PAN DE LA SEMANA

27 th Sunday in Ordinary Time(A) October 2, 1011 The passage from Paul’s letter to the Philippians reminds me of what young people nowadays love to say often … “whatever!” – the quintessential postmodern expression, if ever there was one! Whatever! … a cute way to wrap up everything said and unsaid … a semi-polite way to dismiss someone else’s idea without being too blatantly straightforward … a nice way to give closure to a discussion (or argument) that goes nowhere … a one-size-fits-all term to describe just about anything under the sun (including the sun itself, of course). Whatever! … a flippant way to dismiss something as insignificant, valueless, as something of no major importance … But the readings of today show the exact antithesis of this dismissive and flippant remark. The landowner of the gospel parable certainly does not think of his vineyard in a dismissive manner. No … he values his vineyard … he takes care of it and, in fact, entrusts it to someone who defi...

26 th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A) September 26, 2011 Words are a dime a dozen. They come, not in mere jolting phrases, but in torrents in our days … via Facebook, Twitter, text, and broadcast. Columnists issue their daily columns, many of them full of venom; some full of honey, depending on who pays them more, or whose administration they want to build – or, in many cases – destroy! Ironically, I offer not much else as alternative. Preaching, evangelizing, teaching, passing on the Word of God, unfortunately, or fortunately, still all have to do with using the human word – the only way we humans know best to communicate, to connect, and to transform the world we are immersed in. Words flood our waking days, hours, and minutes. Most are empty words, vacuous threats, and spineless promises often meant to be broken. And this, for one simple reason … words are used, for the most part, only to communicate, to inform, but not to educate or to form. Words uttered and written no long...

25 th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A) Sept 18, 2011 There is some urgency in the tone with which Isaiah writes. “Seek the Lord,” he says, “while he may be found.” At first blush, he seems to tell us, to lose no time and do the most important thing – to find God, and repent: “Let the scoundrel forsake his ways, and the wicked his thoughts.” For Paul however, in his letter to the Philippians, time becomes secondary and takes a back seat to the same focus of Isaiah, and that is, finding the Lord, and being with Christ. When one finds Christ, everything, including earthly material time, takes the back seat. “For to me,” he writes, “life is Christ, and death is gain.” I write while on break together with my siblings (or what remains of us after both parents and others have all passed on) – a much awaited and, I should say, much deserved trip to Europe. We do this actually in honor and homage of both our parents whose hard work and vision made it possible for all six of us surviving siblin...