The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music by Fr. Nick F. Lalog II, 04 April 2021
“The Three Marys” by Henry Ossawa Tanner, from womeninthebible.net.
Blessed happy Easter to everyone!
This is perhaps the only year when it is so difficult to greet others with “Happy Easter” due to this ongoing lockdown following the worsening surge in COVID-19 infections with hospitals now beyond capacity.
But, that is the mystery of Easter: it is an event that truly happened in our history but something more than the usual thing like in Christmas when God became a child like us. At Easter, God broke through all human limitations to enter a new realm, a vast expanse of unknown realities beyond our imaginations, beyond our most dreaded thing in this life we call “death” (https://lordmychef.com/2021/04/04/breaking-into-new-realities/).
Like Mary Magdalene and the rest of the apostles except for John the Beloved, there are times we see nothing at all and say things we hardly think or process because everything seemed to have been lost when suddenly from within we realize life bursting forth, new hope, new beginnings!
And that is Easter!
Like this great song composed by Sting with his former group The Police, Every Breath You Take from their penultimate album Synchronicity released in 1983.
Sting was surprised with the great reception by people worldwide to this song that became their most recognized piece, spending so many weeks in almost every music chart around the globe. It is a song filled with negativities, according to Sting who wrote it in 1982 while on a retreat at Jamaica in the Caribbean following his separation from Frances Tomelty when he got involved romantically with her best friend and neighbor, Trudie Styler. The affair was so controversial, even condemned by many. Complicating things was the brewing rift among them in The Police.
But, that’s how Easter is: death becoming gateway to new life!
Imagine Jesus Christ now singing this to us in the midst of the pandemic, assuring us in every breath we take, he is not only watching us but in fact, with us!
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Easter Sunday of the Lord's Resurrection, 04 April 2021
Acts 10:34, 37-43 + 1Corinthians 5:6-8 + John 20:1-9
Photo by author, Paschal Candles outside the Lord’s tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, 2017.
Clear out the old yeast,so that you may become a fresh batch of dough, inasmuch as you are an unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebrate the feast, not with old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1 Corinthians 5:7-8)
A blessed, happy Easter to everyone in this most unholy time of the COVID-19 pandemic! I know, many of us are at a loss at how can we truly celebrate and experience Easter of the Lord’s Resurrection from the dead when those among us are dying or have actually died in this recent deadly surge of corona virus infections.
Unlike Christmas which we could easily identify with the signs and symbols of birth and babies plus the cool climate of December, Easter has always been a problematique especially among us Filipinos now in the heat of the dry season. Making matter worse this year is the pandemic and its ECQ.
Christmas is always delightful. We are always drawn and attracted to the idea and reality that God became a child, making so many things great for us humans.
But, unlike Easter which is so different in the sense that here, God did not enter a familiar stage and state in our human life and existence. On the contrary – which is also its biggest plus factor and enigma – God broke through all human limitations to enter a new realm, a vast expanse of unknown realities that are beyond the most dreaded thing of all which is death!
That is why Easter to much extent is difficult to celebrate because it is hard to comprehend and explain or grasp with our limited reasons and yet, at the same time, it is so real, so true as something we have experienced deep within us!
More than those egg hunts and bunnies now gone – hopefully forever – due to the pandemic, Easter 2021 calls us for a deep, inner renewal of our selves. As we have been saying since Palm Sunday, this may be the holiest Holy Week of our lives in the most unholy time in history as it gives us many opportunities to pray and reflect this great mystery of Jesus risen from the dead.
If we truly wish to find the Risen Lord in our lives in this unholiest time of the pandemic with deaths and sufferings surrounding us, we need to go inside our selves as St. Paul tells us in the second reading, to commit ourselves anew to Christ in the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist where we share his Body under the sign of bread.
Recall how last Thursday we were reminded how Jesus perfected and fulfilled the Jewish Passover with his very Body given to us on Good Friday. This Easter after having risen from the dead, Jesus our Bread of Life calls us to discard the old bread that is corrupted and spoiled; Christ has given us himself as our new yeast, new leaven penetrating the dough to make rise in us a fresh and wonderful bread even in the midst of this pandemic!
We have to discard the old leaven – our old selves and way of life in sin – to break new realities in Jesus and through Jesus. Easter is a passing over, a pasch when like Jesus Christ, we dare to cross and pass over life’s challenges and risks to achieve not only we are wishing for but sometimes, we have never even imagined – like the Lord’s rising from the dead!
“The Three Marys” by Henry Ossawa Tanner, from womeninthebible.net.
On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, "They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don't know where they put him." (John 20:1-2)
A few days before Ash Wednesday in February, we moved into our new assignments just in time for the start of the Lenten Season or 40-day preparation for this great feast of Easter. I have been assigned as chaplain to Our Lady of Fatima University and the Fatima University and Medical Center in Valenzuela plus its five other branches at Quezon City, Antipolo City, San Fernando City, Cabanatuan City and Sta. Rosa, Laguna.
I have been conducting my ministry basically “on-line” like Masses and talks and recollections.
And lately, praying over our sick and dying patients especially this past week with the surge of COVID-19 cases.
Due to the situation at the hospital and in compliance with the health protocols, we have devised a plan where the nurse on duty would text me for those requesting prayers for the sick with details of the patient and telephone number of the guardian. I would then call the guardian to ask him/her to bring the phone near the patient’s ear so I can pray aloud, and most of all, give the much needed absolution and commendation of the dying. Each nurse station is provided with a bottle of Holy Water for the guardian to sprinkle the patient at my signal.
After that, I pray over the guardian and bless him/her.
So far, for the past month since we have been doing this, nobody had called me what have happened to their patients, if they survived or not. I have stopped following up on them because usually, when I asked the guardian how was their patient, they would always tell me “buhay pa po siya” (he/she still alive), as if I were waiting for their death.
However, there were times some of the guardians have called me back to express their gratitude, telling me how they were relieved knowing their loved ones have been prayed for by a priest.
Last Holy Thursday at the height of so many COVID cases, I prayed over two patients successively.
That was very amazing and inspiring for me. They were “little moments of Easter” as people experienced deaths so close to home these days, even in the most surreal way, still believing, still hoping. We too have felt it one way or the other with requests for help and prayers by relatives and friends with patients sick with COVID and with other ailments lately when we felt so helpless, with nothing else to do and contribute except pray and worry.
That is the grace of Easter so abounding in this pandemic. Let us hope that with ongoing inner renewal among us of hoping against hope that love after all conquers death. Always and certainly as we have seen lately.
Like Mary, there are times we see nothing at all and say things we hardly think or process.
We feel at a loss, almost about to give up yet a tiny sparkle of faith and hope keeps us running to others for help whom we think could do something, maybe used by God to change or remedy our “lost” cause or situation.
That is where the grace of Easter is found every day: something very true and real within us keeps us believing in life and meaning, in God through Jesus Christ when all is gone and even lost.
Why still go to the tomb at all like Mary? If Jesus were already dead, what is the use of going to anoint him with oil and perfumes? Was Mary feeling something even so little, so tiny like hope against hope that Jesus could still be alive?
It was beyond her that she was terrified and ran to Peter upon seeing the empty tomb! She had felt that what was deep inside her was true after all, that there is a greater life beyond this that exists – exactly like what we believed – that there is Resurrection of the dead in Jesus Christ because he himself we can feel deep inside us!
Like Peter on that Pentecost Sunday, we may not go on a discourse explaining what had happened because we have not witnessed the Resurrection like him but we speak out, we believe because we experienced life bursting forth amidst deaths and losses. Like Peter, we have witnessed so many other things, little moments of Easter that showed us signs of God’s abiding presence and love.
Like the light of the new day piercing through the darkness, there is the Risen Jesus touching us, assuring us, loving us and telling us that Easter is not an ending in itself for it continues now and shall continue until the end when Christ comes again to definitively put an end to death when we live eternally with him in the Father in heaven. Amen.
Blessed happy easter!
Photo by author, Mirador Center of Spirituality, Baguio City, January 2019.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for Holy Saturday, 03 April 2021
Photo by author, sunrise at the Dead Sea, the Holy Land, 2019.
Help us to be silent today, O God our Father as we remember your Son Jesus Christ’s Great Silence – Magnum Silentium – when he was “crucified, died and was buried; he descended to the dead and on the third day he rose again.”
On this Holy Saturday, your whole creation comes to full circle. In the beginning, after completing your work of creation, you rested on the seventh day and made it holy (Gen.2:3). On the seventh day after completing his mission here on earth, Jesus Christ was laid to rest.
Silence and rest always go together.
To be silent is not merely being quiet but listening more to your voice coming from the depths of our being; hence, it is not emptiness but fullness with you, dear God. It is in silence where we truly discover our selves and others too.
On the other hand, to rest is not merely to stop work nor stop from being busy. We rest to reconnect with you to be filled with your Holy Spirit. You do not actually rest, O God, because you never get tired; it is us who need to rest so we may continue your work of creation and, now of redemption and renewal by Jesus Christ.
When we rest, we return to Eden, like the garden where Jesus was buried: “Now in the place where he had been crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been buried. So they laid Jesus there because of the Jewish preparation day; for the tomb was close by”(Jn. 19:41-42).
How beautiful is that image, O dear Father, of your rest and silence in Eden and of Jesus laid to rest at a tomb in a garden: to rest in silence is therefore when we stop playing God as we return to you as your image and likeness again!
Maybe that is why many of us these days are afraid of silence because it is the realm of trust and of truth. We have always been afraid to trust you and be truthful to you and ourselves that have caused the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ.
Teach us to be like those women who rested on the sabbath when Jesus was laid to rest. That like them, we may trust you more by being true to ourselves even in the midst of a raging second wave of COVID-19 this Holy Saturday.
May your silence and rest reassure us that we shall rise with you again. Amen.
The women who had come from Galilee with him followed behind, and when they had seen the tomb and the way in which his body was laid in it, they returned and prepared spices and perfumed oils. Then they rested on the sabbath according to the commandment.
The Lord Is My Chef Good Friday Recipe by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 02 April 2021
Isaiah 52:13-53:12 + Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9 + John 18:1-19:42
Photo by Marc Angelo Nicolas, January 2020.
"Biyernes Santong Biyernes Santo."
(A popular expression among us Filipinos.)
Perhaps, today we can truly feel the meaning and gravity of our favorite expression when somebody looks so sad and gloomy, when somebody seems to have been totally lost: “Biyernes Santong Biyernes Santo”.
That is how we are today – stuck in our homes, others in hospitals while others almost about to give up as this new wave of COVID-19 gets stronger with about 15000 infections today!
As I have been saying since Palm Sunday, this could be our holiest Holy Week in our lives in this most unholy time of our history when we are given the opportunity to be holy, to be good and kind, to be forgiving and caring with others. Side by side every post in Facebook we find prayer requests for sick family and friends, help for those trying to find a hospital that would admit their sick, or buy much needed medicines and equipment like oxygen.
For the second straight year, churches are empty and everyone is home due to COVID-19 pandemic. Perfect example of “Biyernes Santong Biyernes Santo”… so bad… so negative.
That is often how we think of Good Friday – so negative in the sense it is so sad and gloomy, so painful and too difficult.
Ultimately, Good Friday is so negative for us because it means death. Even of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Nothing would be more sad than that.
Photo by author, Chapel of the Holy Family, Sacred Heart Spirituality Center, Novaliches, QC, 2015.
Lately due to this COVID-19 pandemic we have been living inversely or “baligtad” as we say.
We would always pray at every swab test for the virus that we be “negative”.
Never has been thinking negative has become so positive, so good, in fact!
And it all began more than 2000 years ago at the calvary when Jesus offered himself for us on the cross.
That is why Good Friday is called “Good”: the cross of Jesus Christ is a sign not of death but of the good news or gospel of life, hope, and eternal life. The cross of Jesus Christ is not a negative sign (-) but a positive sign, a plus sign (+).
We celebrate in the most solemn and unique way because the cross is no longer a sign of condemnation but honor. Before, it was a symbol of death but now a means of salvation. The cross of Christ has been the source of countless blessings for us, illuminating our path with light when our lives are so dark with sins and mistakes, sickness and disappointments. Most of all, the cross of Christ has brought us closer to God again and with one another despite our sins and past, promising us a bright a joyful Easter.
Yes, for some the cross of Christ is so negative: why display the body of the Lord everywhere in our churches and homes, bloodied and defeated, lifeless and dead?
See, my servant shall prosper, he shall be raised high and greatly exalted. Even as many were amazed at him – so marred was his look beyond human semblance and his appearance beyond that of the sons of man – so shall he startle many nations, because of him kings shall stand speechless; for those who have not been told shall see, those who have not heard shall ponder it.
Isaiah 52:13-15
Many times in life, and we have proven this, God uses of many of “negative” experiences lead us to more positive outcome and results.
Yes, we may be Biyernes Santong Biyernes Santo in sadness and fear, even anxieties.
But, we continue to pray and forge on with life’s trials and difficulties because we see the cross of Jesus Christ leading us to the light and life, joy and celebration of his Resurrection at Easter.
A very good Good Friday to you. Amen.
Photo by author, Chapel of the Holy Family, Sacred Heart Spirituality Center, Novaliches, QC, 2015.
Lawiswis ng Salita ni P. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Biyernes Santo, Ika-02 ng Abril 2021
Larawan mula sa wikipediacommons.org ng “Ecce Homo” ni El Greco.
Kung mayroon mang higit na malungkot
ngayong Biyernes Santo
habang tayo ay muling binalot
saka pinalaot sa gitna ng bulok
at kawalang sistema sa pandemya
noon pa, iyan ay tiyak walang dili iba
kungdi si Hesus na ating Panginoon
at Manunubos; marahil hindi Niya maubos
isipin sa gitna ng masasamang nangyayari sa atin
mas binibigyang pansin ng maraming hangal
sa ating pamahalaan mga bagay-bagay
kay daling isipin habang mga paksa
nagiging usapin dahil sa pagsisinungaling!
Ngayong Biyernes Santo
araw ng pag-aayuno
upang ating mapagtanto
Panginoong Hesus ay naririto
sa ating pagtitiis ng kagutuman
nalilinis ang puso at kalooban
nawawalan ng laman
upang tayo ay mapunan
ng Diyos ng kanyang kabanalan;
kay laking kahibangan
lalo ng mga nasa kapangyarihan
kalimutan at talikuran tuluyan
mga payak at aba, lugaw ang kumakatawan!
Pinakamalungkot pa rin
ngayong Biyernes Santo
ang Panginoong Hesu-Kristo
dahil katulad niya noon
patuloy pangungutya sa kapwa
lahat hinahamak at minamaliit
gayong kanilang mga isipan
ang walang laman, sadyang
mapupurol at makikitid
na hindi nababatid
ang tao na higit na dakila
hindi masalita, nakikilala sa
busilak ng kanilang puso at diwa.
Huwag nating kalimutan
bago sumapit ang Biyernes Santo
noong gabing ipagkanulo si Kristo
pinili niyang walang hanggang tanda
ng kanyang kapanatilihan sa atin
tinapay na walang lebadura
na alalaong-baga sa atin dito sa Asya
kapantay ay lugaw na siyang inihahain
sa mga panahong alanganin
ito ang kinakain upang maging sapin
sa tiyan na dumaraing sa maraming hinaing
di lamang sa gutom kungdi pati
kawalan ng mga pumapansin.
Alalahanin tuwing ikaw ay kumakain
nitong paborito nating pagkain
lugaw marahil ang hihilingin
ni Hesus na Panginoong natin;
napakadaling pakisamahan
lasap kanyang linamnam
hindi maselang lutuin
walang ulam na aalalahanin
ano man maaring isahog at i-pares
sarap at ginhawang walang kaparis
kaya nakakainis mga nagmamalinis
sana'y umalis na
dahil sila ang mga panis!
Salamat sa mga taong simple at payak, maasahan kailanman tulad ng lugaw: mahalaga at mainam sa katawan!
The Lord Is My Chef Easter Triduum Recipe by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Maundy Thursday, 01 April 2021
Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14 ><)))*> 1Corinthians 11:23-26 ><)))*> John 13:1-25
"A journey of a thousand miles
begins with a single step."
- Lao Tzu
We often hear and use this wise saying that is also most applicable to our celebration of the Holy Triduum of the Lord’s Passion, Death and Resurrection also known as the “Sacred Paschal Triduum”.
From the Hebrew word pesach, a pasch is a passing over. It is a journey which is a long trip taken over long period of time to different places. A journey does not necessarily involve physical distance as it can be something within one’s self like an inner journey to God dwelling within us. Hence, a journey is also a process that leads us to growth and maturity from the many difficulties and trials we experience as we travel, entailing a lot of sacrifices from us.
And whatever journey we take outside or within our selves, we always need a companion to travel with. From the Latin words cum panis that literally mean “someone you break bread with”, a companion is someone who helps us in our journey, a friend who shares life with us, guiding us, protecting us. Like the bread we break and share, a companion sustains and nourishes us in our journey.
Let us keep these three words of journey, companion, and bread in reflecting our celebration tonight of the Lord’s Supper that begins the Sacred Triduum.
We are all pilgrims on a journey to heaven
More than 40 days ago on Ash Wednesday, we said Lent is a daily journey to Easter where we find our very selves, others, and God who is our ultimate origin and end. It is a journey that reaches its summit in the Holy Eucharist where we make present the pasch or passover of Jesus Christ
Every Mass is a journey into heaven, a dress rehearsal of our entrance into heaven when we have a foretaste of eternal life we all hope for until Christ comes again. It is the Passover of the New Testament, a perfection of the Jewish Passover when God’s chosen people led by Moses went into exodus from Egypt into the Promised Land.
This “heavenly” journey had its ancient roots among nomadic Semites who used to celebrate a feast on the first full moon of spring as they prepared to lead their flocks to summer pastures. They ate a roasted lamb from the flock with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. It was an important event of migration filled with many dangers for those nomads who marked their tent-pegs with the blood of the lamb to keep their journey safe.
Eventually this found place in the Jewish Passover which we heard in our first reading when God told his chosen people to begin their journey of exodus from Egypt “on the tenth of their first month” that happens on the second full moon of the spring equinox.
Notice that it happens at night that is coincidentally the usual start of every journey we usually make!
Before their Exodus, each family was told to roast an unblemished lamb to be eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs “with your loins girt, sandals on your feet and your staff in hand, you shall eat like those who are in flight. It is the passover of the Lord” (Ex.12:11). It has to be done in a hurry, as in a flight, a journey.
And to keep them safe in their journey, God instructed them to paint their door posts with the blood of the slaughtered lamb so that when his angel comes at night to strike death of every first born male child and animal, their homes would be “passed over” and be saved from death that night.
We are all travelers and journeyers on earth;
our true home is in heaven with God our Father. We are merely "passing over" this planet temporarily.
Photo by author, Egypt, 2019.
Jesus our companion and family in the journey
The Jewish Passover or Exodus became the actual event of God’s covenant with Israel as his people on a journey to their Promised Land. Unfortunately, they would break this covenant with God so many times that it would take them 40 years of wandering in the desert before finally got into the Promised Land.
And their stubbornness continued when they would always turn away from God with sins that led to the division of their nation until its conquest by foreign powers that led them anew into another exile. God would restore them as a nation but, again, they would turn away from him until the Romans ruled over them when Jesus came to perfect God’s covenant.
In perfecting and fulfilling the Jewish Passover, Jesus became the new and everlasting Lamb, perfect without any blemish, offering himself to God for the forgiveness of our sins and our liberation from all forms of evil especially sickness and death. It is no longer the blood of the lamb that we now offer but Jesus Christ’s Body and Blood which he established in the Sacrament of the Eucharist “on the night before he was betrayed” on Holy Thursday.
By celebrating the Lord’s Supper that Thursday evening with his disciples who represented all peoples of all time, Jesus established for us the everlasting memorial of his loving presence as our companion and our very Bread and Wine in the journey back to the Father always filled with darkness and sufferings.
What he did that Thursday evening foreshadowed what he would do on Good Friday when he did his greatest act of love for us by dying on the Cross at about 3PM, the same time when the lambs were being slaughtered in the temple for the coming passover feast.
Brothers and sisters: I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. ?Do this in remembrance of me.”
1 Corinthians 11:23-25
Here we find again the darkness of the night as the beginning of our journey back to God perfected by Jesus Christ as our companion and very bread of life to sustain and nourish us.
What is most beautiful meaning we can find here is the importance of communion, of oneness as a community, as a family.
In the Old Testament, God instructed his people to take the passover meal together as a family; at the Lord’s supper, Jesus celebrated it with his “friends”, the Twelve Apostles. Even Judas Iscariot was present at the start but had to leave in the “darkness of the night” when he broke off from the unity of Jesus.
Perhaps, one reason why we are again together this Holy Thursday not in churches but in our homes, with our family so we may be one again in Jesus Christ in prayers and celebrating Mass on-line.
Therefore, do not be a Judas Iscariot! Go back to your family, to your loved ones – your most faithful and truest companions in this journey of life. You’ll never get to heaven, as Dionne Warwick sang, if you break somebody’s heart, when you refuse to love by turning your back from those who love you.
Holy Thursday reminds us in the Eucharist that no one is saved alone. Every journey becomes wonderfulwhen done in the context of a community, with true companions beginning in our very family.
Photo from wikipediacommons.org of Christ’s washing of feet of Apostles at Montreale Cathedral in Palermo, Italy
The commandment of love
Completing the picture of our celebration tonight with the key concepts of journey, companion and bread is LOVE, the very essence of everything in this life, the reason why we are in a journey in the first place since the Exodus up to this time.
At the very core of every companionship, of every community is LOVE.
To become bread for someone in a journey is to become LOVE.
Jesus Christ as the bread broken, as the cup of wine shared is essentially LOVE.
Love can never be defined but merely described.
And on the night before he was betrayed, Jesus described to us in his actions a very beautiful expression of his love we all must imitate:
So, during supper, fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God, he rose from supper and took off his outer garments. He took a towel and tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and dry them with the towel around his waist.
John 13:3-5
When Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, he showed us one beautiful aspect of LOVE which is tenderness.
Yes, I have been speaking about tenderness lately as something we badly need these days of the pandemic. Tenderness is an expression of love when we realize amid our own suffering the sufferings of others too. To be tender and loving amidst many sufferings is to offer rest to fellow journeyers like what Jesus did on that Holy Thursday evening.
Again, we find here something prevalent during that time which is the concept of “restaurants” where travelers used to stop during their journey not only to eat but to rest that meant soaking their feet on a basin of water. It was therapeutic that gave travelers enough strength to travel far again.
Remember there were no other modes of transportation at that time and not everybody could afford an animal to ride on. Any hiker and mountaineer can attest that after so much trekking, one thing you would always hope for is a stream or tiny brook with cool, crisp, running water to dip your feet and rest!
Photo by Mr. Raffy Tima of GMA-7 News, April 2020.
Everybody is tired of this journey in the pandemic, almost exhausted.
What a shame especially when local officials like that one who refused food delivery because she considered the lowly lugaw as non essential. Lest we forget, Jesus chose one of the most lowly food, the unleavened bread, as the sign of his loving presence among us until the end of time when he comes again.
Indeed, this could be the holiest Holy Week of our lives in this most unholy time of history as it gives us great opportunities to love.
Just be tender with those around you!
Never get tired of loving, of understanding, of caring as everyone is already tired with this journey of ours in the pandemic that seems to be still far from over.
“Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master’, and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”
John 13:12-15
One of the most moving images of the pandemic for me lately is the one taken by our parishioner on the first day of the ECQ last March 22 when our Parochial Vicar, Fr. Howard John celebrated Mass without a congregation. He said, “the table of the Lord is full, but the pews are empty.”
And that is what we will continue to do in this pandemic. Even without the people, we shall continue to journey in Christ by still celebrating the Mass to give us all nourishment and sustenance and rest in this prolonged journey in the pandemic.
May we never get tired walking in love as a companion and bread to one another in Christ and like Christ by giving rest to others already tired and about to give up. Let us all be together in welcoming Easter! Amen.
El anda que en amor ni cansa ni se cansa.
(The soul that walks in love neither tires others nor grows tired.)
Saint John of the Cross
Photo by Ms. Kysia Cruz, National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, Valenzuela City.
40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Holy Wednesday, a.k.a. "Spy Wedneday", 31 March 2021
Isaiah 50:4-9 ><}}}*> Matthew 26:14-25
Photo by Mr. Jim Marpa, 2019.
The Lord God has given me a well-trained tongue,
that I might know how to speak to the weary
a word that will rouse them.
Morning after morning he opens my ear that I may hear;
and I have not rebelled, have not turned back.
(Isaiah 50:4-5)
God our loving Father in heaven, it is now the eve of the Sacred Paschal Triduum called “Spy Wednesday” or “night of traitors” when Judas Iscariot went to the chief priests and offered to “hand Jesus over” to them for thirty pieces of silver.
Bless us, dear Father, to be holy like you by being true to you in Jesus Christ.
Give us the grace to be like your “Suffering Servant” in the first reading to remain true to you by not turning our backs from you.
Let us not rebel against you especially when we insist on our own agenda and plans in life.
So many times in life we are like Judas, and even Peter, when we betray Jesus especially after breaking bread with him in the Holy Mass, when we malign people around us, spread lies about them so we may look good; when we deny knowing you or standing for family and friends because we are afraid for our safety; and, so many times we have been remiss in our responsibilities and obligations at home, in the office, in the school and in the community like the church.
Teach us to be true and holy not only to you but most especially to one another.
May we be like the tall tree that is an image of being true: firm and reliable, dependable, trustworthy, and most of all, deeply rooted in you through people we love and care and serve. Amen.
40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Holy Tuesday, 30 March 2021
Isaiah 49:1-6 ><}}}*> John 13:21-33, 36-38
Photo by author, December 2020
Though I thought I had toiled in vain,
and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength,
yet my reward is with the Lord,
my recompense is with my God.
(Isaiah 49:4)
So many times, dear Father in heaven, I feel like your “Suffering Servant” feeling that nothing is happening with all my efforts, with things I persevere, as if they are all useless until I realize what matters most is my being faithful to you.
Thank you for the sign of the Cross of Jesus Christ your Son, our Lord and Master: when things become so difficult and frustrating for me, I just look at him there on the cross, “dead” like me who had failed in your mission.
But as I contemplate his Cross, I remember how before all my sadness and sufferings, Jesus was there first for me to be good with others, to be kind, to be understanding, to be merciful and forgiving, to be patient, and most of all, first to be holy in being faithful to you and your call, Father.
Remind me the words of St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta that we are called to be faithful, not successful.
Let me focus more on you, Lord, instead of wondering how I have been doing, how good I have been.
Let me stop competing with others, asking who is not faithful to you, who is going to betray you like Peter during the last supper when he told the beloved disciple to clarify it with Jesus:
He leaned back against Jesus' chest
and said to him,
"Master, who is it?"
(John 13:25)
How lovely is the context of that question when what we must contemplate with is whether we have been faithful to Jesus in his Holy Eucharist.
How sad, O dear Father, that we are most unfaithful to you when we betray you right in the Eucharist – when do not listen to your words and message to us, when we do not live and practice the essence of thanksgiving to you by being faithful in witnessing Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross in our daily lives. Amen.
40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Holy Monday, 29 March 2021
Isaiah 42:1-7 ><}}}*> John 12:1-11
Photo by author, December 2020.
Here is my servant whom I uphold,
my chosen one with whom I am well pleased,
upon whom I have put my spirit;
he shall bring forth justice to the nations,
not crying out,
not shouting,
not making his voice heard in the street.
A bruised reed he shall not break,
and a smoldering wick he shall not quench.
(Isaiah 42:1-3)
On this Holy Monday of our holiest week, we pray to you, O God, for gentleness for us to be holy like your “Suffering Servant” according to Prophet Isaiah and fulfilled in your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
In this world saturated in a cacophony of many voices and noises competing to be heard in the various social media platforms, teach us to be gentle, to never view ourselves better than someone else when we would rather be silent to listen more, “not crying out, not shouting, not making our voices heard in the street.”
In this world where “size always matters” while power is always expressed in force and violence, teach us to be gentle with them who are actually weak and soft inside, even broken like the reed or a smoldering wick.
Teach us holiness in gentleness through Jesus Christ who showed us the path to real power is in weakness, that instead of asserting superiority, we would rather help others to assert their innate goodness especially when the weak come forward to express their gentleness too like Mary who poured oil and perfume on his feet.
Give us the grace to dwell today on his words, “Leave her alone. Let her keep this for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me” (Jn.12:7-8).
O how foolish we can be, dear Father, to miss this essential truth that we can only love the poor in you and through Jesus your Son. Take away that attitude of Judas Iscariot among us of “thinking the poor” yet always feeling superior to them, even to Jesus our Lord!
Make us gentle in our thoughts and in our words, most especially in our actions so that everyone may feel your gentle mercy and compassion in Christ. Amen.
40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, 28 March 2021
Photo by Ms. Kysia Cruz, 28 March 2021.
Dearest Lord Jesus Christ:
Today we started the most holy week
of the year celebrating Palm Sunday
listening to your Passion story proclaimed;
but, today was so different
when people were gone
and all we have were palms
and more other fronds.
Photo by Ms. Kysia Cruz, 28 March 2021.
It pained my heart, dear Jesus
when all the people and familiar faces
I see every Sunday morning
were all praying and standing
outside, hoping they could come in
while we are under strict quarantine
as between our glancing, my heart was shrinking
so I raised my hands, and began praying on them.
Photo by Ms. Kysia Cruz, 28 March 2021.
Lord, I cannot understand nor see clearly
things happening except hear people silently crying;
all I know is that you are passing
still on a donkey riding
a king not domineering but serving;
open our eyes of faith to see your indwelling
so we may learn self-emptying
thus, becoming like you, an offering.
Photo by Ms. Kysia Cruz, 28 March 2021.
As we begin this Holy Week journey
in the most unholy time of our history
let us not miss this opportunity
to be filled by you in our being empty
joining you to the calvary
with the cross that we carry
to rest and trust in your palms fully
serving you in others lovingly and faithfully.
