The Blossoming of our Efforts The Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time 2021

                                       The Blossoming of our Efforts

The Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time 2021

June 13, 2021

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Ezekiel 17:22-24; Psalm 92; 2 Corinthians 5:6-10; Mark 4:26-34

 

The readings from Ezekiel and Mark give us reason to contemplate the care of our common home. Ezekiel’s words are to give hope to Jerusalem as the place where God was known to reside and justice would be issued forth from the holy mountain. Mark’s passage talks about what is required for faith in difficult times, that faith is mysterious, and that the greatest events can happen with even a small amount of faith. We need this faith as we talk about our stewardship of the environment. 

 

The Eucharist is a gift of our labors to God, work of our hands and the fruits of the earth, and God transforms them and gives it back to us as something much greater. It is only right that we work to preserve what has been entrusted to us. We hear much about ways we can use renewable energy, promote biodiversity, and guarantee access to clean water, and it forces us to look at our economics to respond to the defense of human life and our vulnerable brothers and sisters, but it begins with our awareness and rediscovery of the world around us so that it informs our spirituality. 

 

We have an opportunity to recover a religious vision of God’s creation and spend more time in contact with the natural world. For many, COVID gave us an opportunity to enjoy the outdoors as our encounters with friends and loved ones were limited. These moments provide us an opportunity to be filled with a spirit of wonder and to raise our consciousness during retreats and times of prayer. It also helps us to create ecological action and awareness where we see that all things in our universe are joined together and have a causal effect upon nature that we do not yet understand. 

 

Ecologically-aware groups and some corporations have reimagined their use of resources and energy so that we manufacture more environmentally friendly products. When we adopt simple lifestyles and are less consumeristic, the environment benefits from our sobriety. Dependence upon public transportation or increased physical activity help reduce pollution. Prudence dictations that participation in community events encourages our rootedness in local territory and neighborhood ecosystems, and we have the added benefit of meeting people who are working jointly on a common good. 

 

The world belongs to God and it is entrusted to us. Our lives are relatively short and we need to pass along something better than what was handed to us. We have made improvements and we have also caused harm. If we can spend time pondering the mystery of creation and to behold its beauty, we can be filled with awe like the people in the Gospel who watch the tiniest mustard seed become the largest bush. With our imaginations and service linked together, we will sit back in astonishment to recognize our efforts have created results much greater than we anticipated. We owe it to our world to join together. 

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

 

Monday: (2 Corinthians 6) We cause no one to stumble in anything, in order that no fault may be found with our ministry; on the contrary, in everything we commend ourselves as ministers of God, through much endurance, in afflictions, hardships, constraints, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, vigils, fasts; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in unfeigned love, in truthful speech, in the power of God.

Tuesday: (2 Corinthians 8) We want you to know, brothers and sisters, of the grace of God that has been given to the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, the abundance of their joy and their profound poverty overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.

 

Wednesday: (2 Corinthians 9) Each must do as already determined, without sadness or compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. Moreover, God is able to make every grace abundant for you, so that in all things, always having all you need, you may have an abundance for every good work.

 

Thursday: (2 Corinthians 11) But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts may be corrupted from a sincere and pure commitment to Christ. For if someone comes and preaches another Jesus than the one we preached,
or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it well enough.

 

Friday (2 Corithians 11) I am still more, with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, far worse beatings, and numerous brushes with death. Five times at the hands of the Jews I received forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I passed a night and a day on the deep; on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own race, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, dangers among false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many sleepless nights, through hunger and thirst, through frequent fastings, through cold and exposure.

 

Saturday (2 Corinthians 12) About this man I will boast, but about myself I will not boast, except about my weaknesses. Although if I should wish to boast, I would not be foolish, for I would be telling the truth. But I refrain, so that no one may think more of me than what he sees in me or hears from me because of the abundance of the revelations.

 

Gospel: 

Monday: (Matthew 5)  offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well. If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well. 

 

Tuesday: (Matthew 5)  love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

 

Wednesday (Matthew 6) But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right is doing, so that your almsgiving may be secret.

 

Thursday (Matthew 6) Jesus said to his disciples: “In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 

 

Friday (Matthew 6) The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light; but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness. And if the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be.

 

Saturday (Matthew 6) Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

 

Saints of the Week

 

June 13: Anthony of Padua, priest and doctor (1195-1231), became a biblical scholar who eventually joined the Franciscans. Francis sent him to preach in northern Italy, first in Bologna and then Padua. He very especially beloved because of his pastoral care, but he died at age 36. 

 

June 19: Romuald, abbot (950-1027), was born into a family of dukes from Ravenna and became known for founding the Camaldolese Benedictine order that combined the solitary life of hermits into a monastic community life. He founded other hermitages and monasteries throughout Italy. 

 

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• June 13, 1557. The death of King John III of Portugal, at whose request Francis Xavier and others were sent to India. 
• June 14, 1596. By his brief Romanus Pontifex, Pope Clement VIII forbade to members of the Society of Jesus the use or privilege of the Bulla Cruciata as to the choice of confessors and the obtaining of absolution from reserved cases. 
• June 15, 1871. P W Couzins, a female law student, graduated from Saint Louis University Law School, the first law school in the country to admit women. 
• June 16, 1675. St Margaret Mary Alacoque received her great revelation about devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 
• June 17, 1900. The martyrdom at Wuyi, China, of Blesseds Modeste Andlauer and Remy Asore, slain during the Boxer Rebellion. 
• June 18, 1804. Fr. John Roothan, a future general of the Society, left his native Holland at the age of seventeen to join the Society in White Russia. 
• June 19, 1558. Fr. Lainez, the Vicar General, summoned the opening of the First General Congregation, nearly two years after the death of Ignatius. Some trouble arose from the fact that Fr. Bobadilla thought himself entitled to some share in the governance. Pope Paul IV ordered that the Institute of the Society should be strictly adhered to.