The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Wednesday, Memorial of St. Lawrence, Deacon & Martyr, 10 August 2022 2 Corinthians 9:6-10 ><}}}*> + ><}}}*> + ><}}}*> John 12:24-26
God our loving Father, just this Monday I have prayed, telling you how I sometimes wished to find you in strange visions like your prophet Ezekiel; today, as we celebrate the Memorial of your great Saint, Lawrence, the gospel speaks so well of finding you when some Greeks approached Philip, asking him to help them see Jesus while in Jerusalem:
Jesus said to his disciples: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.”
John 12:24
Lord Jesus, so much have changed in this world in terms of freely worshipping you unlike during the early centuries of Christianity when your followers shed blood witnessing you; today, there are no more lions to devour us nor executioners to crucify or decapitate us or roast us on gridiron like St. Lawrence; but your call for martyrdom remains. Give us the courage to "let go and let God" in our lives which is to become fruitful like the grain of wheat to see you by allowing you dear Jesus to make us become everything you want us to be, that is, a bread produced by grains of wheat grounded and disintegrated to become food for others.
“Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.”
John 12:25
Help us realize, dear Jesus, that to see you means to think more of eternal life than of this present life that is passing; that we own nothing at all in this world, not even our very lives; like St. Lawrence who faithfully served the poor and disadvantaged the world refuses to recognize until now as your presence and "life" because "life" has always been seen in glitz and glamor revolving around one's self as the center of everything; help us realize that we cannot find meaning of life in ourselves, by being self-centered; it is in finding you in others, in valuing them too that we find life and its meaning!
“Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me.”
John 12:26
Finally, finding you dear Jesus and the Father is entering into your very person, getting into a communion that "it is no longer I who live but you, O Christ, lives in me" (Gal.2:20); let me welcome you, Jesus into myself, let me embrace you and your Cross, join you in your Passion and Death to be one in you more than ever in your Resurrection. Pray for us, most blessed St. Lawrence that like you, we may generously offer our lives to God and inspire others to experience and see Jesus Christ present in this world so blinded by vanities and fantasies. Amen.
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