June 16, 2024 – XI Sunday in Ordinary Time

+ From the Gospel according to Mark (4, 26 – 34)

At that time, Jesus said [to the crowd]: «This is how the kingdom of God is: like a man who casts seed on the ground; sleep or wake, night or day, the seed germinates and grows. How, he himself does not know. The soil spontaneously produces first the stem, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear; and when the fruit is ripe, immediately he sends the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
He said: «To what can we compare the kingdom of God or with what parable can we describe it? It is like a mustard seed which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds that are on the ground; but, when it is sown, it grows and becomes larger than all the plants in the garden and makes branches so large that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
With many parables of the same kind he announced the Word to them, as they could understand. Without parables he did not speak to them but, in private, he explained everything to his disciples.

Word of the Lord