PAN DE LA SEMANA

  12 th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C June 23, 2013 GRACE IN WHATEVER FORM! Many years ago, the words used by Dietrich Bonhoeffer made a big dent in my mind. He talked about “cheap grace” and “costly grace.” Before I proceed, let us get it straight from his mouth: “ "cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance; baptism without church discipline; communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ." It is all too easy for all of us to look only for the former, and ignore the latter. Why not? It is nice to be comfortable and safely ensconced in our seats. It is hard to rock the boat and even  harder to suffer unnecessarily. That is not what I gather from the readings today. The first reading from Zechariah speaks about the Lord “pouring out” “grace and petition” – something pleasant and unpleasant, something that would lead to ...

5 th Sunday of Easter Year C Apri 28, 2013 LOVE. SCARS. NEW. GLORY I start with a word puzzle. Mysterious. Cryptic. Self-contradictory … Love. Scars. New. Glory. Something new and something old; something that hurts and something that scars; something that wounds, but something that renews, and leads to the ultimate newness – glory with God ever ancient, ever new! This is the theme of today’s readings, 5 th Sunday of Easter. It’s an old story … if you change your life drastically, for the better that is, there will be haters and naysayers, doubters and cheerers, people who will drag you down, and people who will prop you up. This is what happened to Paul and Barnabas. Paul was an old hat at persecuting the Church. He was one difficult guy who made it even more difficult for the early followers of the Lord. But something new and something great happened to him. He was renewed and changed by a mystical experience. Th...