Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Thursday in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time, Year II, 30 July 2026 Memorial of St. Peter Chrysologus, Bishop & Doctor of the Church Jeremiah 18:1-6 <*((((>< + ><))))*> Matthew 13:47-53
Help me deepen my relationship with you, God our loving Father by making me more sensitive to your touch, to your creative hands always forming me to a better self, a better person, a new creation in Jesus Christ daily; let me be still and pliant like the clay, O Lord, trusting you always.
Sometimes, your hands have to smash me, destroy me whenever like a clay I turn out badly; most of the time, those hands of yours Father exert the perfect pressure with the most delicate touch to keep perfecting me like a clay, transforming me into a beautiful work of art so unbelievable considering my origin of a simple lump of clay.
Oh, Lord, how easy it is like your disciples to answer you "Yes, we understand all these things" without really realizing the ongoing process of your hands shaping me like the clay.
One thing very clear with me, O God, is that whether I am smashed into a lump of clay anew or delicately turned into a beautiful pottery, these are both the works of your loving and creative hands; grant me the grace of patience to this tedious process of "trial and error" molding me like a clay pot; keep me "malleable" to the powers of your hands that sometimes are harsh, but often gentle and soft; and lastly, make my heart "pliable", to bend without breaking when the goings get so tough in bringing out the best in me for your greater glory. Amen.