PAN DE LA SEMANA

3 rd Sunday of Lent (B) March 8, 2015 WHAT WE PROCLAIM!          Let us begin with an assertion as blunt and as clear as that one of St. Paul: “We proclaim Christ crucified!” There, too, is an assertion apparently as clear as the foregoing, found in the first reading from Exodus 20: “You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below, or in the waters beneath the earth.” Now the Gospel passage has one more: “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” Taken apart by themselves, and taken out of context, they sure are good sound bites for anyone with an agenda. The first in the list above could make a case for those who believe that Christian life ought to be one that is meant to be sour and dour, and one in which there is no room for joy and gladness and anything that is patently “worldly.” The second is the classical passage of those who endlessly ber...

N.B. I DUG UP MY FILES AND NOTICED A REFLECTION I WROTE YET IN 2007 WHICH I HAD NOT ACTUALLY POSTED IN THIS BLOG. HERE, THEN, IS AN ALTERNATIVE REFLECTION FOR TODAY   Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion April 6, 2007 Readings: Is 52:13 – 53:12 / Heb 4:14-16; 5:7-9 / Jn 18:1 – 19:42 THE CONUNDRUM OF THE CROSS The serene and joyful silence that ended our celebration last night after the Lord’s Supper extends to today, broken only by the sedate and simple recitation of the Morning Prayers. Our afternoon liturgy timed more or less on the hour of the passion and death of the Lord on the cross begins with utter silence with the celebrant prostrating before the bare altar, stripped of all the usual paraphernalia attached to it. The bells are silent. The majestic music of the liturgy gives way to unaccompanied somber songs that smack of simple joy, and silent rejoicing. Silent joy and rejoicing on Good Friday? Are we in our right f...