BREAKING THE YOKE; SMASHING THE ROD!
3 rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A January 23, 2011 Readings: Is 8:23 – 9:3 / 1 Cor 1:10-13,17 / Mt 4:12-17 We simply cannot have enough of the Christmas spirit. Three weeks into ordinary time, just after the Christmas season (a long, long one in the Philippines!), we hear echoes of what we reflected on a whole lot, weeks and days before, during, and after Christmas (with an extra day to boot for us Pinoys, given the last hurrah we did on Santo Nino day, last Sunday!). The first reading once more speaks of light that shone in the darkness. Oozing with optimism, Isaiah prophesies what we long for and expect, in the spirit of Christian hope. He speaks of yokes on our shoulders being taken away, and rods of taskmasters being smashed. Anguish, he adds, will take wing, and darkness will be no more. As I write, I am tying to get a grip of the multiplicity of “yokes, poles, and rods” that an equally seemingly infinite number of “taskmasters” impose on so many peoples. I am trying ...