Author: jcgosj

STRAYING INTO THE GUEST LIST (Mt 22:1-14):  12 October 2008 (Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time)

Today’s Readings

In his book What’s So Amazing about Grace? Philip Yancey talks about an interesting article that came out in The Boston Globe back in June 1990.  The article, which was called “A Most Unusual Wedding Party,” tells the story of a wedding—or at least what was supposed to be a wedding.  Everything had been prepared, including the expensive wedding ring.  Months before the wedding, the bride and the groom-to-be planned a great reception.  The couple had gone to the Hyatt Hotel in downtown Boston and painstakingly picked out the menu, the china and silver, and even the flower arrangements that they liked.  The bill came to $13,000, and for something like that, they had to leave a 50% down payment.

COPING WITH REJECTION (Mt 21:33-43):  05 October 2008 (Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time)

Today’s Readings

A TV spot from the “Foundation for A Better Life” tells a sad and familiar story:  A new girl looks tentatively around a crowded school cafeteria, food tray in hand.  After what feels like an eternity, she spots an empty seat and finds the courage to join a group of girls her age.  “Would it be okay if I sat here?” she asks.  All it takes is a look, and the new girl knows:  She is an intruder, an outsider, a leper. The group rises as one and leaves her quite abruptly alone with her food tray.

QUESTIONED BY A MONSTER MOVIE (Mt 21:28-32):  Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (28 September 2008)

Today’s Readings

Someone recently handed me a DVD of “Cloverfield,” a 2008 monster movie produced by JJ Abrams of the “Lost” TV series. I had seen the provocative trailer on the Internet weeks before the release, and wanted to know why its poster showed a headless Statue of Liberty standing before a burning Manhattan skyline.  I had been warned that watching it would make you dizzy because of its hand-held camera technique reminiscent of  “The Blairwitch Project.” Just the same I watched the movie the first chance I got.    

COUNTING LOOSE CHANGE (Mt 20:1-16a):  21 September 2008 (Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time)

Today’s Readings

Last night I got stuck in Metro Manila traffic and noticed that for some reason, there seemed to be more beggars and street children than usual.  Several beggars later, after giving the car window the customary taps to send them away, I wondered about the last time that I had actually given alms to a beggar.  I couldn’t remember when.  When I asked myself why, I realized it was because I usually didn’t carry coins in my pocket. Then it struck me:  Why do I help only when I have loose change to spare? 

KEEPING A LOW PROFILE (Jn 3:13-17):  14 September 2008 (Feast of the Triumph of the Cross)

Today’s Readings

Pieter Brueghel’s “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” depicts the well-known story of a young boy who dons his manmade wings and, against the instruction of his inventor-father, flies too high and too close to the sun.  The result?  As expected, the heat of the sun melts the wax holding his wings together, and the reckless boy falls to his death.