PAN DE LA SEMANA

PAN DE LA SEMANA Easter Sunday Year B April 5, 2015 PASSOVER, NOT SIMPLY MAKE-OVER! Make-overs have been a regular feature in this recent decade. Old houses get a new lease on life – and, ohhs and ahhs – after what they call an “extreme make-over.” Fitness and health and beauty gurus speak endlessly about restoration of the physical kind that breathes in youth and very literally some form of new life after similar extreme make-overs. Old houses are renovated. Ancient ruins are restored, and life seems instantly renewed. Or so we think. But soon enough restored buildings suffer from the same pattern of wear and tear. Renewed art works eventually accumulate grime and grit and grease from too much exposure to the ravages brought by too many pairs of feet trampling on very limited museum square footages all over the world. Caverns with stalactite and stalagmite protrusions both up and down caves all over the world soon suf...

Tonight, we come face to face with darkness. Our paschal triduum reaches its highest point when new fire and the light it brings shall pierce the darkness. Darkness, and the intimations of death that are associated with it shall now be vanquished. Sin, the ultimate darkness and sign of death par excellence, is now vanished for all time, for all men, for always. This Good News is something we all cannot remain silent about. We have been redeemed. We have been bought for a price. We are all called to move from darkness into God's wonderful light. This is Easter Good News. We are an Easter people, and "alleluia" is our song, as St. Augustine aptly puts it.

EASTER SUNDAY OF THE LORD’S RESURRECTION March 31, 2013 WHEN EMPTY MEANS FULL! I make no secrets about it. I am emotive. I cry easily when touched by something I hear, I see and experience. The last time I saw Les Miserables the movie (the fourth including three other live musical presentations in various places) I was touched by a number of particular scenes. The rendition of “Empty Chairs and Empty Tables” was among those scenes, when Marius, recovering from his wounds, imagines he is back in the ABC Café. He is obviously portrayed to be in mourning, and one cannot help but be carried away by someone else’s pain. Today, we too, are carried away but in a different plane, in a very different way. There is no question today about mourning, but everything to do about unalloyed joy. Last night, those of us who took part in the vigil would have noticed the quiet rejoicing, the ebullient praising and the profuse thanksgiving of the Churc...

EASTER SUNDAY APRIL 8, 2012 Churches everywhere around the country and the world, were mostly filled last Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. The washing of the disciples’ feet, which led to watching with the Lord in vigil, produced snaking lines of people, and more hordes of people for the watchful waiting before the altar of repose. And although liturgically speaking, the period called the Paschal Triduum that began during the celebration of the Lord’s Supper and which closes with the  Easter Vigil, ought not be dedicated to confessions, snaking lines were seen in every Church where the unsung heroes of Holy Week in the Philippines, the priests, held their fort, heroically, steadfastly, for many long hours of Thursday and Friday. Lent should have ended on Holy Thursday morning. The Mass of the Lord’s Supper began the paschal triduum, and the three-day period was meant no longer to be penitential days, but a three-day celebration of the Paschal Mystery, that is, the passio...

Easter Sunday of the Lord's Resurrection (A) April 24, 2011 This is the day that clinched it ... the day that made the story of Jesus worth telling and retelling ... the day that God has made, and the day that made God worth all our while, worth the trouble spending time for, spending time with, and spending all we have and are for. There are people who have been spending mighty lots of time now in beaches in tropical Philippines, or in cooler climes up on mountain retreats in Tagaytay and Baguio, and elsewhere. There have been countless "devotees" of sorts who, since Wednesday or Thursday, have been flagellating themselves sore to a bloodied pulp, trying to make amends for a year's worth of revelry and sin, and the usual day-to-day existence, for the most part, godless and irreverently indifferent at the most. There have also been thousands who flocked to churches all over the country, including the thousands who did their easter duties of  going to con...

Christ the source of resurrection and life.(From an Easter homily by an ancient author): An article from: Catholic Insight <p><p><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=pandel-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=1120148294&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="padding-top: 5px; width: 131px; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px;" marginwidth="0" ...

Catholic Homily/Sunday Reflection Easter Sunday (C) April 4, 2010 In many parts of the world, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, everything smacks of “new life” budding forth at this time of year. Spring has gone full swing, just starting, or just about to burst forth in total splendor. The dreary cold and dark winter slowly gives way to the vibrancy and sprightliness of spring, promising changes galore. Those places below the equator, while not having to wake up from a cold spell at this time of year, have their own version of “newness” and welcome changes. In places where summer is just taking hold, schools and classes are winding down, beaches and resorts begin to blossom with frolickers, and tropical trees become laden with luscious, juicy and cool refreshing fruits to quench a dry, parched populace, in stark contrast to what nature seems to be doing – lying naturally fallow for a time, only to wake up...