PAN DE LA SEMANA

7 th Sunday Year A February 23, 2014 SPEAK TO ALL AND TELL THEM LIKE IT IS! Almost everything now attracts controversy. You say your piece and you are immediately branded as liberal, conservative, out of touch with the times, medieval, a bigot, a clerico-fascist, a wimp, stupid, an ignoramus, etc. Labels abound in this image-conscious world that always seeks for convenient compromises (read: a position that tries to please everyone, but ends up satisfying no one). St. Paul today refers to one that he probably was called as such so many times after his conversion. He was branded a “fool.” A fool was apparently one who did not agree with the popular vote, who went against the tide of public opinion. Let me give you one issue that was, and still is, popular … “Kill the bastards!” people now say about heinous criminals. Then, as now, revenge is mistaken for retribution. “An eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth.” So said the Old Law!   So...

7 th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A February 20, 2011 I have done the famous “shooting the rapids” at Pagsanjan, in Laguna, Philippines, only once in my life. For those who may not be familiar with the experience, it is, simply put, white water rafting in reverse. One goes upstream instead of downstream. One is nothing more than a passive rider. Everything is done for you by the fleet-footed boatmen, who use, not oars, but their bare feet and bare hands. As far as I can tell, only salmons intent on going back to their spawning grounds to die, or spawn some more, do that trick with natural ease. The rest of us lesser mortals simply would rather go along for the ride, and allow oneself to be carried away by the current. I must confess being carried away by the current is not such a loathsome idea. You lose all sense of self-responsibility. Somebody else does the worrying. Somebody else thinks about the consequences. Someone else does all the planning and the scheming, and ...