PAN DE LA SEMANA

5 th Sunday Year B February 8, 2015 DRUDGERY OR DELIGHT? Tension is the closest word I can find with regards to today’s readings. The opening salvo comes from Job, who is not exactly silent about his plaints and pleadings with the Lord, if not, complaints: “Is not man’s life on earth a drudgery?” Take it from the news we have been hearing of late. Attacks here and there ... Terrorism everywhere ... Corruption unabated in our beloved country and beyond ... Fake surveys from outfits that have a lot to gain – and lose, for that matter – should the winds of change blow our way. Grinding poverty for more and more people … sore lack of education for millions and millions … The list is tedious. Do we have anything right now to disprove Job and dispute his “survey findings?” Well, I do … Today’s readings do! And here is where the tension lies. Here is where the capacity to see beyond what we actually see – as part of the fabled Catho...

--> 17th Sunday Year A July 27, 2014 DO WE REALLY KNOW WHAT IS BEST FOR US? I take my cue from last week’s second reading from St. Paul … “We really do not know how to pray and what to pray for,” he wrote. But thanks be to God, he goes on: “The Spirit himself prays for us in sighs and groans that words cannot express.” I do not know how to pray … even now, up till now. I do pray, but, to be honest with you, many times, I don’t know what to ask for. I don’t know what is best for me. I don’t know what is God’s plan for me on the short term. I do know, in faith and in hope, that He wants what is good for me and for others, but, at any given time, I don’t know what is best for he, here and now and in the foreseeable future. I was crying (as usual) reading the report about the families of the doomed MH 17 flight en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. They all had premonitions. One even was sorry to “miss” the bus to the airport, but ended...

Catholic Homily / Sunday Reflection 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C October 24, 2010 Last week, we reflected on persistent prayer. Prayer spelled the victory of God in Moses’ developing problem with the Amalekite marauders. Prayer, the persistent type, spelled too, fulfillment of the widow’s request from the unjust judge. This Sunday, we are back once more, at least initially, to the topic of constant prayer. Sirach gives the opening salvo for us. He is our authority of the day. In prophetic fashion that accrues from the wisdom tradition, he declares unequivocally a double truth born out of his own and his people’s experience: the truth of God’s justice, on the one hand, and that of His mercy, on the other. “The Lord is a God of justice, who knows no favorites.” But wait … Sirach gives the thought a second look, and this time, he speaks from his people’s journey of faith. He declares once more, that God was not “unduly partial toward the weak, yet he HEARS the cry of the oppr...

Catholic Homily/Sunday Reflection 29 th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C October 17, 2010 Four Sundays back, Luke’s Gospel had us speak about the unjust steward who was cunning, wily, and whose self-provident ways led him to selfishly prepare for his own future. Today, Luke would have us consider the figure of an unjust judge who capitulates to the importunings of a widow in need. These are story stuff that merit a second look from story-starved writers of “telenovelas ” (soap operas) known now in the Philippines as “teleseryes.” Yes, there is unfolding drama in the parables of the Lord. Parables are basically stories, but, used skillfully by the master story-teller and teacher that Jesus was, are more than just bedtime stories to tuck children in bed with. No, parables were meant to disturb; they were meant to be so surprising as to catch people off guard, as to make hearers gasp in disbelief, and react either positively or negatively to them, especially if hearers miss the real ...

Catholic Homily / Sunday Reflection 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C July 25, 2010 The little, the seemingly insignificant, the few, and the powerless … those who don’t seem to count; the perpetual underdogs; those whose lives don’t make waves: the widows, the orphans, the poor, and the lowly … these are those who can make a difference, those whose presence – and persistence – can mean life, fullness of life both for themselves and others, or the utter lack of it for everyone. I refer to the “power of one.” I speak of the riches behind the widow’s mite, the force of puny David’s stone that spelled defeat of the mighty Goliath. I point to the authority of the twelve – the Lord’s “few, good men” whose conviction and faith, despite the onrush and crushing weight of the worldly power of kings, emperors, and tyrants over the past two thousand years. The faith that we celebrate this morning in this church and all over the world is a testimony of the power of these “few good men”...