PAN DE LA SEMANA

Novena in Honor of the Most Sweet Name of Mary Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral-Basilica Hagatna, Guam 9th Day: September 6, 2008 Based on 1 Cor 4:6b-15 / Lk 6:1-5 N.B. I am posting this ninth homily for the ninth and final day which coincides with the fiesta celebrations, although I will not be able to deliver it as I have to be at the airport at the time of the Mass. I take this opportunity to thank Archbishop Anthony Apuron, Msgr. Benavente, and all of my newfound friends on Guam! Hafa' Adai! Suffering is not a very easy topic to talk about to a postmodern culture deeply steeped in the collective desire to get suffering out of the way, push it under the rug, or just something that one would simply wish would go away. George Weigel says that it is one of the hardest facts of life to face or understand. I’ve got something to share with you … suffering is something that we all need to deal with. I don’t know whether that sounds to you like good news or bad news, or just plain realit...

Novena in Honor of the Sweet Name of Mary Dulce Nombre Cathedral-Basilica Hagatna, Guam 7th Day: September 4, 2008 Based on 1 Cor 3:18-23 / Lk 5:1-11 Yesterday, we spoke about something that sounds so earthly and at the same time so heavenly, literally and figuratively – Mary, the star of the sea, stella maris , a title so old and yet so new, so ancient and yet so relevant, as I tried to explain yesterday. I would like to add a few more ideas related to this title of Mary, Star of the Sea. First and foremost, the gospel passage today refers to an incident right beside a body of water, the Sea of Galilee or Lake of Gennesareth. It is really a relatively small fresh water lake, but which the Jews back then called sea of Galilee, around which the daily lives of people then revolved, for the most part, and around which many incidents in the Lord’s life revolves, too, this gospel incident included. My reading of this passage is rather simple. It is a confirmation of what we said in respons...

Novena in Honor of Dulce Nombre de Maria Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral-Basilica Hagatna, Guam 6th Day: September 3, 2008 Based on 1 Cor 3:1-9 / Lk 4:38-44 A cute little book I read in 1999 is entitled Mary: The Star of the Third Millenium . Frankly, I don’t remember much of what I read. All I remember is the title intrigued me and captivated my curiosity. Why would another title among so many be added to our Lady? And what importance does it have for us all 7 years already into the much hyped third millennium? In retrospect, I like the title. First of all, I am captivated by stars since I was a child. Growing up in the country side, with no street lighting whatsoever, dark nights afforded children that we were, so many hours of star gazing, and so much time solving the riddle of the stars on dark, starry nights. Secondly, I like what stars stand for – dreams and visions, goals that transcend time and space, dreams of distant and far flung places that I could only picture in the im...

Novena in Honor of the Sweet Name of Mary Dulce Nombre Cathedral-Basilica Hagatna, Guam 4th Day: September 1, 2008 Based on 1 Cor 2:1-5 / Lk 4:16-30 I have just gone for a pilgrimage following some of the footsteps of St. Paul last May of this year in Greece, Turkey, and the Holy Land. Everything I saw, of course, was memorable, (even if I cannot remember the many details of what I saw and heard in those three places). Whilst everything was impressive and worth remembering, one seemingly insignificant detail remains etched in my memory and my thoughts. It is that little cove and port in Rhodes used by Paul in the year 58 AD that specially impressed me the most. From atop the acropolis of Rhodes, the port looked unimpressive at all. There was nothing that would make it stand out at first blush. But upon knowing what kind of port that was, then I kept mental tab of it, then – and now. The port I refer to is a hidden one. It is like an inland cove, separated by a bluff that had a very na...

Novena in Honor of El Dulce Nombre de Maria Third Day, August 31, 2008 Popular belief has it that when the statue of Santa Marian Camalen landed on the shores of Guam, it came floating upright and surrounded by candleholders. On this belief is based a whole lot of our popular devotion and love for the Blessed Mother under that title. We do well to keep not so much that story alive, as the meaning behind that story which has to do with our growing sense of attachment and healthy love for whom Scripture passes on to us, as a woman blessed among all women. Yesterday, I talked to a mostly young crowd about a sense of homecoming. Home, according to popular reckoning, is wherever mother is. We would consider home any place where we see the imprints of our own mother’s care and solicitude. Home is where we experience directly or vicariously, our mother’s cooking, our mother’s care, and our mother’s presence in some way, real or symbolic. I spoke yesterday about our homecoming to mother Mary w...

Novena in Honor of El Dulce Nombre de Maria Hagatna, Guam 2nd Day: August 30, 2008 Based on 1 Cor 1:26-31 / Mt 25:14-30 The moral theologian Thomas Shannon offers an interesting paradigm to illustrate what it means to go into two extremes with regard to technological interventions in our human, bodily lives and what we do to our own bodies. On the one hand, we can “play human” and, in its extreme pole, refuse to do anything or to take resort to anything in order to improve our physical, bodily existence, and to simply allow God and his grace to lead us to a certain level of well-being. This first approach means utter dependence on God and God alone. It refers to being totally on the receiving end in reference to God’s help and God’s gift of salvation. One of its concrete effects would be to take refuge in the false belief that technology has nothing whatsoever to do with Christian faith and that to take resort to what technology can offer is tantamount to being faithless, and being un...

Novena in Honor of El Dulce Nombre de Maria Dulce Nombre Cathedral-Basilica, Guam, USA 1st Day, August 29, 2008 Based on 1 Cor 1:17-25 / Mk 6:17-29 N.B. I am posting on a daily basis the series of homilies I am currently preaching at the Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral-Basilica at Hagatna, Guam. We start out our novena with a story of seeming failure and defeat. The story that the liturgy presents us sounds almost like a telenovela, replete with individuals scheming and taking resort to manipulative tactics, hushed whispers behind curtains, and conjuring up sinister plans that end up in utter failure for one man who was acclaimed as a man greater than whom no one else born of woman had ever been. Let us not mince words this time. John the Baptist, from the human plane, was an utter failure, a story of defeat along with a side story of worldly wisdom gone wrong. Not much of a piece of good news, you would rather say perhaps? Hardly something worthy of the start of our novena in honor of...