PAN DE LA SEMANA

--> 5 th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C February 10, 2013 DO NOT BE AFRAID! It was definitely a religious experience of an extreme kind … awesome enough as to make Isaiah cry out: “Woe is me, I am doomed!” Jews of old then believed that no one sees God and still live! But Isaiah saw more than just God. He saw himself too, warts and all … “I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King the Lord of hosts!” Isaiah was honest about what he saw in himself. No use pulling the wool over everybody’s eyes. No use denying it. But once he got to admit and accept what he was, something beautiful happened … For himself. For the people. For us all. Isaiah himself without much fanfare tells us how: “I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?’ ‘Here I am, send me!’” In the last two reflections over the past two Sundays, I have ranted about how dif...

5 th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B) February 5, 2012 I write even as I am in the midst of helping others make sense of their inner pains and hurts. During a lull in the processing that I conduct for a group of sisters and nurses engaged in helping those who are most excluded from mainstream society, I go to a different mode – the mode of the spiritual (as against the purely human, psychological mould) and reflect on the liturgy of the 5 th Sunday in Ordinary time, come February 5, 2012. But alas, there seems to be more of the same thing … at least at first blush. We hear Job with a long list of complaints and frustrations that sound very familiar to our very own experience. He does much more than just whine … he actually waxes desperate to a fault, as he declares in exasperation: “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle; they come to an end without hope. Remember that my life is like the wind; I shall not see happiness again.” (first reading). The seeming hop...

Catholic Homily / Sunday Reflection 5 th Sunday in Ordinary Time(C) February 7, 2010 People are attracted by uniqueness, not uniformity. Whilst an infinite variety of products galore are stacked up on supermarket shelves, each and every one of them tries its best to capture the attention of buyers and consumers with the promise of that one, single most crucial product distinction that seals its uniqueness, that makes it a stand-out in a sea of bland ordinariness and colorless genericism. Uniqueness, not necessarily genuine usefulness, may well separate the most coveted from the mediocre and the ignored; the highly valued from what is ordinarily eschewed by discriminating users and consumers. Uniqueness, that which clinches the most important “specific difference” between apparently similar items, may well serve as a good watchword to guide our reflection for today. The world is awash in indi...