Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Tuesday, Twenty-Seventh Week in Ordinary Time, Year II Memorial of St. Bruno, Priest, 06 October 2026 Galatians 1:13-24 ><}}}}*> + ><}}}}*> + ><}}}}*> Luke 10:38-42
Photo by Ms. Kei Abad in Kyoto, Japan, October 2025.
Welcome, Lord Jesus.
Welcome and thank you, Jesus, for coming to us, for visiting us even if we are always "out" so busy with our many tasks we feel so important even when you come to visit us; forgive us Jesus when we are like Martha welcoming you into our home, into ourselves but so occupied with ourselves too.
Teach us to be like Mary, Martha's sister, truly hospitable to you welcoming you by sitting at your feet - that is, getting down to pray to truly meet you, to truly experience you, to truly listen to you.
Like Mary, may we learn to get down to your feet, Jesus, by setting aside my plans and agenda to give way to your plans for me; most of all, may we learn to get down too like Mary to truly welcome and relate others we meet whom you use to come to us.
Like St. Paul in the first reading when he narrated how you found him and eventually he searched and followed you first before eventually turning to the apostles and first disciples; that is true hospitality - welcoming you first in our lives in prayers, in silence like St. Bruno and his followers the Carthusians who sought to "seek God assiduously, to find God promptly, and to possess God fully." Amen.
As we have been saying since we started this blog in June 2018, we have always wished to show how God continues to speak to us in this modern time through secular music by linking our Sunday gospel with every genre like rock and jazz, punk and disco, R&B and even OPM (Original Pilipino Music).
And there have been many instances in the music scene when artists were actually inspired by the Sacred Scriptures in their composition like Seeger we have featured last week.
This Sunday, we go back to year 1976 with The Isley Brothers’ Harvest for the World whose title was a complete take from Matthew’s gospel.
In an interview published six years ago in The Guardian by Dave Simpson, composer Ernie Isley said he had just bought a new 12-string acoustic guitar and was trying it out in their basement in New Jersey in 1976 when words simply flowed that became the song’s first stanza:
All babies together, everyone a seed Half of us are satisfied, half of us in need Love's bountiful in us, tarnished by our greed When will there be a harvest for the world
Ernie was still playing the song in his new guitar when his brother Marvin who played bass came to their basement with their brother-in-law and keyboardist Chris Jasper; they were so impressed with Ernie’s music and later they were joined by their other brothers O’Kelly Jr., Rudolph and Ronald who all contributed lyrics and additional musical arrangements to finally complete Harvest for the World.
According to Ernie, they were largely inspired by the news they have witnessed at that time, from the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy to the growing protest movements following Nixon’s resignation in 1974 due to the Watergate Scandal and the end of Vietnam War in 1975 with the Fall of Saigon.
For the title, they remembered Matthew’s gospel scene of Jesus telling his disciples upon seeing the vast crowd that have followed them, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest” (Mt. 9:37-38).
They first released the song as a single in May 1976 and later became the title track of their album Harvest for the World that same year that reaped a lot of harvest for The Isley Brothers, peaking the top ten songs in the Billboard and UK charts that year. It became one of the most memorable music of that era that continues to be covered until now by new artists, including our very own Gary V.
For our part, we have chosen Harvest for the World because of its close links with today’s gospel on the parable of the wicked tenants who have refused to give the owner’s share of the harvest of grapes in his vineyard (https://lordmychef.com/2026/10/03/chosen-to-be-fruitful/).
Both the song and the gospel speak of too much greed among us, not realizing we are indeed the Lord’s vineyard.
Our very life itself is actually not ours to possess and own completely in total disregard of others and of God.
The same is true with our beloved planet Earth: it is the Lord’s vineyard and no one, whether individuals or governments can lay total claim for its land and other resources meant by God for everyone. Here we find its lyrics very prophetic and relevant until now:
A nation planted, so concerned with gain As the seasons come and go, greater grows the pain And far too many feelin' the strain When will there be a harvest for the world
We were in elementary school, perhaps in grade five or six when we first heard Harvest for the World; the song is unforgettable for me because I felt so fortunate to have found its lyrics in one of the very few issues of JINGLE magazine I have bought at that time – just four maybe – because it was so expensive. But, the first time I heard it on radio, I instantly loved it for its music so suave and cool; beat is so inviting especially with the claps in the background. A classic indeed of a gone era of great poetry and philosophy in music.
Before listening to this beautiful music that is truly a gospel too in our time, we quote Ernie from that interview six years ago by The Guardian’s Simpson which we find so fitting in closing this piece:
Lord My Chef Sunday Recipe for Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A, 04 October 2026 Isaiah 5:1-7 ><}}}}*> Philippians 4:6-9 ><}}}}*> Matthew 21:33-43
Photo by a friend in Washngton State, 01 October 2026.
A friend recently sent me this photo of the start of autumn that brought back memories of my vacation on two occasions in the States and Canada during that most wonderful season. It even made me wondered lately why God did not give us four seasons like in other countries.
I know. It is kind of crazy and weird, even stupid especially at how a Chinese friend who took his priestly formation at UST twenty years ago used to tell me the Philippines is a paradise where we can work and play all year round unlike them who have to work hard for six months to stock food and wood because the other half of the year is so cold that they have to stay indoors most of the time. Until now he is all praises to our country so blessed abundantly in resources and natural wonders.
And indeed! Our country is a paradise – so blessed, so beautiful, so rich. And yet so poor and miserably mismanaged by us all that we perfectly fit in the first reading and gospel this Sunday:
Let me now sing of my friend, my friend’s song concerning his vineyard. My friend had a vineyard on a fertile hillside; he spaded it, cleared it of stones and planted the choicest vines; within it he built a watchtower, and hewed out a wine press. Then he looked for the crop of grapes, but what it yielded was wild grapes (Isaiah 5:1-2).
Photo by author, Pundaquit, San Antonio, Zambales, 14 May 2025.
Our country is exactly that wonderful vineyard planted by the Lord with its vast, fertile lands and long coastlines with lush greeneries of plains and mountains and despite all these, we import much of our food like rice and vegetables and fruits including fish like galunggong, even pig skins for chicharon! Like Isaiah, we ask what happened to our country?
For Isaiah, the vineyard represented Israel as the chosen people of God, so loved and cared but produced bitter fruit with their repeated infidelity and sins against God that went on until the coming of Jesus who used the same imagery into a parable of the kingdom of heaven so applicable to our own time.
Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the people: “Hear another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went on a journey. When vintage time drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to obtain his produce. But the tenants seized the servants and one they beat, another they killed, and a third they stoned. Again he sent other servants, more numerous than the first ones, but they treated them in the same way. Finally, he sent his son to them, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and acquire his inheritance.’ They seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him (Matthew 21:33-39).
Jesus was still in the temple area where his enemies have gathered to seek ways of putting him under arrest. His parable of the wicked tenants is so similar with Isaiah’s that speaks too at the same time of ourselves and of our time, of how we have become like those wicked tenants taking the “vineyard” as totally ours. Like those tenants, we have claimed and possessed on our own this very life as “mine” and therefore, “owner” with every right to do whatever we want like have abortion, take contraceptives, have casual sex, even decide which gender to choose!
We have “overstretched” our rights without any regard at all to others and to environment. Consciously or unconsciously, we have deleted God from life that we have become relativistic without absolute morals and morality because we have made ourselves the measure and standards of everyone and everything – because, we own the “vineyard”.
Photo by Dra. Carol Reyes-Santos, MD, in Southern California, October 2023.
Then we wonder like Isaiah why we harvest bitter, wild grapes of broken relationships and emptiness despite the plethora of technologies and gadgets we now have? Or, like the chief priest and elders so angrily telling Jesus how the wicked tenants must be punished for usurping the vineyard and putting the owner’s son to death when in fact we are them?
Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes? Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit” (Matthew 21:40-43).
Here now lies the good news this Sunday: in Isaiah’s parable of the vineyard, God is distinct from the vineyard but in Christ’s parable, we are the vineyard of the Lord because Jesus is one with us being the Son of the owner sent to gather his share of produce.
Jesus promises us today of better produce to be shared and enjoyed not only in eternity but right here in this life for we are the Lord’s vineyard called to be fruitful. As a continuation of last Sunday’s parable of the two sons, Jesus gives us today the chance to make that wise and good decision of finally doing what is right, just and good. Of finally obeying the Father as St. Paul beautifully reminds us in the second reading to be like him, an imitator of Christ becoming someone who could be imitated by others as witnesses of Jesus, striving for “whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious” (Phil. 4:8).
Recent news of how a group of ordinary people on board a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv prevented the crash of their plane is a remarkable story of taking care of the Lord’s vineyard, of how it always bear good fruits. The so-called heroes of FlyDubai were all very ordinary like us; what enabled them to be heroes was their being true and faithful in their responsibilities like the mother who went to attend to her daughter in the toilet and became the first to notice trouble in the cockpit; the Indian captain who for many years of flying had always thought of the lives depending on him who struggled to rise and opened his cockpit door to be helped by men who knew nothing about flying and martial arts except the need to save lives by stabilizing the plane and subduing the terrorist co-pilot.
It was a story like the parables today and last Sunday of how people chose to uphold what is good, what is right, what is just. They are heroes not because of any special skills nor talents but were simply faithful in life, most likely always present for their families and friends, clients and patients. And to God ultimately.
Isaiah and Jesus invites us this Sunday to look into ourselves, at how we have tended and cared for our lives, for others in this vineyard of the Lord. Think of those many occasions we have wasted God’s blessings like our talents not put into use or never harnessed, health taken for granted and loved ones we have ignored and refused to love. Let us grab this opportunity of taking care of the Lord’s vineyard he had entrusted to us to be fruitful. It is us who benefit most in these fruits meant to make us better here and hereafter. Amen. Have a blessed week ahead!
Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for Souls by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Friday, Twenty-Sixth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II Feast of Guardian Angels, 02 October 2026 Exodus 23:20-23 <*{{{{>< + ><}}}}*> Matthew 18:1-5, 10
Photo by author, Baguio City Cathedral, 2019.
Glory and praise to you, O God our loving Father in giving us guardian angels, your messengers and servants you send us to guide us, to protect us, to lead us.
“See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father” (Matthew 18:10).
Angels are spiritual creatures, so pure and holy, with will and intellect; but, as the psalmist sings, you O Lord created us humans higher than angels with body able to touch, feel and see others and be felt and seen by others too; but, how sad, unlike the angels, we are so concerned always with who is the greatest among us; forgive us, Lord, in this age of social media when everything is exposed and must be seen, must be felt and tasted, we have come to value greatness in terms of popularity and wealth, power and fame, achievements and success whether at home or in school, in offices and parishes, everywhere.
Teach us, Jesus, to be like little children who always portray angels in the arts because of their simplicity and sincerity; may we keep in mind that we are already good and great in our selves, even greater than angels; may we be faithful like the guardian angels as God's messengers and servants especially to those who are sick and burdened, alone and forgotten by family and friends even by society, troubled and anxious with life's many problems; likewise, we remember and pray for those people who have always been an angel to us, bringing Christ's loving presence among us. Amen.
Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Thursday, Twenty-Sixth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II, 01 October 2026 Memorial, St. Therese of the Child Jesus, Virgin & Doctor of Church
Photo by author, September 2020.
Praise and glory to you, God our loving Father for this month of October! Thank you for calling and sending us like the 72 others sent forth by Jesus in today's gospel:
Jesus appointed seventy-two other disciples whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit. He said to them, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest” (Luke 10:1-2).
Thank you, dear Jesus for those you have called and sent to comfort me in times of crises, those you sent to encourage me in times of doubts, those you sent to bring me peace when everything was in chaos and disorder; send me too, O Lord, to bring your love and mercy to those down and wearied, to bring your warmth and life to those losing energy and will to forge on in life, to bring healing for those bruised and sick physically and emotionally.
Teach me to be like St. Therese of the Child Jesus whom we celebrate today to be love in the midst of the Church; let me not be like those visitors of Job who disturbed him, instead of bringing him peace they destabilized him; the world is so sick these days, Lord; send us to bring you and your peace and love and joy to everyone. Amen.
Photo by a friend in Swan Island Dahlia Farm, Canby, Oregon, 29 August 2026.
Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Wednesday, Twenty-Sixth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II Memorial of St. Jerome, Priest & Doctor of the Church, 30 September 2026
Photo by author, Cabo de Roca, Pundaquit, San Antonio, Zambales, 15 May 2025.
Many times in life I see myself like Job, Lord: at a loss at how things are happening with me; I cannot complain but deep I know that in this life, good is rewarded, evil is punished; but, how does one explain when bad things happen to good people?
Like Job, I have no claims to holiness but deep inside I am convinced of my innocence in many occasions that I ask, I wonder, I "protest" of the difficulties and sufferings I am going through.
How must I approach, you, Lord?
You are all powerful, you can do anything; should you come near me, I see you not; should you pass by, I am now aware of your coming; should you seize me, what can I say nor do (Job (9:11-12).
Even though I were right, I could not answer him, but should rather beg for what was due to me. If I appealed to him and he answered my call, I could nhot believe that he would hearken to my words (Job 9:15-16).
Truth is, many times I really do not and would never understand for sure the things happening to me except that I just have to trust you more like Job.
Or St. Jerome who went through many ordeals in his life largely due to his own making with his kind of temperament. What matters is that unlike the three would-be disciples in the gospel today, Job, St. Jerome, and hopefully me, your lowly servant Lord, will simply follow you even if we never understand why and how things are turning out in my life.
Let me approach you, Lord, the way St. Jerome had shown and taught us: by praying your Words, the Sacred Scriptures where you speak directly to us in the most personal manner. Amen.
Photo by author, Cabo de Roca, Pundaquit, San Antonio, Zambales, 14 May 2025.
Lord My Chef Sunday Recipe for Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A, 27 September 2026 Ezsekiel 18:25-28 ><}}}}*> Philippians 2:1-11 ><}}}}*> Matthew 21:28-32
It was a week of prayers aided by music I grew up with as it happens most of the time which I believe is part of my being old while unconsciously feeling fearful of the inevitable, death.
But, it isn’t morbid at all. I regard it as simply being realistic.
Like our liturgical calendar that is about to end in nine weeks on November 22 with the Solemnity of Christ the King followed the next Sunday after that on November 29 with the Season of Advent or the four Sunday preparation for Christmas!
Hence, all gospel accounts beginning this Sunday will focus on the coming end of time and the need for us to change our ways to make it to heaven, our final destination in this life.
Jesus said to the chief priests and elders of the people: “What is your opinion? A man had two sons. He came to the first and said, ‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’ He said in reply, ‘I will not,’ but afterwards he changed his mind and went. The man came to the other son and gave the same order. He said in reply, ‘Yes, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did the father’s will.” They answered, “The first”(Mt.21:28-31).
Photo by author, Jerusalem as seen from the altar of Dominus Flevit Church, May 2017.
Jesus and his disciples have finally reached Jerusalem and this scene today is the day after Palm Sunday when he angrily drove away the traders and money changers in the Temple area that have prompted his enemies led by the elders and priests to come and questioned his authority.
Before giving his answer, Jesus asked them the origin of John’s authority to baptize, God or the people? They declined to answer because they have refused to recognize John’s baptism and that is why Jesus gave them a chance to change their minds and their hearts with this parable of the two sons. It was like Jesus telling them and everyone else including us today to obey follow God.
See now its link with last Sunday’s parable of the workers in the vineyard: Jesus continues to call us to come and work in his vineyard no matter how late; our work in his vineyard never stops and we need to keep doing what is good even if sometimes we fail and falter. Remember too that Matthew presents Jesus as always insisting the need to harmonize and blend what we believe with what we say and most of all, with what we do because “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Mt.7:21).
Photo by author, Anvaya Cove, Bataan, 21 July 2026.
What counts most for Jesus in this parable is not just what or who is in our hearts but what flows from our hearts. Do we walk our talk? There has to be a unity in our faith wherein what we believe is what we say and what we do and live by.
Like the younger son in the parable, we are invited today to be humble and accept our mistakes to do what is right, what is good, what is moral than become like the elder son who said yes to their father but did not obey at all. Many times despite our absolute belief in God, we still think more of ourselves, insisting our own ways and agenda even to our loved ones, unmindful of the disunity we cause in our relationships aside from the pains and hurts we inflict on them whenever our words of love and peace do not match our actions.
There is a saying that goes “A single act of kindness is better than the best intention.” So true! – because our actions prove the veracity and sincerity of our every intention. That’s what God did for us by not merely promising a Savior but fulfilled it in sending us Jesus Christ who died obediently on the Cross which St. Paul eloquently explained today in our second reading we also hear during Christmas and Easter Seasons.
Photo by author, Anvaya Cove, Bataan, 20 July 2026.
We are so blessed this Sunday not only because God fulfills his promises of love and forgiveness but he always gives us endless chances to change our ways, to continuously work things out for the best.
Every Eucharist is a celebration of God’s patience and mercy for us sinners who must be converted again and again and again to make it to His kingdom in heaven. We must always be on guard not to fall into the mistake of the laborers last week who were so focused on their work than on the goodness of the landowner as if they deserved something extra than others which the Prophet Ezekiel echoed in the first reading:
“Hear now, house of Israel: Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways unfair? When someone virtuous turns away from virtue to commit iniquity, and dies, it is because of the iniquity he committed that he must die. But if he turns from the wickedness he has committed, and does what is right and just, he shall preserve his life”(Ezekiel 18:25-27).
God is not a store nor a credit card who gives “rebates” for whatever good points we “earn” for past purchases for he will judge us with our actions and not intentions. We simply have to strive in doing what is good like that second child in the parable.
Let me end this reflection with this funny story about the talking centipede.
Photo by author, Anvaya Cove, Bataan, 21 July 2026.
A young man decided life would be more fun if he had a most unique pet. So he went to the pet store and told the owner about it. After some discussions, he finally bought a talking centipede, which came in a little white box to use for his house.
The guy took the box back home, found a good spot to place it with the centipede inside and decided he would start off by taking his new pet to church with him.
So he asked the centipede in the box, “Would you like to go to church with me today? We will have a good time.”
But there was no answer from his new pet.
This bothered him a bit, but he waited a few minutes and then asked again, “How about going to church with me and receive blessings?”
But again, there was no answer from his most unique pet. So he waited a few minutes more, thinking about the situation. The guy decided to invite the centipede one last time by putting his face up against the centipede’s house and shouted, “Hey, in there! Would you like to go to church with me and learn about God?”
Then suddenly, a little voice came out of the box, “I heard you the first time! I’m putting my shoes on.”
Smile everyone, God loves you so much! He knows that like the centipede, you have so many shoes to wear, so many shoestrings to tie but God is not in a hurry….just keep on putting on those shoes and keep walking on His path! Amen. Have a blessed end of September.
Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Friday, Twenty-Fifth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II, 25 September 2026 Ecclesiastes 3:1-11 ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> Luke 9:18-22
I really wonder, Lord, if you have "made everything appropriate to its time, and has put the timeless into their hearts, without men's ever discovering, from beginning to end, the work which God has done" (Ecclesiastes 3:11), then what time is it now for me?
A time to weep or to laugh? A time to mourn or to dance? A time to scatter or to gather? A time to be silent or to speak? A time to love or to hate?
Despite our ingenuity and intelligence, we still could not figure out what time it is, Lord, because we can never know you God unless we let go of ourselves, unless we return to you.
And that is why Pete Seeger and the Byrds added those chorus lines before each stanza from today's first reading:
To everything – turn, turn, turn There is a season – turn, turn, turn And a time to every purpose under heaven
Photo by author, Dominus Flevit Church outside Jerusalem, May 2017.
Let me turn, turn, turn to you always to experience your time, dear Lord; let me turn, turn, turn to you so I may see you like Peter as you are in today's gospel - the Christ of God (Luke 9:20), the One who suffered and died but rose again for our salvation!
In your Passion and Resurrection Jesus, you have shown us time is a dimension for us to determine and measure the passing of moments, a reference point to go back in the past, to plan in the future, to experience the present that often escapes us; may we learn from Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull the parting words of the wise Chen after teaching him how to fly higher than most seagulls: "Friendships should depend on nothing like time and space; remove time, we have now, remove space, we have here; don't you think between now and here we could meet once or twice?"
Teach us, Lord Jesus to return to you, to turn away from sins and evil to experience fullness of time in your coming in every here and now. Amen.
Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Thursday, Twenty-Fifth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II, 24 September 2026 Ecclesiastes 1:2-11 ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> Luke 9:7-9
Photo by Ms. Jo Villafuerte, Atok, Benguet, 01 September 2019.
Your words today,
O Lord our God,
both in the first reading
from Ecclesiastes and
the gospel remind me of
Bob Dylan's 1963 song
"Blowin' in the Wind" -
that all these problems
we are facing like wars
and social inequalities
stem from our failure and
refusal to open our eyes
to see the most obvious
things that are just
blowin' in the wind.
How many roads must a man walk down Before you call him a man? How many seas must a white dove sail Before she sleeps in the sand? Yes, and how many times must the cannonballs fly Before they’re forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind The answer is blowin’ in the wind
Photo by Ms. Jo Villafuerte, Atok, Benguet, 01 September 2019.
Thousands of years
before Bob Dylan came,
there was Qoheleth
telling us,
"Vanity of vanities...
All things are vanity!"
Like the wind,
"Blowing now toward
the south, then toward
the north, the wind turns
again and again,
resuming its rounds"
(Ecclesiastes 1:2, 6).
We simply had to feel what everyone is feeling to be kind, a "kin" to everyone but we are so vain thinking only of our very selves that we can't feel the blowin' of the wind to see you in everyone.
Yes, and how many years must a mountain exist Before it is washed to the sea? Yes, and how many years can some people exist Before they’re allowed to be free? Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head And pretend that he just doesn’t see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind The answer is blowin’ in the wind
Photo by author, Mt. St. Paul Spiritual Center, La Trinidad, Benguet, 07 January 2025.
Two thousand years ago
your Son our Savior
Jesus came to reveal
you to us, Father,
suffering, dying and rising
from the dead but still,
many refused to recognize him,
preferring to be like Herod Antipas
who ordered John the Baptist killed
but when he heard about the Christ,
"And he kept trying to see him"
(Luke 9:9) when he eventually met
and spoke with briefly but never "saw"
at all.
And that is vanity,
O Lord:
when we keep on searching,
wanting to see someone,
something so obviously present
among; open our eyes,
our hearts,
let us not be vain
in order to see what is obvious
we are so oblivious
in finding you on the face
of everyone we meet
no matter what his/her color
and belief and background in life.
Open our very selves to find
you Lord on everyone's face,
to hear the cries and pleas
of those suffering and
disadvantaged, the weakest
like the sick and dying,
the youngest and oldest.
Amen.
Yes, and how many times must a man look up Before he can see the sky? Yes, and how many ears must one man have Before he can hear people cry? Yes, and how many deaths will it take ’til he knows That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind The answer is blowin’ in the wind
Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Wednesday, Twenty-Fifth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II Feast of St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, 23 September 2026 Proverbs 30:5-9 <*((((>< + ><))))*> Luke 9:1-6
Your words today, dear God our Father are so comforting and reassuring of your loving presence; however, you teach us also too to completely trust you so that we may be comforted and reassured, thereby learn when enough is really enough.
Two things I ask of you, deny them not to me before I die: Put falsehood and lying far from me, give me neither poverty nor riches; provide me only with the food I need; lest, being full, I deny you, saying, “Who is the Lord?” Or, being in want, I steal, and profane the name of my God (Proverbs 30:7-9).
Teach me to be content with whatever there is for me, not desiring more than I need so that I remain open for you and your work, for you O Lord is more than enough; teach me to learn to stop in pursuing whatever I set my eyes or heart on when it is causing more harm than joy and wellness for it is only in following you enough is enough; teach me, Lord, to be like St. Padre Pio in leading a simple life, just praying, hoping and not worrying for you O Lord is more than enough. Amen.
