Celebrate Sunday Mass - 6.13.21

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6/13/2021 (2 years ago)

By Deacon Keith Fournier

JUNE 13, 2021 -- 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dear Catholic Online Community and Catholic Online School students...

I AM HAPPY TO OFFER EACH OF YOU AN INVITATION TO SUNDAY MASS ON THE ELEVENTH SUNDAY in OORDINARY TIME in the Catholic Diocese of Tyler. The response to offering these liturgies online has been overwhelming. The readings, as always, offer so much for us to reflect on. It is helpful to pray through them and reflect upon them before we assist at Holy Mass.

The readings are beautiful. In our first reading, the Lord speaks through the prophet Ezekiel and tells Israel of His plan to use them, as little as they are, to spread His loving plan, the plan of salvation to all the world. This is a theme which carries through all of the readings for today's Holy Mass.

The Psalmist leads us in responding to that promise. Our response, "Lord it is good to give thanks to you." If we stay planted in the house of the Lord we will flourish and bear fruit, even in old age. Do we believe this? Every Lords Day is an opportunity to give thanks to the Lord. To receive Him, through His Holy Word proclaimed at Mass and in the reception of His Body and Blood at Holy Communion.

In our second reading, we heard an excerpt from the Second Letter of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians. The context is helpful. The Apostle Paul is instructing them - and us- about the importance of supernatural, living faith. We are to "look to the things that are nor seen", he wrote in verses which preceded this passage. And, if we grow weary, we are to always recall that we walk by faith and not by sight.

Living faith is like a lens through which we can view everything differently now because of who Jesus is, and who we are becoming in Him. Even when we grow weary, we should remember that we will put on a resurrected body when the fullness of redemption is completed, a "heavenly dwelling".

The Gospel text for the Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary time is taken from the 4th chapter of St Marks account. Jesus reminds us that He has spread the seed of His Kingdom both within us and through us.

And, that seed will bear fruit because it is His power, the power of the Holy Spirit, which ensures that growth. We are simply called to say "YES" and allow Him to work within us and through us. Mustard seeds are so small, you can only see them from close view. Yet, they grow into a large tree.

All the images used by Jesus when He teaches on the spreading of the kingdom are meant to bring home the new reality that comes from our discipleship. When we cooperate with His grace, amazing things begin to happen.

In the words of St. Jose Maria Escriva, "May Our Lord be able to use us so that, placed as we are at all the cross-roads of the world - and at the same time placed in God - we become salt, leaven and light. Yes, you are to be in God, to enlighten, to give flavor, to produce growth and new life. But don't forget that we are not the source of this light: we only reflect it." (St. Jose Maria Escriva, Friends of God, 250)

Let us choose today to be instruments of the Lord in shining His light in a world steeped in darkness.

May the Lord bless you, your families, the Church, and the Nations of the world on this Lord's Day.

Deacon Keith Fournier
Dean of Catholic Online School
Chaplain of Your Catholic Voice Foundation

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