PAN DE LA SEMANA

3 rd SUNDAY OF LENT YEAR C March 3, 2013 PRODUCE OR BE CUT DOWN! There is an element of fear and a deep sense of reality in the Gospel of today. Fear, for we are told about consequences, and the examples the Lord uses, are rather gory: the Galileans killed by Pilate, and the 18 people who perished in a disaster at Siloam. Unless we repent, we are told, we will all suffer a similar fate. Consequences are not easy to understand in our times. We live in a time when there seems to be an infinite number of choices and alternatives to forestall or prevent unwanted consequences. I have two dogs right now, for example. Both are infested with ticks, big and voracious ones (garrapata, in Spanish). One can always pay for an injection that makes dogs’ blood poison for ticks. Nowadays, we can easily procures vaccines … one prevents polio; others prevent other diseases that used to be common in times past. We have pills to control obesity; table...

2 nd Sunday of Lent Year C February 24, 2013 BELIEVE, STAND FIRM, LISTEN! There is no mistaking it. Abram was called, not just once. He was called to leave Ur. But it entailed further callings. It entailed much more than just dragging one’s feet away from home. Today, Abram is told to look up to the stars and believe in a promise – that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars, and that God would make a covenant with his descendants. Abram shone out in his faith. He believed. And he also obeyed. “Abram put his faith in the Lord, who credited it to him as an act of righteousness.” But believing in God’s promise is no walk in the park. We all know that. We all know that Abram was eventually put to a big test. He would be asked later in his life to offer up his only son Isaac, just one of a series of seeming downturns or source of despondency in his life. Doesn’t this remind you of Paul? Wasn’t he the one who was flog...

First Sunday of Lent Year C February 17, 2013 ADMIT, ACCLAIM, ACKNOWLEDGE! No less than the Lord Himself was tempted … not once, not twice, but thrice! This is a story we hear each year, always on the first Sunday of Lent, such as today. If you went to Mass last Ash Wednesday, you would remember the reminder: “Remember man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return!” That reminder, of course, is but one of several, including: “Repent and believe in the Gospel.” Reminders! … This is what and who we are as believers. We are a people of the reminder, a people of the memorial! This Eucharistic celebration, as you know, is an anamnesis – a memorial that, at one and the same time, looks back and looks towards the future. What do we look back to? Let the first reading remind us … Like the Jews of old, we were once aliens living in a foreign land. We were (and still are!) sinners, who were once enslaved by sin, exiled … far from hom...

5 th Sunday of Lent (B) March 25, 2012 Readings: Jer 31:31-34 / Hebrews 5:7-9 / Jn 12:20-33 Today’s liturgy begins with something hopeful. Jeremiah gives words of comfort to his people with his “spiritual testament,” some kind of a last will that he gives to his beloved. He speaks of the coming promise, in God’s name, as “new,” that is, “not like the covenant I made with their fathers the day I took them by the hand to lead them forth from the land of Egypt.” The hour has come for Jeremiah to speak clearly about what is to come. It is, undeniably, an hour of delight, of promise, and of glory. In Jeremiah’s glowing terms, “all, from the least to greatest, shall know [the Lord].” People who trek up mountains can relate to this. There is in every climb, an equivalent of the moment of dread. Many times, on the way up (or down, for that matter), one momentarily hesitates … one feels like retreating and retracing one’s steps. As one progresses in the journey, one’s courage, at times,...

Second Sunday of Lent (B) March 4, 2012 The readings today are all so rich a separate reflection for each one is in order. But one of the tasks of the homilist is to tie up all three in the light of the bigger mystery that the Catholic liturgy celebrates in all the liturgical seasons, Lent, most especially. I would like to begin with the obvious – the call to perfect obedience of Abraham, who was not just called to get out of Ur. A train of other calls came his way, from no less than the same God who called him from his ultimate “comfort zone” that was Ur. This time, though, the call pierces through the roof of reason, and asks him to do the unthinkable … that is, sacrifice his very own son Isaac. The fact that he had to go up the mountain definitely was no accident. The very call at this particular instance, is all an uphill climb, much more difficult than his journey through the plains from Ur to the land of promise. Moriah, the same mountain on which the temple would much...

First Sunday of Lent (B) February 26, 2012 As is my wont, I summarize today’s three readings in three succinct words. The first goes by the one word, PROMISE. We hear a heartwarming story of a God who is willing to start on a clean slate, no matter what happened before, no matter what men have fallen into – grievously, I might add. The Lord makes a promise … no more flood, no more waters to bring chaos on the earth. Mercy triumphs over judgment, and God makes a NEW Covenant with no less than a rainbow for sign and witness to this new covenant. I choose the alliterative PACT to represent the second reading. Whilst a reference to the flood is also alluded to in Peter’s first letter, the focus is really on the fulfillment of what that pact between God and His people meant: “Christ suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God.” The PROMISE was fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ, our Savior, the personification of the whole N...