PAN DE LA SEMANA

3 rd Sunday in Ordinary Time(B) January 22, 2012 Today’s readings are a story of reversals. The events reported are counter-intuitive and, at least for the people of Jonah’s days, probably run counter to logic and common sense expectations. First, the Lord calls a nation other than Israel to repentance – Nineveh – a hated nemesis of Israel, being the capital of the empire of Assyria at some point. Second, Jonah, the reluctant bearer of bad or good news, depending on what is one’s perspective and stance, did not just do his job partially, but actually hemmed and hawed, and dragged his feet, unwilling and unready to do the unpopular job for anyone who had reason to believe his words would fall on deaf ears, if not followed by anger and hatred against him. In other words, Jonah probably thought it was an exercise in futility. More than that, he probably opined that it was a hopeless case – something that his feeble and reluctant warnings in the first place would not even create a dent...

9 th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A) March 6, 2011 We live in a world fraught with necessary choices. On a daily basis, we are meant to make choices, whether we like it or not. We choose to get up promptly each morning and choose to get to work or get to school. On such occasions, we know we do have the freedom not to choose accordingly, but we also do know that if we make said choices, we actually increase, not diminish, our freedom. The choices that we make, albeit necessary ones, spell our future well-being and success, and increase our capacity to make further, more important, choices. We have an example of one such major, important, and far-ranging choice that reverberates far into the future of each and everyone of us. Moses confronts us with it. He impresses upon us its value and importance when he counsels us to “take his words into our heart and soul,” and to “bind them at our wrist as a sign,” or hang it like a “pendant on our foreheads.” In short, he advises us to “...