PAN DE LA SEMANA

[BREAKING THE BREAD OF GOD’S WORD] 4th Sunday of Easter-April 26, 2015 NO LESS. NO ONE ELSE. Being one and being the same is a feat not easy to maintain in our times. We have various identities, depending on what age stratum we belong to. Digital natives who belong to the internet generation have more than one, and they all are evolving. Friendster identities have long since been gone and buried in digital cemeteries. My Space identities have followed suit, along with the likes of WAYN (Where are you now?) and so many attempts at defining the world in terms of cyber associations and organizations. We, digital migrants who were not thrown into the water of digital complexities early on, have now at least two: real identity and virtual identity. (Some of us still hold on to emails, and doggedly forward messages filled with images of fluttering butterflies! … Others have moved on tentatively to Facebook, even if a great many have little or no understanding about the phenomenon of “wa...

BREAKING THE BREAD OF GOD’S WORD 3 rd Sunday of Easter B – April 19, 2015 RECOGNITION, REFORMATION Peter was more than just understanding. He gave it to people who “acted out of   ignorance.” He was tolerant and forgiving … like his Master, who “looked at him with love” even if he betrayed him thrice. John, for his part, was more than just warm to people he endearingly calls his “children.” He writes to them, he says, “so that [they] may not commit sin.” But again, like Peter, he gives it to weak people like me and you, who sin seventy times seven times, for “we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the Righteous One.” The Lord, in the Gospel according to Luke, was more than just encouraging. Alluding to the sad and dejected disciples on the way to Emmaus, Luke then reports a “sighting” of the Risen Christ, on the part of “startled and terrified” disciples gathered in a huddle. To startled and terrified disciple...

PAN DE LA SEMANA Easter Sunday Year B April 5, 2015 PASSOVER, NOT SIMPLY MAKE-OVER! Make-overs have been a regular feature in this recent decade. Old houses get a new lease on life – and, ohhs and ahhs – after what they call an “extreme make-over.” Fitness and health and beauty gurus speak endlessly about restoration of the physical kind that breathes in youth and very literally some form of new life after similar extreme make-overs. Old houses are renovated. Ancient ruins are restored, and life seems instantly renewed. Or so we think. But soon enough restored buildings suffer from the same pattern of wear and tear. Renewed art works eventually accumulate grime and grit and grease from too much exposure to the ravages brought by too many pairs of feet trampling on very limited museum square footages all over the world. Caverns with stalactite and stalagmite protrusions both up and down caves all over the world soon suf...