Sunday June 16, 2024

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“You have good fruits to share; God has been nurturing their growth.”

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Good News Reflection for:

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time
June 16, 2024

Today’s Prayer:

Help me, Lord, to find You in the little things You show me every day. In them, You also make your Church grow inside me from the seed you planted in me on the day of my baptism. Amen.

Powerful morning prayers to start your day:
gnm.org/prayers/daily-prayers

Today’s Readings:

Ezekiel 17:22-24
Psalm 92:2-3,13-16
2 Corinthians 5:6-10
Mark 4:26-34
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061624.cfm
USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/daily-mass-reading-podcast-june-16-2024

God is calling you this week!

This week, something is going to happen that will give you the opportunity to touch someone’s life with God’s love. Watch for it.

If you consciously choose to make the most of the situation, you might feel challenged, perhaps a bit nervous or intimidated, but you will experience the joy of making a difference for the kingdom of God. And you might be surprised at how well you do!

God has been preparing you for this situation for a long time. Your trials, your spiritual education, your personal purification process, your prayer-time insights, your Christ-centered conversations with others — all these and more have been part of the preparation.

You are like the seed in this Sunday’s Gospel passage. Life’s circumstances have fertilized you, watered you, and tilled your soil. Over time, the seed sprouted, the plant grew, and the flowers began to produce good fruit.

Every day, we all encounter small and sometimes large opportunities to serve the kingdom of God. We don’t have to be full-time volunteers nor paid employees of the Church to work in the mission of Christ. If we are willing, he touches the world through us in our homes, our workplaces, our parishes, in the grocery store, in the traffic tie-ups, on the Internet, and everywhere we go.

Have any of your seeds sprouted into a tree that withered from neglect or got chopped down by others? This happens to all of us. The good news is: In every dead tree at least one fruit remains, shriveled up and barely hanging from a lifeless branch, but secretly holding a very valuable seed.

We are to take those ugly, dead fruits and plant them in the freshly tilled soil of today. A new tree will grow and it will become taller and stronger and more abundantly fruitful than the tree from which it came, because the decay from the original tree is now additional fertilizer in the soil.

In everything that happens to you, remember: You have good fruits to share; God has been nurturing their growth. You are ready!

Questions for Personal Reflection:
What are some of the ways you have grown in your faith? How can this help others? Realizing that the good fruit that come from your growth is Jesus working through you to make the world a better place, how do you feel about this?

Questions for Community Faith Sharing:
Describe various ways that we continue the mission of Christ in our ordinary lives. What produces new growth in us so that we become more useful to Christ?

For more on this, use our WordByte, “God Has Gifted You for Ministry” @ wordbytes.org/master-needs-you/gifted-for-ministry/.

© 2024 by Terry A. Modica

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