PAN DE LA SEMANA

[BREAKING THE BREAD OF GOD’S WORD] November 1, 2015 ALL SAINTS’ DAY HEROES NO LESS, BUT MORE! Today, we celebrate so important a Solemnity that the liturgy of the 31 st Sunday bows down and gives way to the “glory of God in the Saints!” We do nothing less than worship the all Holy God today. We do nothing more that glorify Him in and through the saints we honor and venerate. Hmmm … isn’t there something amiss here? Why should the saints steal the show fro God, kind of? Why do they deserve veneration and praise? Let me first tell you a story … My childhood “hero” was someone who survived the notorious death march from Bataan to Pampanga, soon after the US and Philippine forces surrendered to the Japanese. I have very faint recollections of the details, but Kakang Gorio, as we called him, was a very reticent man who would rather not talk about the gory details of his dramatic escape. He came to us one fine day, not knowing where he was from. He was hungry ...

Catholic Homily / Sunday Reflection Solemnity of All Saints November 1, 2009 Readings: Rev. 7:2 -4,9-14 / 1 Jn 3:1-3 / Mt 5:1-12a I’d like to start this reflection by making a little confession. I don’t particularly enjoy anymore reading the lives of saints. Please don’t get me wrong. It is not like I don’t believe in their holiness. I do. I really do. But whilst I believe in saints and their closeness to the God they believed in, I don’t as easily believe in how hagiographers (those who write their lives) report their lives to be, anymore than I believe that those wax figures in Madame Tussaud’s are real people. But I do know that people who admire other people have a tendency to overblow things, a penchant to make them appear larger than life. And I do know how we all could blow things up for effect, carried as we are, at times, by good old emotions that can go overboard in not a few occasions. St. ...