PAN DE LA SEMANA

[BREAKING THE BREAD OF GOD’S WORD] Solemnity of the Epiphany January 3, 2016 EPIPHANY: CHRISTMAS+ The liturgy goes for a splurge today. There is much allusion to light, to brilliance, to shining and rising splendor and the refulgence of God’s glory. The Church pulls out all the stops today and celebrates what used to be the original Christmas feast – with more than just a twist! We celebrate much more than the birth of the Savior. We also celebrate the “unveiling,” the “manifestation” – the epiphany, for short – of who the Child is – for us and in Himself. He is Savior. He is Son of God. He is the human visible face of the invisible God, who had been revealing Himself gradually in and through the unfolding events in history. Once upon a time, a technique in painting called “chiaroscuro” was the fad. It was basically a technique that played on a contraposition between two seemingly opposing elements: light and shadow, clarity and cloudiness. Today’s feast,...

EPIPHANY SUNDAY January 4, 2015 WHAT KIND OF A STAR ARE YOU? Just over the holidays, when millions were reeling under the fury of typhoon Seniang in the south, a star-studded, politician-filled, and a royal-styled “royal wedding” was held in Manila. No, don’t get me wrong … I am not going to rail against any royal wedding, whether real or pretended. Neither am I going to rant against the bigwigs who graced the occasion. Weddings, after all, in Jewish culture, treated the couple as royalty for the day. But I do want to say a thing or two about stars … stars who attended … wannabe stars who could only follow the media hype all delivered in a blow-by-blow account, figuratively while Rome was burning (or Mindanao and the Visayas drowning in floods) … starry-eyed vicarious stars for the day who wouldn’t want to miss any minute of the gorgeous pageantry called show business at its best and at its worst in the Philippines, (even if the pile ...

I would like to state right at the outset that this post is as much my contribution to Christmas celebration as my personal tribute to a former confrere RENAN LUTERIA. Rest in peace Renan! You touched many lives, including mine. May your example of selflessness live on in more young people! Christmas Day December 25, 2012 WHAT’S RIGHT ABOUT GIFT-GIVING ON CHRISTMAS DAY Anti-catholic haters abound these days. Yes, even, and especially on Christmas day. Some of them former Catholics themselves, whose very shallow understanding of what they claimed they believed in, was simply not enough for them to parry all the sloganeering and the proselytizing, they have one common line: What’s all the fuss about celebrating a commercialized Christmas? What does the flurry of gift-giving got to do with the second most solemn feast of the liturgical year? My answer is, simply everything! The question they ask seems to be “what’s wrong about gift-giving on Chris...

Solemnity of the Epiphany (B) January 8, 2012 Readings: Is 60:1-6 / Eph 3:2-3.5-6 / Mt 2:1-12 The Gospel passage of today taken from Matthew tells of Herod being “greatly troubled.” Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, indeed. Someone high up there, with supposedly all the resources at his disposal to assure him of continuing power, has suddenly become so preoccupied about holding on to it, threatened by the news of one who passes off as the “newborn King.” But if misery loves company, worry seeks for it and looks for sympathizers. Anxiety, like water, seeks its own level, and it seeks for every susceptible nook and cranny, holes and depressions, and the worry-wart tries his level best to spread, not the good news, but the bad news of his lack of serenity and peace of mind. King Herod was “greatly troubled and all Jerusalem with him.” Like Jerusalem under the hegemony of the worry-wart Herod, many people of our times, perhaps including ourselves, are worried s...

Catholic Homily Christmas Day (C) December 25, 2009 Preaching on Christmas day has always posed a big challenge to us preachers (well, at least to me, over my past 27 Christmases, including this one, as a priest). The problem is compounded for pastors in parishes who, being alone, could rely on no one else but themselves to celebrate all four Christmas liturgies: Vigil Mass, at Midnight (which officially begins the Christmas season), at Dawn, and the Mass during the day itself. Even a cursory glance at the readings for all four celebrations is enough to convince anyone that there is a developing, unfolding character to the themes espoused by the readings and the prayers. The better read among us who are a bit more theologically literate would see in the different liturgical celebrations a gradually deepening presentation of the whole mystery that Christmas stands for - the coming of the Savior, the Christ. Fro...

Catholic Homily/Sunday Liturgical Reflections SOLEMNITY OF THE EPIPHANY OF OUR LORD January 4, 2008 In life, we do have experiences that more or less change the tone, or the direction of our lives. Certain events planned or unplanned that take place in the course of our growth and development either make us or break us…an experience of serious sickness, a life-threatening situation, an unexpected turn of events whether positive or negative, like an unexpected promotion, or a demotion for that matter… the birth of a first son or daughter for young or older couples…the coming of brilliant luminaries and leaders in the church and in society…The list is endless. The one point of commonality is the fact that such events, known to sociologists as “marker events” steer the course of our lives inextricably, irreversibly…for ever! One such event that changed the course of human history forever is the coming of the Messiah, the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Today’s liturgy is a celebrat...

The Greek Inscription Says "Mother of God" Catholic Homily/Sunday Reflections Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God January 1, 2009 We all have our own storehouse of what we consider precious in our lives. I remember my maternal grandmother had a wicker chest (baul) full of a great many and varied stuff, from pieces of cloths (retazos) to old clothes, and a number of old little boxes containing more trinkets. It dawned on me only when I was already an adult that that chest was grandma’s storehouse of memories of times gone by. Up until quite recently, I, too, had my own version of this chest. It contained a whole lot of memorabilia from my first assignment as a practical trainee in a small start-up parish that was no more than 3 years old then, as a student of theology, as a young priest, of my various travels in the U.S. and in Europe. Everything precious…everything memorable…everything worth reminiscing…we keep them for posterity. We treat them as some ki...

Catholic Homily/Sunday Gospel Reflections Feast of the Holy Family December 28, 2008 Our reflections on the family reach a high point today as the liturgy focuses on the Holy Family. Two families are offered to us for reflection by the readings today: that of Abraham and Sarah and that of Joseph, Mary and Jesus. The first reading starts out with a reminder from Yahweh to Abram: “Fear not, Abram! I am your shield; I will make your reward very great.” Initial unbelief was Abram’s response. But “Abram put faith in the Lord, who credited it to him as an act of righteousness.” The second reading from the letter to the Hebrews rightly extols the faith of Abraham and echoes the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham about his “descendants becoming as numerous as the stars and as countless as the sands on the seashore.” The Gospel recounts the Holy Family making a trip to the temple to present the child Jesus as prescribed by the Law. Joseph, Mary and Jesus wen...