PAN DE LA SEMANA

5 th Sunday of Easter Year C Apri 28, 2013 LOVE. SCARS. NEW. GLORY I start with a word puzzle. Mysterious. Cryptic. Self-contradictory … Love. Scars. New. Glory. Something new and something old; something that hurts and something that scars; something that wounds, but something that renews, and leads to the ultimate newness – glory with God ever ancient, ever new! This is the theme of today’s readings, 5 th Sunday of Easter. It’s an old story … if you change your life drastically, for the better that is, there will be haters and naysayers, doubters and cheerers, people who will drag you down, and people who will prop you up. This is what happened to Paul and Barnabas. Paul was an old hat at persecuting the Church. He was one difficult guy who made it even more difficult for the early followers of the Lord. But something new and something great happened to him. He was renewed and changed by a mystical experience. Th...

4 th Sunday of Easter Year C Good Shepherd Sunday April 21, 2013 ARE YOU ON SHUFFLE MODE? Listening is a lost art in our smartphone-dominated times. Wanna bet? Even the world of journalism is filled with noise, not news … studies and surveys, not truth … statistics and projections, not hard-nosed focus on what matters … reality shows, but not passionate dedication and commitment to face actual reality. Times there were when we excitedly spoke of “virtual reality.” It is ever present now …in your tablet, on your iPad, (or Haipads, for that matter!). But there is something more now … far more than just “virtual reality” – what is known now as “augmented reality.” Both the “trendies” and the “traddies” are guilty of it … they both talk of something real with a twist … a little exaggeration here; a small addition there … a gentle innuendo here; a subtle sarcasm there … So what does one have in the end? A truth, but augmented, modifie...

Third Sunday of Easter (Year C) April 14, 2013 AM LOVIN’ IT: BREAKFAST BY THE SHORE It’s one of those appearances of the Risen Lord that is sure to get you running for more … Why not? There’s free consultation for discouraged fishermen out on open water all night and catching nothing. They have been casting their net all night long presumably on only one side of the boat and the catch was simply elusive. They say it is always darkest just before dawn. But when dawn came and the sun’s rays were just about ready to appear in the horizon, someone more than the sun, more dazzling than the sun’s rays, and greater than the sun itself appeared, with some advice: “Cast the net over the right side of the boat and you will find something.” They did haul in more than they could handle. But there was something else they were not prepared to handle with ease – the sight of the Risen Lord! However, the disciples who were too focused on the catchi...

Second Sunday of Easter Year C April 7, 2013 THAT HIS SHADOW MIGHT FALL ON US! The night of March 13, I chose not to sleep. I decided to stay up and wait for the white smoke, as I had the hunch things would accelerate that night. Being seven hours ahead of Rome, it was time for bed. The white smoke came at more or less 2 AM. But when the shadow of the new Pope’s image fell on the whole world, brought by the miracle of mass communications and the internet in my case, going back to bed was out of the question. I was energized. I was excited. And I got a big boost to my faith as I saw the throngs at St. Peter’s square, show a groundswell of support for the new Bishop of Rome. Today, the readings all show this same energy, the same excitement, a similar jolt that comes from the Risen Lord. “Signs and wonders” were what the apostles did, and “a large number of people” also gathered to experience the same. For his part, John, who witnessed the Ri...