“I Don’t Know How to Love Him” (1971) by Yvonne Elliman

Lord My Chef Sunday Music by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 06 April 2025

This is the second time we have featured Ms. Yvonne Elliman’s I Don’t Know How to Love Him in our Sunday Music at this time of the year when the Sunday gospel is about the woman caught committing adultery.

Every time that story comes up, my mind automatically links it with this song sang by Ms. Elliman in both the Broadway and movie versions of the rock-opera Jesus Christ, Superstar where she played the role as Mary Magdalene who was believed for a long time as the woman caught committing adultery. Modern biblical scholarships have long debunked that belief but that song by Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice plus Elliman’s amazing interpretation has given us with so many perspectives about the gospel itself.

One thing we realized this year is how we – like the woman caught committing adultery meet Jesus Christ face-to-face to experience his immense love and mercy and forgiveness.

We encounter Jesus when we disarm ourselves of our false securities and pretenses, masks and camouflages that all cover our sins. It is when we come face-to-face with our sinful self when we eventually meet Jesus face-to-face too because that is when we surrender in silence like the woman caught in adultery and the mob to some degree because all the charges against us are true.

See also that it is only the fourth gospel that Jesus is portrayed “bending” low – first here before the woman caught committing adultery and secondly at the washing of the feet of his Apostles at their Last Supper. How lovely is that sight to behold, dear friends! Imagine God bending before us, giving us like the sinful woman and the mob that space for us to confront our true self, to realize and accept the whole realities we are all interconnected in love.

Only the woman remained – like the eleven Apostles at the Last Supper – because she was the only one willing to change, probably sorrowful and contrite for her sins. Contrary to our fears, Jesus has only love and mercy, kindness and forgiveness to anyone contrite and sorrowful of one’s sin that so unlike with the people’s wrath and anger, judgment and condemnation. St. Augustine perfectly described that moment in today’s gospel, Relicti sunt duo; misera et miserecordia (Two were left; misery and mercy). https://lordmychef.com/2025/04/05/lent-is-encountering-jesus/

Now, look at the first two stanzas of I Don’t Know How to Love Him:

I don't know how to love him
What to do, how to move him
I've been changed, yes really changed
In these past few days
When I've seen myself
I seem like someone else

I don't know how to take this
I don't see why he moves me
He's a man
He's just a man
And I've had so many
Men before
In very many ways
He's just one more

See the conversion and transformation of the woman caught in adultery expressed by Ms. Elliman in the song: I’ve been changed, yes really changed/ In these past few days/ When I’ve seen myself/ I seem like someone else. It is one of the great ironies in life: when we are most vulnerable and weakest, that is when we are also most truest to our self, that is when we truly grow and mature in life!

And this was all possible because of the gift of love and mercy of Jesus Christ, of encountering the Lord and Savior Himself in our own brokenness which the song and the singer captured so perfectly, He’s just a man/ And I’ve had so many men before/ In very many ways/ He’s just one more.

How amazing that the lyrics and the rendition blended perfectly, making us realize how Jesus is just like any other man but not just another additional man; Jesus is MORE than any one because He is the only who truly loves us most, offering us forgiveness once we strip ourselves naked before Him of all our sins and pride and pretensions. God’s love in Jesus Christ is beyond imagining. This we have seen in the parable of the prodigal son and now in the story of the woman caught committing adultery. Do not let your past sins prevent you from meeting Jesus face-to-face to finally experience that inner peace and joy you have been missing and searching for so long.

We are now in the final Sunday in Lent, next week is Palm Sunday, the start of the Holy Week. We can never experience the joy of Easter unless we join Christ’s Passion of emptying ourselves of sins and pride to be filled with His humility, justice and love.

Here is the lovely Ms. Elliman with her superb singing of I Don’t Know How to Love Him, hoping this helps you prepare in this final week of Lent.