PAN DE LA SEMANA

SOLEMNITY OF STS. PETER & PAUL June 29, 2014 COMPETING WELL, FINISHING, & KEEPING THE FAITH We live in times where multi-tasking seems to be the run of the day. We attend meetings left and right, but even as we try our best to follow all the proceedings, our smartphones are busy beeping, chirping, chiming or burping, as the case may be, calling our attention to a thousand-and-one concerns that are all collectively called “notifications.” We turn on the coffee-maker first thing in the morning, even as we boot our laptops, or pick up our tablets to look for the MMDA app that tells us what we already know – that traffic is bad like any other day, and that so-called alternate routes are simply make-believe alternate routes, for everyone has exactly the same idea! We begin so many tasks. We start so many campaigns. We call for so many rallies and sign up to so many petitions. We begin so many faddish diets and we enroll ourselves in ever...

Corpus Christi (A) June 22, 2014 FOR REAL. FOR CERTAIN. FOR ALL TIME. FOREVER! Of late, there has been an increasing mistrust for fake food and everything fake from a certain country. Let us hide its identity under the name “China.” In my latest visit to Hong Kong, I was told that certain people in that country have mastered the art – and the business! – of producing fake everything: fake eggs, fake beef, fake milk, not to mention all the fake “signature” items that can be found everywhere where they sell cheap goods. In our country, we have fake public servants who actually serve no more than their own pockets, their family, their best interests, and definitely not the common weal. Let us also hide them under the collective title of “congressman or senator.” Of late, too, certain places I am very familiar with have also seen a number of fake priests, who do nothing more than sprinkle holy water to business establishments … for...

Trinity Sunday (A) June 15, 2014 GRACIOUS AND MERCIFUL IS GOD! We have all kinds of names for people who are gruff, rough, uncouth and unrefined. It is hard to pin down just what it is that stands out in their obnoxious character, but we simply know that there is something sorely missing. Thus, one who does not know how to close doors, turn off faucets and lights after using, or one who behaves like he is the only person in the whole wide world, unmindful of others’ welfare, comfort and needs is simply ungracious, dense, selfish, self-centered and a whole lot more. We don’t like such people around. We avoid them. We steer clear of them, and some of them can even literally throw their weight around, and make everybody else’s lives revolve around their own. They can be very well connected, but never attuned; they can also be very much engaged, but never involved. They can very busy, but never really productive. They can even work at cro...

Pentecost Sunday June 8, 2014 MANY. DIFFERENT. SPIRIT. SOURCE. ONE Everything we hear today smacks of differences. Every concrete image spoken of in the readings shows diversity. The first reading speaks of Parthians, Medes, & Elamites, to name but a few. St. Paul talks about different gifts, different forms of service, different workings, and many parts in the body. Even preschool kids know this by heart: “I have two hands, the left and the right” … etc. I have lived in this planet for many decades by now. I have lived in different parts of the same planet for as many years, and dealt with many different types of character and personality. Some of them are easy to live with; others are a proverbial pain the neck, maybe including me, as far as many others are concerned. The event reported in today’s readings also speak of “tongues of fire” … many, not few. The tongues of fire eventually produced different tongues on the pa...