PAN DE LA SEMANA

30 th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B) October 28, 2012 SO THAT NONE SHALL STUMBLE Trekking up a mountain in pitch darkness is an experience I won’t want to have again – ever, in my life. One feels literally blind and almost utterly helpless. One is scared, worried, even terrified, at the very real possibility of a potentially tragic misstep – every step along the way! This, I had twice or thrice, many years ago, at a time when LED lights were still on the drawing board, and most climbing equipment were imported, and – therefore – rare and prohibitively expensive! This is the image that immediately came to mind as I read today’s readings. Jeremiah, as we know, was a prophet during and after that sad chapter of Israelite history – the great Babylonian exile! He was most likely devastated by the bitter experience. He was also most likely disheartened, discouraged, and, given his obvious emotional reactivity, might also have been somewhat depressed. But toda

29 th Sunday in Ordinary Time B October 21, 2012 DRINKING THE SAME CUP; DOING THE SAME MISSION! Political dynasty is a big issue from where I come. We never see the end of families and clans being on the same road of what they love to call “public service.” They drink of the same cups that run over with poise, position, and power. If we go on in this strain, soon we might see fathers and sons, first cousins and half-brothers with the same surnames occupying the highest offices of the land, all in the name of “service.” It is so easy for us in this forlorn part of the world to identify with the two sons of Zebedee asking the Lord for a little favor, a seemingly insignificant request. Come on! What harm can two brothers occupying more or less equal places in the kingdom do? Haven’t they served the Lord? Haven’t they given up family, home, and an entrepreneurial job with Zebedee as chairman of the board, and the two as board members in the little fish t

28 th Sunday Year B October 14, 2012 PRAYING FOR PRUDENCE & GETTING  A WHOLE LOT MORE! Just about every six months, some new gadget is introduced into the volatile and highly competitive market. No sooner have many people saved up (or begged or borrowed from others) and bought the prized gizmo, than another one comes out to replace it. The compulsion to shop till you drop is all pervading, all encompassing. One feels compelled, not necessarily to have more, but to have something else, as W. Cavanaugh (2007) wisely writes. It is about having something that no one else has for the meantime, until they find enough courage to charge it once again to their piling debt, and buy the prized object with plastic money, charging it, for all intents and purposes, to one’s uncertain future. Before the ubiquitous pull of that “something else,” that “something unique” and “something different” that “few” individuals have, prudence, understood as practical wisdo

27 th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B) October 7, 2012 ALL THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES! Back in my Baltimore days, I got sort of hooked to the daytime soap opera DAYS OF OUR LIVES. I did not make much of whatever was going on in the lives of the Horton and Brady families in a town called Salem, but I remember enjoying the portrayal of the complex characters of the evolving story, that began yet in 1965, and is poised to air its 12,000 th episode come January 2013. It is a story filled with twists and turns, unpredictable ends and unexpected bends along the circuitous – if, tumultuous – route that is called life as lived by the average Tom, Dick, and Harry, and for our local culture where I am at, every Juan de la Cruz of our times. I start with something positive – a blessing, in fact … “May the Lord bless us all the days of our lives!” (Responsorial Psalm). How does one deserve and earn such a blessing? Let me count the ways, as suggested by the very