PAN DE LA SEMANA

26 th Sunday Year A September 28, 2014 A PAST WORTH LOOKING INTO; A FUTURE WORTH AIMING FOR They say every saint had a past and every sinner has a future. Agree! St. Lorenzo Ruiz, for his glorious martyrdom in Japan, originally did not go there to seek for that cruel death. He had other motives. He had other plans. Not that were bad of themselves, but they definitely were not what eventually he suffered and died for. We all were children once upon a time. We all felt picked on by our parents, who always seemed to have a ready command or a quick errand for us children to do then. Who among us did not have a ready answer for either of them, or both? “Why me?” “Not again!” “I am busy!” “I got tons of homework to prepare for school!” What child did not answer thus, at least on a few occasions: “Yes, Dad. Count on me. I will do it later,” and then went his/her merry way playing games with neighborhood kids until he or she felt hungry? Wha...

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A January 30, 2011 The first reading from the Prophet Zephaniah seems like an acceptance of what is, a copping out to what is inevitable, a surrendering to what is ineluctable. Zephaniah speaks of a remnant, a few brave and steadfast souls, who will be a “people humble and lowly,” and who will “take refuge in the Lord.” I cannot but reflect on these words as I listened for a short while to whatever new Senate investigation (among many fruitless ones) was going on yesterday in the Philippines. As I heard the unexplainable amnesia of certain bigwigs of the Philippine armed forces, “the few, the brave, the chosen,” a growing sense of frustration and anger was welling up from within me. Isaiah’s words rang true. There is but a tiny remnant left in the sea of teeming humanity, created in God’s image and likeness,  that seems to fit the mold of a “people humble and lowly.” There is but a few now that can be singled out from the ranks of the bold and...