PAN DE LA SEMANA

--> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nal0qstmuVY   [BREAKING THE BREAD OF GOD’S WORD] 3 rd Sunday of Lent Year C February 28, 2016 LOVE ME TENDER, TOUGH AND TRUE! Elvis Presley was one popular singer whose fame was unequaled in his times – and beyond! One of the early recollections I had of him was his soulful rendition of LOVE ME TENDER. To quote verbatim, he crooned: “Love me tender, love me true, all my dreams fulfilled.” I agree with Elvis. Real love must be tender. It must be palpably experienced, not just audibly proclaimed. It must be genuinely felt, by both lover and beloved. How’s this for a great example: “I have witnessed the affliction of my people … and have heard their cry of complaint against their slave drivers, so I know well what they are suffering.” God is like a mother. He feels with His beloved children. He sits by us in our troubles and in our pains. He stands by us in our tribulations. He stands ...

--> [BREAKING THE BREAD OF GOD’S WORD] 2 nd Sunday of Lent Year C February 21, 2016 LOOK UP AND SEE! One of the many things I enjoyed in outdoor campings and climbs atop mountain peaks was stargazing during dark cloudless nights. I spent hours looking up at the sky, and gazing on the stars. You see, for one, looking up at the sky is free. Second, everyone waxes poetic just gazing on stars. And should the muse of poetry not be present, there at least was the excitement waiting for occasional falling stars. But I am not going to dwell on stars rising and stars falling tonight. I choose to dwell on what those stars represent, from whence they come – the heavenly firmament, which classic imagination would take to refer to God. Yes … God … the same God who called Abram and told him to “look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can” … Yes … God … the same God who has made it possible for us to be enlisted for “citi...

[BREAKING THE BREAD OF GOD’S WORD] First Sunday of Lent Year C February 14, 2016 EXPECTING WRONGLY; AIMING RIGHTLY Today is one of those days, like Christmas Day and Fiesta days in the Philippines, when it is so hard to preach. It is Valentine’s Day, and the highly commercialized and media-crazed world has managed to catapult Valentine’s Day to the equivalent of a “solemnity” in the Roman Catholic Church. Woe to me if I do not preach! Woe to me if I at least don’t make mention of the day of hearts. And I am not talking yet about the monstrous traffic that will take place all over the cities all day and a good part of the night. But I need to preach in season, and out of season. But whilst being fashionable and in season is a requirement for us worldly men and women, God’s love knows no times and seasons. God’s mercy knows no bounds, and God’s call is eternal. The first readings from Deuteronomy tells us this much …   God calle...

[BREAKING THE BREAD OF GOD’S WORD] 5 th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C February 7, 2016 UNDESERVING, BUT CALLED AND SENT! Isaiah was not just a great prophet. He, too, was a great man, if greatness begins with being honest – emotionally honest, first and foremost – and morally so, too. He had no lofty dreams for himself, no ambition. He just took things as they came … yes, including the experience of being privy to a divine manifestation of the “Lord, seated on a high and lofty throne.” Isaiah was gifted with the vision of God’s holiness, His transcendence, His stark otherness. But he was gifted, too, with an honest view of who he was: “a man of unclean lips.” But while greatness may begin with emotional and moral honesty, it is enriched and made complete with utter availability. Having heard God’s question: “Whom shall I send?” Isaiah responds forthwith: “Here I am. Send me.” Honesty, modesty (humility) and availability ...