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,...

--> 4 th Sunday of Lent (A) Laetare Sunday March 30, 2014 LIGHTS! CAMERA! ACTION! They say that among the top ten habits of unhappy people is to consistently be arguing with oneself whether to get up from bed each morning. They sigh. They whine. They groan and moan as they complain to themselves about the unfortunate need to rise up and – not shine, mind you – but to pine for what they are about to lose by leaving their beds. Well, following closely behind this is to be expected … the penchant to look for someone to blame, to shame, to shout at, and point accusing fingers at. He could be the tricycle driver ahead of you; the jeepney driver, or the thoughtless, inconsiderate pedestrian blocking your path. Whoever it is, does not matter. Everyone is fair game to an unhappy person working himself to a frenzy looking for a fight. The blind man in the gospel does not seem to fit the bill of such an unhappy person. Perhaps you could look a...

The Presentation of the Lord (A) February 2, 2014 LIKE US IN ALL; LIGHT FOR US ALL! It’s Candlemas today … Candelaria in our Pinoy popular religious culture. People, a dwindling few admittedly, will bring candles today to have them blessed. For some those blessed candles will be used to light up their little altars at home as they pray. For some others, they will be put away, kept in reserve for some unplanned and unforeseen affair of a religious nature. But my task is not to talk about candles. People seldom make use of them now, as rechargeable and solar lamps seem to flood the market. Why, even Churches now seldom make use of real candles with wax as sancturay lamps. Paraffin oil is now more like it for most of them. My task is not to talk today about candles because candles are not the focus of today’s feast, but what the candles stand for. But first, a word on the three readings, in the hope that it can shed light on the is...