Mass Readings for June 16, 2024

Ezekiel 17:22-24
Psalms 92:1-2,12-15
2 Corinthians 5:6-10
Mark 4:26-34

Ezekiel 17:22-24
(22) “Thus says the Lord Yahweh: ‘I will also take some of the lofty top of the cedar, and will plant it. I will crop off from the topmost of its young twigs a tender one, and I will plant it on a high and lofty mountain. (23) I will plant it in the mountain of the height of Israel; and it will produce boughs, and bear fruit, and be a good cedar. Birds of every kind will dwell in the shade of its branches. (24) All the trees of the field will know that I, Yahweh, have brought down the high tree, have exalted the low tree, have dried up the green tree, and have made the dry tree flourish. “‘I, Yahweh, have spoken and have done it.’”

Psalms 92:1-2,12-15
(1) It is a good thing to give thanks to Yahweh, to sing praises to your name, Most High; (2) to proclaim your loving kindness in the morning, and your faithfulness every night, (12) The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree. He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon. (13) They are planted in Yahweh’s house. They will flourish in our God’s courts. (14) They will still produce fruit in old age. They will be full of sap and green, (15) to show that Yahweh is upright. He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

2 Corinthians 5:6-10
(6) Therefore we are always confident and know that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord; (7) for we walk by faith, not by sight. (8) We are courageous, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord. (9) Therefore also we make it our aim, whether at home or absent, to be well pleasing to him. (10) For we must all be revealed before the judgment seat of Christ; that each one may receive the things in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

Mark 4:26-34
(26) He said, “God’s Kingdom is as if a man should cast seed on the earth, (27) and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring up and grow, though he doesn’t know how. (28) For the earth bears fruit: first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. (29) But when the fruit is ripe, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.” (30) He said, “How will we liken God’s Kingdom? Or with what parable will we illustrate it? (31) It’s like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, though it is less than all the seeds that are on the earth, (32) yet when it is sown, grows up, and becomes greater than all the herbs, and puts out great branches, so that the birds of the sky can lodge under its shadow.” (33) With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it. (34) Without a parable he didn’t speak to them; but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.