and shelter for all who wish for peace, justice, and harmony in the Kingdom of God.
This shade and protection has the power to restore imbalance, where a change of heart and a new gentle perspective can provide a mission of peace and justice, where humility becomes the standard, and where those who are well provided for can join hands with those who are poor, with each teaching the other the royal road to God’s Kingdom.
Both human and spiritual growth is offered here in this text and the imagery of the fruitful tree continues through St. Mark’s gospel.
II Paul in his letter to the Corinthians simply stresses how Christians believing in and entrusting in the universal and salvific will of God, so poetically described by Ezekiel, should always be full of confidence. Their aim in faith is to make their home with the Lord.
III As we saw in Ezekiel the poetic attraction and the gentle context of nature, both human and spiritual can speak to the heart in ways that theory and conceptual thinking is unable to achieve. We see this gentle approach and the use of images that those around Jesus would have understood.
Jesus invites the people to use their imagination to come to the deeper understanding of what God is offering them. Awareness is the product of trust, not knowing how nature and growth comes about, but trusting that the labour and the work of human hands will produce the fruit of the earth. In time the work of human hands and trust produce the harvest; the gift given at ‘harvest’.
Again, another image is offered: Jesus presents to those gathered about him an image of the mustard seed, small but with huge potential that he likens to the kingdom of God, a kingdom that embraces all - Ezekiel’s expressions realised, and the birds of the air and humans can find shelter in the branches - a place where all are accepted.
Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
CCC 543-546: announcing the Kingdom of God
CCC 2653-2654, 2660, 2716: the Kingdom grows by hearing the Word
There is a lot of greenery in the scriptures today. In the 1st Reading Ezekiel tells of the Lord who makes low trees grow and makes withered trees green. The Responsorial Psalm alludes to palm trees and cedars, and the just still bearing fruit when they are old, still full of sap, still green; while in the Gospel we have green wheat ripening and mustard seeds growing into mustard trees. All of this might prompt us to look at the way our church buildings are decorated today — very much a “green Sunday”!
While not exactly today’s Gospel, the song “Unless a grain of wheat” would be suitable during the distribution of Communion.
The brief extract from 2 Corinthians reminds us that, though we might yearn to be contemplative, spiritual people, we are in fact bodily people. Finding the balance between head and heart, between prayer and action, is what we are called to do.
Preface VI of the Sundays in Ordinary Time (p. 616) would bean appropriate choice today, while perhaps Prayer over the People 25 (p. 726) might be used before the final blessing.
These hymns have been chosen from various sources:
For the fruits of his creation (CFE178, L731, LHON261)
Seek ye first the kingdom of God (CFE633, L820, LHON604)
Unless a grain of wheat (CFVE754, L748, LHON697)
You are the salt of the earth (CFE821, L854, LHON749)
Key
CFE - Celebration Hymnal for Everyone
L – Laudate
LHON – Liturgical Hymns Old and New (Mayhew, 1999)
TCH – The Catholic Hymnbook (Gracewing)
Do you have questions about the liturgy and how we are called to participate in it? Explore how the Church councils, saints, and popes have answered this key question and many more.
Every movement of the Mass is rich in meaning but we can become over-familiar with it. Rediscover the Mass and explore how it relates to the Exodus story, where many of its rituals come from, and how it makes Jesus present to us today.
