First Reading
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."
Second Reading
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.
XI SEMANA DEL TIEMPO ORDINARIO
Gospel
Jesus said, "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.
