PAN DE LA SEMANA

17 th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B) July 29, 2012 FOOD TO EAT, AND SOMETHING MORE BESIDES! It’s been decades the alarum bells of an utter lack of food to feed the hungry multitudes have been sounded over and over again. Years ago,  a movie entitled “Soylent Green” took the form of a horror movie – depicting the absolute horrors of a time in future when people would be literally forced to ingest tablets of food made from other human beings. In our insecurity, in our fears, in our anxieties, the human family has, on occasion, acted in a way that is exactly the opposite of the attitudes being raised by the readings – an attitude of trust, an attitude of confidence and faith that the psalmist reminds us of: “ The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs.” (Response) Those alarm bells have taken various forms throughout recent history. And many of those forms are self-canceling and self-contradictory. We have scientists and self-styled “saviors” of...

16 th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B) July 22, 2012 We all know what this means …  what St. Paul refers to as “the dividing wall of enmity” is so real, so true, so rampant, even in our times. We see it in the media network wars. We see it in the battle of the giant retailers, and shopping malls. The one which “got it all for us,” obviously wins hands down, with a 44 th poised to be built in a province that already boasts of two. We see it in the warring artificial “parties” in both houses of congress, and the equally artificial unity blocks born of convenience, rather than principle, of compromise, rather than moral conviction. We are a divided nation and people. We are a great lesson on how not to run a country, and a telling icon of perpetual divisiveness and disunity. But if the story that unfolds in the prophet Jeremiah’s book is an indication, then we ought to know that God is never happy with such a state of affairs. According to Jeremiah in today’s ...

15 th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B) July 15, 2012 The two words that came to mind after reading today’s first reading – the sending away of Amos from Bethel and his banishment to Judah – are simply “so what?”   So what if Bethel were the “king’s sanctuary and a royal temple?” Amos, who was ruffling not just a few feathers and rattling the nerves of those who were being hard hit, just could not be tolerated any more. Amaziah himself, supposedly a “man of the cloth” sort of, acted as spokesman and told him what was almost like a death sentence for the outspoken and truthful prophet: “Off with you, visionary, flee to the land of Judah!” Flimsy reasons; phony rationalizations! The words of Amaziah were nothing but plain baloney! Last week, we spoke partly about rejection. I reminded you about my own experience of being unwanted and downright rejected. I also reminded everyone how we share a lot of things in common, for each and everyone of us had that not-too-e...

14 th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B) July 8, 2012 We all know what it means … to be ignored, to not even be considered, to be rejected. Scriptures is full of such stories of rejection, with no less than the Lord Jesus Christ as the centerpiece. At times, you and I can feel – rightly or wrongly – that we are the poster boy or poster girl of such painful experiences. I had my own brush with such a “forgettable” chapter in my life … yes – forgettable in theory at least, but not quite in reality! One does not easily give up on such debilitating memories. Human nature tends to hold on to such things, and our fallen nature makes it even more difficult indeed, to “let by-gones be by-gones” – easier said than done, despite what they say about Christian forgiveness. Today, the day of the Lord, the 14 th in ordinary time, I would like to think I am one with everyone – and, I mean everyone – who ever felt the uncomfortable feeling of being resisted, being refused, being ...

13 th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B) July 1, 2012 A busy week up till today had me running late for this reflection, writing it just after I celebrated the anticipated Mass for the 13 th Sunday. The readings today offer, at one and the same time, an air of resignation, and a whiff of hope – hope that is tied up with faith in a God of compassion, a God who is close to the broken-hearted, the suffering, and those in any form of pain. Take it from the lengthy Gospel account from Mark … First, there is the panicky Jairus, who mustered enough humility and trust to go begging from the Lord, asking him with earnestness: “Please, come lay your hands on her that she may get well and live.” But as if that were not enough to touch us all, here comes another heart-rending story of the woman who obviously had suffered enough, by any standard – bleeding continuously for all of 12 years! She did, not the unthinkable, but the expected – hope, even against hope – and believed ...

The Birth of John the Baptist June 24, 2012 No other saint, save St. Paul, can “boast” of two feast days in the Roman Catholic calendar … The Church celebrates the birth and death of John, “greater than whom no other man born of woman” exists! Today, we revel in his glorious birth. Later this year, in August 29, we will commemorate his tragic beheading … tragic in man’s eyes, but glorious in God’s – and for many generations since! Greatness is what we associate with John, no doubt about it. But the road to greatness was never sweet nor easy, notwithstanding the glorious and hopeful prophecies of old that foreshadowed the coming of someone who was referred to in the first reading “as concealed in the shadow of [God’s] arm” or “a polished arrow,” “through whom [God] shows His glory.” (Is 49:1-6) When I look at the mystery of human pain and suffering, it is hard to wax lyrical and hopeful. When I see endless tragedies brought about by human sinfulness and greed...

11 th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B) June 17, 2012 IN HIS TIME – THE WORST OF TIMES; THE BEST OF TIMES! I do my reflection, for the first time, at a place that was, at one and the same time, so close, yet so far – till now. It is my first time to be in Jakarta, Indonesia, a place no more than three and a half hours away from a city I have called home, for a great deal of my life. It is a city from which came a number of my former students in theology, one of whom is getting ordained this very day I am writing this – not without a little difficulty, given the so many things I need to reflect on, as I drink in every thing new and old; everything strange and similar; everything foreign and familiar, with the sights and sounds I see back home, and in just about every place the grace of God has allowed me to call home at various lengths of time in these past 30 years I have been a priest. It is just as well that I am here these days, and particularly in this 11 th ...