PAN DE LA SEMANA

Pan de Vida 2nd Sunday of Lent (C) - 2007 March 4, 2007 Readings: Gen 15:5-12, 17-18 / Phil 3:17 – 4:1 / Lk 9:28b-36 AWAKE, AWARE, & ALIVE WITH AND FOR GOD! Fr. Chito Dimaranan, SDB Today’s liturgy is smackful of startling similarities … Abram has a profound experience of God: “As the sun was about to set, a trance fell upon Abram, and a deep, terrifying darkness enveloped him” (1st Reading). The darkness, however, was not the important thing … What came after it is most important in the whole experience … “It was on that occasion that the Lord made a covenant with Abram.” The Gospel reading refers to three disciples who accompanied the Lord up Mount Tabor. Those of you who have climbed mountains would be able to empathize with Peter, James, and John. They must have been very tired and exhausted. Luke says they were “overcome by sleep.” But like what happened with Abram, their sleeping was not the main thing … It became a backdrop to a glorious manifestation of the Lord. And since ...

Pan de Vida 1 st Sunday of Lent (Year C) February 25, 2007 Readings : Dt 26:4-10 / Rom 10:8-13 / Lk 4:1-13 DESERT, DESOLATION, DISCOVERY, DEVOTION By Fr. Chito Dimaranan, SDB It is Lent once again. All over the world, thoughts related to the desert and what it may represent, loom ahead. Christmas fades as a distant memory (or yet a distant dream). Valentine’s Day, marketed by the culture of consumerism as the next best thing after Christmas, is also receding in the far horizon. Lent enters into our world of experience as some kind of a lull from all frenetic activities and joyful celebrations. When Lent enters, there is not much to look forward to till the glories of Easter breaks forth in full splendor. But Easter is more than 40 days away from Ash Wednesday. Lent smacks of recession – like the receding hues of violet that represents the whole liturgical season. Lent reminds us of desolation – like the image of the desert that figures prominently in today...

PAN DE VIDA 7th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) February 18, 2007 COMPASSIONATE AND MERCIFUL LIKE GOD Readings: 1 Samuel 26:2,7-9,12-13,22-23; 1 Corinthians 15:45-49; Luke 6:27-38 Last Sunday’s rousing call to authentic “blessedness,” in contradistinction to “woefulness” is brought up a notch higher today. The poor, the hungry, those who are weeping, and the hated (on the Lord’s account) are declared “blessed” last week. Today, the liturgy converges on something patently counterintuitive, counter-cultural, and, from the worldly point of view, totally beyond the pale of ordinary logic. The “God of reversals” jolts us one more time, and asks all of us “to do a David,” and become what He Himself is … kind and merciful, as we declared after the first reading: “The Lord is kind and merciful” (Responsorial Psalm). I start off this reflection with what I am all too familiar with – human experience – my own, and that of many others. Doing a David, that is, sparing graciously the life of someo...