XI Sunday in Ordinary Time B (16 June 2024)

1. The first reading, taken from the book of the prophet Ezekiel, could be read as a parable of hope for the Jewish people. In order to understand it well, it is necessary to keep in mind the historical context marked by the occupation of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, who had deported the king and a good part of the inhabitants to Babylon, including the prophet Ezekiel himself, and, as if this were not enough, after a short time Jerusalem was completely destroyed and stripped of all its inhabitants who had been enslaved in Babylon. At that moment, Israel was in the grip of total discouragement because it had lost everything: the land, the concrete sign of God's blessing, its mediator king between God and the people, the temple, the place of God's presence, and it perceived its situation as a tree that had been cut down and was destined to be sterile, that is, without certainty or hope for the future. The recurring question was whether God had therefore abandoned his people and everyone's trust was put to the test. 

A kind of miracle took place, because in the midst of such a dramatic situation as the Babylonian deportation, the faith of Israel was purified to become more steadfast: an extraordinary jolt of faith of the chosen people took place, and Ezekiel was one of the architects of it. In the past he had tried to warn them by foreseeing what later occurred, but now that the catastrophe has fallen upon the people, his mission is to revive confidence and so he speaks a word of hope. He uses for this purpose the parable of the gigantic cedar we encountered in the first reading. Why the cedar tree? The cedar tree was the symbol of the dynasty of kings and thus an image of the exiled king who had become a dead tree from which, however, the Lord plucked off a twig in order to transplant it "upon a high mountain of Israel", which points to Jerusalem. Two victorious events are heralded here: the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the restoration of the kingdom of Jerusalem, which will later see people flock to Jerusalem from all parts of the world and will then be the triumph of the one God. 

This proves that nothing is impossible for God who confirms: "I am the Lord, who humbles the high tree and raises up the low tree". And again: "I, the Lord, have spoken and I will do it". 

We see two aspects of the Jewish faith highlighted here: firstly, God is all-powerful and brings to fulfilment all that he promises; secondly, Israel preserves hope because it nurtures certainty in the divine intervention that brings to fulfilment all his promises. And indeed, here we are dealing with the announcement of the future Messiah, a promise that has sustained Israel's hope over the centuries, especially in the dramatic moments of its history, and the mission of the prophets, of which Ezekiel offers us a great example, contributes to nourishing this trust.

2. The Gospel text, as is often the case, recalls the first reading. Today it is St Matthew who tells us the parable of the mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, which buried in the earth "sprouts and grows" until it becomes "greater than all the plants in the garden".  The twig plucked from the top of the barren cedar tree in the first reading and "the smallest of seeds" of which we read in the gospel bring to mind the life of every Christian. Thanks to the seed of God placed in us on the day of baptism, we have become potential trees of new life called to produce and scatter fruits of love and goodness. In particular, the Gospel parable emphasises two aspects of the Christian life: The seed placed by the Trinity in the heart of man grows every day silently in the earth, indicating that only God can ensure the total growth and fulfilment of our existence. The mention of the smallness of the mustard seed, even the smallest of all, comes to emphasise that we too, with our smallness and fragility, are in some way participants and indispensable collaborators in this surprising growth. And so it is good to let ourselves be guided by divine Providence, which has placed at our disposal two wings to fly towards heaven: God's intervention and man's action. The Christian tradition has translated this human-divine synergy into contemplation and action, highlighting the interconnection between praying understood as listening to God and acting as a response to the divine will. St Ignatius of Loyola writes in this regard: 'Act as if everything depended on you, knowing then that in reality everything depends on God' (cf. Pedro de Ribadeneira, Life of St Ignatius of Loyola, Milan 1998) and Gilbert Keith Chesterton summarises this human-divine project as follows: 'Pray as if everything depended on God; act as if everything depended on us'. 

If God sometimes seems absent from the horizon of our existence, we believe that He is always at work. Indeed, where the darkness becomes thicker, its light shines even more brightly. An example of this is the life of St John of the Cross, the great reforming saint of the Carmelite order, who had an untroubled but absurdly difficult existence. Yet it was precisely in his darkest moments, such as the time he spent in a prison isolated and abandoned by all, indeed betrayed even by his fellow brothers, that he wrote one of his most beautiful works of spirituality, from which many continue to draw inspiration in their journey of sanctification. And so one understands that the Christian life is a journey towards God. If, then, one bears within oneself a great love, this love almost gives one wings to bear more easily all the harassments, contrasts and injustices of this world, because one bears within oneself the great light of faith that consists in feeling loved by God and letting oneself be loved by him in Christ Jesus. Great temptation, however, is fear the mother of discouragement and pride the father of mistrust.

3. In short, the satanic trap of suspicion, which deceived the progenitors in the Garden of Eden, is always at work and we must remain on our guard, without ever losing the certainty that "the Lord my rock is righteous: in him is no evil" as the responsorial psalm taken from Psalm 91/92 makes us pray today. Israel is guilty of having accused its Lord on several occasions. Remember well when in the Sinai desert in days of great thirst, the people rebelled against Moses, accusing him and the Lord of having brought them out of Egypt and then leaving them to die of thirst in the desert. It is the famous episode of Massa et Meriba (Ex. 17:1-7). Yet even on that occasion, despite their rebellion, God showed himself greater than the resentment and wailing of the people out of anger, and caused water to gush forth for all from the rock. In memory of this event, Israel will call God 'his rock', a way of recalling the divine faithfulness that is stronger than any suspicion of his people. From this rock Israel throughout the centuries will continue to draw the water of its survival: it will be the source of its faith and trust. 

In the face of Israel's ingratitude God proclaims His faithfulness because He is infinite Mercy ready to make covenant with His own, He who is God of love and faithfulness, slow to anger and full of love.  From the word of God today we receive an invitation to keep a close watch on our existence because the trap of suspicion often returns in the course of life: when we are thirsty, when the water is not good, when we are hungry for happiness and everything seems to be going not as we would like but in the wrong direction, we are tempted to accuse God of having deceived and abandoned us. Be careful not to forget the lesson of the Garden of Eden when the cunning satanic serpent managed to make the man and woman believe that God was not sincere towards them and they fell into the trap of suspicion: they found themselves naked, that is, stripped of everything that constituted their rich divine inheritance.  

How to guard against the temptation of deception? How to protect oneself from the trap of suspicion is indicated to us by the psalm that the liturgy makes us meditate on today: it is necessary to remain firmly planted in God's temple like a cedar tree and not tire of repeating, even in the darkness of certain dark nights, that 'it is good to give thanks to the Lord and to sing to your name, O Most High' because to turn to God with confidence does good to ourselves. St Augustine says: 'Everything that man does for God profits man and not God'. Praying then and singing for God, "proclaiming his love in the morning and his faithfulness in the night" helps protect us from Satan's deception, fear and mistrust. The experience of so many saints shows that only truth and invincible trust in his love can enlighten us in every situation in life, while distrust and suspicion distort our view of reality. Suspecting that God wants to deceive us or abandon us to our fate is the trap we must not fall into, because it can become a deadly trap. Rather, let us follow the Apostle Paul's invitation in the second reading: "as long as we dwell in the body - for we walk in faith and not in vision - we are full of confidence and prefer to go into exile from the body and dwell with the Lord". (2 Cor 5:6-10).  While we are pilgrims to heaven, let us walk with our feet firmly planted on this earth, but let our heart find its reason for hope and commitment in Christ who already opens wide for us the door to eternal happiness.  Happy Sunday!

+ Giovanni D'Ercole