PAN DE LA SEMANA

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 ...

Catholic Homily / Sunday Reflection 7th Sunday of Easter / Ascension of the Lord - Year C May 16, 2010 N.B. I offer a conflated reflection for both the 7th Sunday of Easter and the Ascension Sunday for the simple reason that in the US, what is celebrated on May 16 is the 7th Sunday, while in many other places, the Ascension Sunday is celebrated. The liturgies of the Ascension of the Lord and the 7th Sunday of Easter both have to do with going beyond, with transcending the reality of the here and now, and with moving onto a realm qualitatively and patently different from current mundane experience. They both speak of the ultimate reasons and foundations of our earthly hope – the glorification of the Risen Lord, a promise and foretaste of what God, in His love and wisdom, also has assured us in His Son, Jesus Christ. Yes, the fact that “God mounts His throne to shouts of joy,” and that “the Lord is king, the most high over all the earth,” ought to make us pause in hope and ...

Catholic Homily / Sunday Reflection 29 th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B) October 18, 2009 The world values service a whole lot. People are willing to pay good money provided they are given a full complement of services everywhere they go, whether in a restaurant or a hotel. We just love to be pampered by service even if, deep inside, we know we are really paying dearly for it. Being served somehow makes us feel good about ourselves and gives a boost to our self-image. No wonder cruises, some of which are not called “celebrity cruises” for nothing, all go for the topmost quality in quality services that make one feel, at least for a short period, like celebrities, if not royalty. It is thus also not to be wondered at that two of Jesus’ close-in followers – James and John – who probably felt important enough after being identified with someone whom crowds adored and adulated, as to ask a big - if pretentious - favor from the Lord: “Teacher, we...

Sunday Morning Worship / Gospel Reflection / Catholic Homily 4th Sunday of Lent Year B March 22, 2009 It was the lowest point in the history of the chosen people of God! Worse than the situation they were in, there was none… being on exile, being far from the land promised to their forefathers, far from the temple, far from what they have gotten used to, far from the familiar sights and sounds of home, far from the security that comes from the knowledge that what one does is never foreign, never strange to anybody around him or her. The chosen people of God were down in the depths of communal humiliation and suffering… at Babylon, where the purity of their faith could not find perfect expression. “ By the rivers of Babylon, there they sat and wept, on the poplars that grew there, there they hung up their harps.” On top of all this, Jerusalem, the holy city was left in ruins, destroyed by the gentile conquerors. The Israelites, for all intents and purposes, were “pitched past pitch o...