HUWEBES, ENERO 25, 2024

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Kapistahan ng Pagbabagong-Buhay ni Apostol San Pablo

Mga Gawa 22, 3-16
o kaya Gawa 9, 1-22
Salmo 116, 1. 2

Humayo’t dalhin sa tanan
Mabuting Balitang aral.

Marcos 16, 15-18

Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, Apostle (White)

UNANG PAGBASA
Mga Gawa 22, 3-16

Pagbasa mula sa Mga Gawa ng Mga Apostol

Noong mga araw na iyon, sinabi ni Pablo sa mga tao, “Ako’y isang Judio, ipinanganak sa Tarso ng Cilicia ngunit lumaki rito sa Jerusalem. Nag-aral ako kay Gamaliel at buong higpit na tinuruan sa Kautusan ng ating mga ninuno. Tulad ninyong lahat, ako’y masugid na naglilingkod sa Diyos. Inusig ko at ipinapatay ang mga sumusunod sa Daang ito. Ipinagapos ko at ipinabilanggo sila, lalaki’t babae. Makapagpapatotoo tungkol dito ang pinakapunong saserdote at ang buong kapulungan ng matatanda. Binigyan pa nila ako ng mga sulat para sa mga Judio sa Damasco, at pumunta ako roon upang dakpin ang mga tagasunod doon at dalhin dito sa Jerusalem upang parusahan.

“Magtatanghaling-tapat noon, at malapit na ako sa Damasco. Biglang kumislap sa aking paligid ang isang matinding liwanag mula sa langit. Nasubasob ako sa lupa, at narinig ko ang isang tinig na nagsabi sa akin, ‘Saulo, Saulo! Bakit mo ako pinag-uusig?’ Ako’y sumagot, ‘Sino po kayo, Panginoon?’ ‘Ako’y si Hesus na taga-Nazaret na iyong pinag-uusig,’ tugon niya. Nakita ng mga kasama ko ang liwanag, ngunit hindi nila narinig ang tinig ng nagsalita sa akin. At akin ding itinanong, ‘Ano po ang gagawin ko, Panginoon?’ Ang tugon sa aki’y, ‘Tumindig ka at pumunta sa Damasco. Sasabihin sa iyo roon ang lahat ng dapat mong gawin.’ Nabulag ako dahil sa kaningningan ng liwanag na iyon, kaya’t ako’y inakay na lamang ng mga kasama ko papasok sa Damasco.

“May isang lalaki sa Damasco na ang pangala’y Ananias. Siya’y taong may takot sa Diyos, tumutupad sa Kautusan, at iginagalang ng mga Judiong naninirahan doon. Pinuntahan niya ako, tumayo sa tabi ko at sinabi sa akin, ‘Kapatid na Saulo, makakakita ka na.’ Noon di’y nanauli ang aking paningin at nakita ko siya. Sinabi pa niya, ‘Hinirang ka ng Diyos ng ating mga ninuno upang mabatid mo ang kanyang kalooban, makita ang kanyang Banal na Lingkod at marinig ang kanyang tinig. Sapagkat ikaw ay magiging saksi niya upang patotohanan sa lahat ng tao ang iyong nakita at narinig. At ngayon, huwag ka nang mag-atubili. Tumindig ka, tumawag ka sa kanyang pangalan at magpabinyag, at magiging malinis ka sa iyong mga kasalanan.’”

Ang Salita ng Diyos.

o kaya:
Gawa 9, 1-22

Pagbasa mula sa Mga Gawa ng Mga Apostol

Noong mga araw na iyon, masidhi ang pagnanais ni Saulo na usigin at patayin ang mga alagad ng Panginoon. Kaya’t lumapit siya sa pinakapunong saserdote, at humingi ng mga sulat para sa mga sinagoga sa Damasco upang madakip niya ang sinumang matagpuan niya roong kaanib sa bagong pananampalataya – maging lalaki, maging babae – at madala sa Jerusalem.

Naglakbay si Saulo patungong Damasco. Nang siya’y malapit na sa lungsod, biglang kumislap sa paligid niya ang isang nakasisilaw na liwanag mula sa langit, anupat nasubasob siya. At narinig niya ang isang tinig na nagsalita sa kanya, “Saulo! Saulo! Bakit mo ako inuusig?” “Sino po kayo, Panginoon?” tanong niya. “Ako’y si Hesus, ang iyong inuusig,” tugon sa kanya. “Tumindig ka’t pumasok sa lungsod. Sasabihin sa iyo roon kung ano ang dapat mong gawin.” Natigilan ang mga kasama ni Saulo; narinig nila ang tinig ngunit wala silang makitang sinuman. Tumindig si Saulo at idinilat ang kanyang mata ngunit hindi siya makakita, kaya’t siya’y inakay nila hanggang sa Damasco. Tatlong araw na hindi siya nakakita, at hindi kumain ni uminom.

Sa Damasco naman ay may isang alagad na ang pangala’y Ananias. Tinawag siya ng Panginoon sa isang pangitain, “Ananias!” “Ano po iyon, Panginoon?” tugon niya. “Pumunta ka sa kalye Matuwid, sa bahay ni Judas at ipagtanong mo ang isang lalaking taga-Tarso na ang pangala’y Saulo,” sabi ng Panginoon. “Siya’y nananalangin ngayon. Sa isang pangitain, nakita ka niyang pumasok sa kinaroroonan niya at pinatungan mo siya ng kamay upang makakita.” Sumagot si Ananias, “Panginoon, marami na po ang nagbalita sa akin tungkol sa taong ito, tungkol sa mga kasamaang ginawa niya sa iyong mga banal sa Jerusalem. At naparito siya sa Damasco, taglay ang kapangyarihang galing sa mga punong saserdote, upang dakpin ang lahat ng tumatawag sa iyong pangalan.” Ngunit sinabi sa kanya ng Panginoon, “Pumaroon ka! Sapagkat hinirang ko siya upang ipakilala ang aking pangalan sa mga Hentil, sa mga hari, at sa mga anak ng Israel. At ipaaalam ko sa kanya ang lahat ng dapat niyang tiisin alang-alang sa akin.”

Pumunta nga si Ananias. Pumasok siya sa bahay at ipinatong ang kanyang kamay kay Saulo. “Kapatid na Saulo,” wika niya, “pinapunta ako rito ng Panginoong Hesus na napakita sa iyo sa daan nang ikaw ay papunta rito. Sinugo niya ako upang muli kang makakita, at mapuspos ng Espiritu Santo.” Pagdaka’y may nalaglag na tila mga kaliskis mula sa mga mata ni Saulo, at nakakita na siya. Tumindig siya agad at nagpabinyag. Kumain siya at nanauli ang kanyang lakas.

Si Saulo’y ilang araw na kasama-sama ng mga alagad sa Damasco. Pumasok siya sa mga sinagoga at nangaral tungkol kay Hesus. “Siya ang Anak ng Diyos,” wika niya. Nagtaka ang lahat ng nakarinig sa kanya. “Hindi ba ito ang dating umuusig sa mga tumatawag sa pangalang ito sa Jerusalem?” tanong nila. “Hindi ba’t naparito siya upang sila’y dakpin at dalhing gapos sa mga punong saserdote?”

Ngunit lalong naging mahusay si Saulo sa kanyang pangangaral at nalito ang mga Judiong naninirahan sa Damasco dahil sa kanyang matibay na pagpapatunay na si Hesus ay siyang Kristo.

Ang Salita ng Diyos.

SALMONG TUGUNAN
Salmo 116, 1. 2

Humayo’t dalhin sa tanan
Mabuting Balitang aral.

o kaya: Aleluya.

Purihin ang Poon!
Dapat na purihin ang lahat ng bansa,
siya ay purihin
ng lahat ng tao sa balat ng lupa.

Humayo’t dalhin sa tanan
Mabuting Balitang aral.

Pagkat ang pag-ibig
Na ukol sa ati’y dakila at wagas,
at ang katapatan niya’y walang wakas.

Humayo’t dalhin sa tanan
Mabuting Balitang aral.

ALELUYA
Juan 15, 16

Aleluya! Aleluya!
Hinirang tayo ni Kristo
upang mamungang totoo
bilang mabuting tao.
Aleluya! Aleluya!

MABUTING BALITA
Marcos 16, 15-18

Ang Mabuting Balita ng Panginoon ayon kay San Marcos

Noong panahong iyon, nagpakita si Hesus sa Labing-isa at sinabi sa kanila, “Humayo kayo sa buong sanlibutan at ipangaral ninyo sa lahat ang Mabuting Balita. Ang sumasampalataya at magpabinyag ay maliligtas, ngunit ang hindi sumampalataya ay parurusahan. Ang mga sumampalataya ay magtataglay ng ganitong tanda ng kapangyarihan: sa pangalan ko’y magpapalayas sila ng mga demonyo at magsasalita ng ibang wika; sila’y hindi maaano dumampot man ng ahas o uminom ng lason; at gagaling ang mga maysakit na mapatungan ng kanilang kamay.”

Ang Mabuting Balita ng Panginoon.

PANALANGIN NG BAYAN
Enero 25
Ang Pagbabalik-loob ni San Pablo

Ipanalangin natin ang misyon ng Simbahan at ang mga pangangailangan ng mundong tinubos ni Kristo.

Panginoon, dinggin Mo ang aming panalangin.
o kaya
Maging mapagpala ka nawa sa Iyong bayan, O Panginoon.

Ang Santo Papa, mga obispo, at mga pari nawa’y maging masigasig sa pangangaral ng pagsisisi sa kasalanan at pagbabalik-loob, manalangin tayo sa Panginoon.

Ang mga misyonero nawa’y magkaroon ng tapang na ipahayag ang Ebanghelyo maging sa mahihirap na pagkakataon at mapanganib na lugar, manalangin tayo sa Panginoon.

Ang mga nag-aaalinlangan at nasisiraan ng loob nawa’y matuklasan ang walang hanggang katotohanan na walang iba kundi si Kristo, manalangin tayo sa Panginoon.

Ang mga matatanda, nangungulila, at maysakit nawa’y makatanggap sa kanilang paghihirap ng ginhawang dulot ng pag-ibig ng Diyos, manalangin tayo sa Panginoon.

Ang mga namayapang tapat sa Panginoon nawa’y mapatawad sa kanilang mga kasalanan at makatagpo nawa nila ang Diyos sa kanyang kaharian, manalangin tayo sa Panginoon.

Ama naming Manunubos, habang inuusal namin ang aming mga panalangin sa pamamagitan ni San Pablo, palalimin mo ang biyaya ng pagbabalik-loob sa aming buhay. Hinihiling namin ito sa pamamagitan ni Kristo na aming Panginoon. Amen.

THE MOST RADICAL TEACHING OF JESUS

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“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” (Lk 6:27–28)

I have always thought that this must be the most radical of all the teachings of Jesus. It asks for something that seems almost contrary to our instincts. We naturally love those who love us, defend ourselves against those who hurt us, and return hostility with hostility. Jesus asks us to break that cycle.

Perhaps this is also the deepest foundation of the late Pope Francis’ persistent insistence on mercy. Mercy is not weakness. It is the strength to refuse to become like the one who has hurt us. It is the freedom to stop evil from reproducing itself through us.

Pope Leo XIV speaks often of building a civilization of love, picking up a vision already articulated by his predecessors. But there is something profoundly Augustinian about it as well: the contrast between two ways of building a city, two ways of imagining human greatness.

Genesis 11 gives us the image of Babel. “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower…and make a name for ourselves.” It is civilization built on power, uniformity and self-glorification. Everyone speaks the same language, everyone is enlisted in the same project, everyone looks upward—but toward human greatness rather than toward God. And it ends not in communion but in dispersion.

Perhaps humanity had to learn the hard way that true unity cannot be built by making everyone speak the same language. The City of God is built by learning to live with many languages, cultures, peoples and differences—and discovering within that plurality a higher language capable of creating communion: the language of love.

That is why the command of Jesus to love our enemies is so radical. He is not simply teaching us to be nice to difficult people. He is proposing a higher form of humanity.

In an age that is returning so easily to the language of power, domination, retaliation and “making a name for ourselves,” the Gospel proposes another way of building the human city: not Babel, but the New Jerusalem; not uniformity, but communion; not domination, but mercy.

Perhaps a civilization of love begins precisely there: when hatred reaches us, and we refuse to pass it on.

FLOODS AND THE DREADED LEPTOSPIROSIS

 90 total reads

I cannot think of leptospirosis merely as a statistic. Whenever I hear about another case, I remember Dion Angelo De la Rosa, one of our altar servers, and the painful story of how a disease acquired from contaminated floodwater can suddenly turn into a life-threatening illness.

Yesterday, Fr. Rommel Brebaño, our Diocesan BEC Coordinator, updated me about what they have been seeing on the ground. He was alarmed by the rate at which people in flooded communities are contracting leptospirosis—and by the deaths being reported. What makes the situation even more disturbing is hearing from residents who go to their Barangay Health Centers after exposure to floodwater, only to be told: ubos na po ang gamot.

I decided to check whether what they are observing locally is reflected in the official figures. Unfortunately, it is.

As of early September, Central Luzon had already recorded 435 leptospirosis cases since August, with health authorities saying that most of the patients had been exposed to floodwaters during the weeks of prolonged flooding. At Jose B. Lingad Memorial General Hospital here in Pampanga, more than 60 leptospirosis patients from different parts of Central Luzon were confined at the same time just a few days ago.

Nationally, the DOH has recorded 6,253 cases so far this year. Even more alarming is the sudden rise following the floods: in just the two-week period from August 2 to 15, 824 cases were recorded—a 77-percent increase from the preceding period. Central Luzon is now among the regions under intensified monitoring.

And this morning comes another grim figure. San Lazaro Hospital has recorded 22 deaths from leptospirosis as of September 7. Almost three-fourths of these deaths were associated with pulmonary hemorrhage—bleeding in the lungs, one of the most dreaded complications of severe leptospirosis.

Leptospirosis is caused by Leptospira bacteria, commonly spread through water or soil contaminated by the urine of infected animals, especially rats. Floodwater provides an almost perfect vehicle for transmission. The bacteria can enter the body through wounds and abrasions, including tiny breaks in the skin that we may not even notice.

At first, the disease can deceptively resemble an ordinary flu: fever, headache, chills, muscle pains—often severe pain in the calves—vomiting, abdominal pain and redness of the eyes. Symptoms may develop days or even weeks after exposure. But untreated infection can progress rapidly and damage the kidneys, liver and lungs, producing jaundice, kidney failure, hemorrhage and respiratory failure.

This is why early consultation and treatment are so important. The DOH itself advises people exposed to floodwater—even those without obvious wounds—to seek assessment at a health center or YAKAP clinic to determine whether post-exposure prophylaxis with doxycycline is indicated.

Here is what I find difficult to understand.

The DOH says there is no national shortage of medicine. It reported having distributed some 1.2 million doxycycline capsules to affected areas, with another 2.6 million available in regional health offices. Even earlier, DOH-Central Luzon reported distributing more than 200,000 doxycycline capsules in our region. The Health Secretary himself has assured the public that there is an adequate buffer supply.

And yet, on the ground, we are hearing: “Wala na pong gamot.”

If the medicine exists in government warehouses but is unavailable when a flood victim presents himself at a barangay health center, then the problem is no longer simply one of supply. It is a problem of access, distribution and public-health delivery.

And when the consequence of that failure can be kidney failure, pulmonary hemorrhage, dialysis—or death—then we cannot treat it as a minor logistical problem.

There is something scandalous about this.

Centuries have passed since the Black Death swept through Europe and wiped out entire communities at a time when people knew almost nothing about bacteria, antibiotics, epidemiology or modern public health. We live in a very different age. We know what causes leptospirosis. We know how it is transmitted. We know how to reduce the risk after exposure. We know how to treat it when detected early. We have antibiotics. We have laboratories. We have hospitals. We have an entire government health system.

People should not be dying simply because the medicine did not reach them in time.

I therefore appeal urgently to the Department of Health, especially DOH-Central Luzon: please look beyond the figures in the warehouses and verify the situation at the barangay level, particularly in communities that have remained flooded for days or weeks.

Please make sure that medicines actually reach the health centers where they are needed. Establish easily accessible leptospirosis consultation and prophylaxis points in heavily flooded communities. Make the public know where medicines are available. And where barangay stocks have run out, replenish them immediately.

Flooding is already a calamity. It should not be allowed to become a preventable epidemic.

The poor have already had to wade through filthy floodwaters because they often have no other choice. They should not have to wade through another flood afterward—a flood of bureaucracy, unavailable medicines and inaccessible health care—just to stay alive.

RETALIATION

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Gospel Reading for September 10, 2026 – Luke 6: 27-38

RETALIATION

Jesus said to his disciples: “To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same. If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, and get back the same amount. But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be greatnand you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as also your Father is merciful. “Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken downr , and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”

————

One of the most difficult things for us Christians to do is to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us, and pray for those who mistreat us. At first glance, it seems as though we would be out of our minds for doing these things. But when we see through the eyes of God, we realize that this is exactly what should be.

These are the best things we can do to break the vicious cycle of RETALIATION, which is the cause of endless conflicts and wars. They are also the best way to have inner peace and true happiness in life.

Jesus teaches us this simple logic: we do unto others what we expect God to do unto us. We always expect God to forgive us for the wrong things we do against him. Therefore, forgiving others for the wrong things they do to us is also what he expects from us.

Lord Jesus, teach us to be like you on the Cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Amen.

Veritas Editorial

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