PAN DE LA SEMANA

[BREAKING THE BREAD OF GOD’S WORD] 18 th Sunday in Ordinary Time – B August 2, 2015 COMPLAINING, CRAVING & CHANGING Complaints are a daily reality everywhere. I complain when it rains. I complain when it’s hot. I complain when traffic is snarled (now, that means I complain almost everyday!) The Israelites, blessed enough to be free from slavery, soon found reasons enough to complain. Food wasn’t good enough. The meat wasn’t tasty enough, for want of spices they got so used to back in the day when they were slaves in Egypt. But God, who always hears the cries of the poor and the needy, according to Biblical tradition, supplied them with manna and meat. Moses, ever the wise leader, reminded them that what they ate was “the bread that the Lord had given them to eat.” We humans are a curious lot. We never are satisfied. There is always something missing. There is always something better, something more, something worth pinning our covetous eyes on. The other...

August 5, 2012 18 th Sunday Year B FOOD THAT PERISHES, OR FOOD THAT ENDURES? We complain about many things. We complain about the traffic, now getting worse and worse by the day. We complained a lot last week when a “shallow low pressure area” (whatever that means, caught us all off-guard) and wrought havoc all over complacent Metro Manila area. We complain about leaders when they don’t   deliver as promised. We rant and rave about a multiplicity of things, mostly, to be sure, about things that don’t last … things that don’t matter much except satisfy us for a short while, and not much more. The Israelites were brought out willingly from slavery in Egypt. They were not forced. They were not misled. They were not prevailed upon. But soon, the complaints started pouring, even as manna kept coming. The bitterness got growing, and the growling became more intense, even as the quails kept them filled – but never satisfied! The complaints were all directed a...

N.B. This is my last posting in Manila before I fly to Guam for my new assignment. The succeeding postings will be done from Guam. Catholic Homily / Sunday Reflections 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B August 2, 2009 Surely two thousand years of history is long enough a time for the Church to learn quite a few lasting lessons. One of these is the need for us to lay aside the “sinful self” with all its unbridled desires and to allow grace to make of us all become what we originally all are by the express wish of God – images and likenesses of Him from whom we owe our existence. But alas, this same self, owing to the pull of sin called “concupiscence,” is all too prone to go the way of “selfish cravings” and even illicit desires. Our country is a pretty clear picture of selfish and conflicting desires on all fronts. Whilst I am not exactly a big fan of President GMA, I am aghast at the many times undeserved flak she is getting all in the name of a brand of politics that, really at ...