PAN DE LA SEMANA

18 th Sunday Year A August 3, 2014 BEING FED & FULL VERSUS BEING VACUOUS AND VAIN Everyone loves a good, succulent and tasty meal. Everyone loves to eat, plain and simple … The pleasure attached to eating is a gift from the Creator, and is part of the legitimate natural pleasures that assure the continuance of life – our own, and of everybody else. The same principle is true for every natural human activity connected with life and its preservation and transmission, and that includes … yes … sexual activity within the right bounds. But let me get back to food … Food was a major part of what the Jewish exiles in Babylon longed for more than anything else. They missed their spices and home cooking. They missed the sights, sounds and smells of home while exiled in foreign territory. But food was not the only thing they missed. Food was not the only thing they hankered for. Food may have been important for them as it is for us...

32 nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (A) November 6, 2011 I am still reeling from the startling impression given me by the words of St. Judith Zoebelein to Dr. Moynihan: “Find wisdom … Live from your heart, not just from your mind.” It was, to say the least, a jolting reminder for one who, as teacher and educator, may have a reputation of living a little more from the “mind” side. Wisdom … this is something we all hanker for and desire above everything else. In the morning of everyone’s life, we all look for learning, information, credentials, titles, and everything that enriches our resume. I am sure those who are younger than me will find this true. But I am sure those of you who are my contemporaries (or older) will find this more wise than true. Many years ago, as a young freshman in college, I was touched by a line from Boris Pasternak’s novel “Dr. Zhivago.” “Man is born to live, not to prepare for life,” he wrote. Too bad so many of us forget about getting a life, and foc...

22 nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (A) August 28, 2011 It is not to be passed off as old wives’ tales … or the stuff that we now call “urban legends” … Persecution does happen. Everywhere. Anywhere. But it is, sort of, understandable if it happens in non-Christian territories … or in uncivilized remote places (if the likes still exist in this shrinking world). But it does happen where supposedly, Christianity has taken root for many hundreds of years. It does happen right where we are, where faith has been part and parcel of tradition for decades, if not, hundreds of years. We see it right at the tips of our noses … the growing and gnawing anti-Catholicism on the rise, even from those who claim to be catholics, whilst believing only in stuff they want to believe, and tossing out what does'nt jibe with their personal takes on a motley number of issues. We hear it right from those who claim they graduated from catholic schools. One high profile legislator even had the nerve...