11TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - 2024

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

The seed is the word of God, Christ the sower;
whoever finds this seed will remain forever.

EZEKIEL 17:22-24

My Soul’s Beloved, 

I thank You with all my heart for establishing Your Church, it is a place that You have formed from Your pierced side, it is washed clean in the Living Water that flows from it and it receives Your Flesh and Blood as supernatural food making it a strong and invincible fortress against the wiles of Satan who is a thief, a robber, a murderer who seeks to plunder, destroy, and kill. You O Lord, have built Your Church on Mt. Zion, the highest mountain. It is Your Holy Spirit that causes it to be fruitful with an abundance of good fruit. You cause her leaves to be evergreen, and her branches to spread out making a home for all God’s people from every nation, race, language, and culture. When we worship You, O Lord God of Truth and Love, no matter where we are in the world our worship is one in heart, mind, soul, and spirit. We are one Body, Your Body. 

Every Christian denomination that has broken from the True Vine, that has removed itself from the noble cedar, is stunted, it withers, and will eventually die. But we pray with all our hearts for unity. We make Your prayer to the Father that we may all be one, our own. God has already heard and answered for He always answers You and what You have prayed for, Beloved, He will do. We can see signs of it already. The withered trees who have brought themselves low will come to the knowledge of Truth and there will be one flock and one Shepherd. Praise be God now and forever. 

‘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.’

PSALM 91(92):2-3,13-16

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. 

The just will flourish like the palm tree
and grow like a Lebanon cedar.

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. 

It is good to give you thanks, O Lord.

2 CORINTHIANS 5:6-10

My Soul’s Beloved, 

You came into exile when You came into the world leaving Your glory behind and now we too know that we are only exiles and pilgrims. Our true home is in heaven with You, the Father and the Holy Spirit and with all the angels and the saints who have gone before us. 

Lord God, because You took on a human body You are now able to share everything with us. You took on Yourself our sin, our punishment, our death, and drawing all the horror of sin, decay, destruction, and death on Yourself You paid the price for our salvation. This is why we are strangers and exiles in the world for where You are Beloved, is our true home – heaven. Thank You, Lord, for the free of faith given to us at our Baptism. We are children of God and heirs to the Kingdom. We believe in Your Word, we have received Your life and we ask only this O Lord, that by Your grace, Your mercy, Your tender love and Your constant mediation for us before You Father, that we may make it safely from this life to the next.

……..  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.

MARK 4:26-34

My Soul’s Beloved, 

You are the Word of God that leaped forth from heaven into the night of the world. You are the little mustard seed that God sowed in the womb of Your Virgin Mother. You came into the world as Light, Truth, Life, Love, Abundance. Planted in the dark world which was plunged in the dark night of sin, decay, and death – You who are pure light took upon Yourself the sin of the world. You allowed Yourself to go as deep as it is possible for the human soul to go in to very darkest places of despair, sickness, and abandonment, and became the Saving Victim for the whole world. 

You O Lord are the Seed that died and rose up bringing with You an abundance of souls to new life through Your glorious resurrection. We wait in joyful hope for Your coming again in glory and while we wait, Lord, we pray with faith and with hope that everyone for whom we pray daily, hourly, and always, will be saved. You more than us desire that all be saved and not one soul for whom You gave Your life will perish. 

‘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.’