PAN DE LA SEMANA

24 th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C September 15, 2013 SELFISH, SELFIES, GENEROUSLY, GODLY! You know the type. They are everywhere … at churches, malls, planes, airports, restos … why, even rest rooms! They take countless pics of themselves in various poses and facial expressions, with matching hand gestures for accent. And they post them via social networking sites for the world to “like” rant and rave on! Psychotherapists now are almost one in claiming that the internet has been steadily churning out narcissists one facebook or twitter pic or instagram post at a time. There is even a new term for all this … “impression management.” Narcissists spend a mighty long time each day “managing” one’s posts and pics in order to give the best impression of oneself as possible. Selfies, they are now called. Incidentally, it is no accident of linguistics that it happens to rhyme with selfish, which in plain language, narcissism is all ab...

--> 32 nd Sunday of Ordinary Time (B) November 11, 2012 NONE SO POOR AS TO HAVE NOTHING TO SHARE! Jose Feliciano of old crooned that “love comes from the most unexpected places.” True. But so does generosity. It comes, lived, shown, and practiced even by persons least expected to do so. Years ago, during the Ormoc tragedy in the Philippines, something beautiful for God and humanity happened. A long line of hungry and weary people were snaking through, waiting to receive relief goods. Foreign press people were present, with flash lights popping and cameras whirring. At a certain point everyone including the relief distributors was sure … there was not going to be enough for everyone in the long line. At the end of the line was a little girl of about five. She was patient and hopeful, and even if she saw the supplies dwindling, she, together with all the rest, stayed on, trudged on, slowly towards where the supplies were. When it was her turn, there was...

25 th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A) Sept 18, 2011 There is some urgency in the tone with which Isaiah writes. “Seek the Lord,” he says, “while he may be found.” At first blush, he seems to tell us, to lose no time and do the most important thing – to find God, and repent: “Let the scoundrel forsake his ways, and the wicked his thoughts.” For Paul however, in his letter to the Philippians, time becomes secondary and takes a back seat to the same focus of Isaiah, and that is, finding the Lord, and being with Christ. When one finds Christ, everything, including earthly material time, takes the back seat. “For to me,” he writes, “life is Christ, and death is gain.” I write while on break together with my siblings (or what remains of us after both parents and others have all passed on) – a much awaited and, I should say, much deserved trip to Europe. We do this actually in honor and homage of both our parents whose hard work and vision made it possible for all six of us surviving siblin...

2 nd Sunday of Lent (C) February 28, 2010 Profligate generosity is more like it … the utter generosity of one who makes and fulfills promises to Abraham and His people – land in plenty and offspring in abundance: “Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can. Just so shall your descendants be.” Generosity upon gracious generosity … this is what the texts these first two Sundays of Lent seem to give us for reflection. Last Sunday, we saw the generosity of Christ, whose “fidelity on three counts” equal to the threefold temptations, was shown in his remaining steadfast. True to the spirit of Deuteronomy, his fidelity was equivalent to his being offered like the required “first fruits of the harvest” – understood as the best, and the most precious and valued. In return, God, very clearly, will settle for nothing but the best – the best in return for our best, our “first fruits,” our utmost self-offering...