Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 23 February 2025
Photo by author, Hidden Valley Springs Resort, Calauan, Laguna, 20 February 2025.
Jesus said to his disciples: “To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse, pray for those who mistreat you… But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:27-28, 35-36).
yes, i hear you Lord. love my enemies. i have tried and continue to strive at loving my enemies; but, who are my enemies?
yes, it is easier said than done, loving my enemies who are most easy to identify as those i hate and do not agree with, those who have hurt me, those who do not believe in me, those who simply differ with me both outside and inside.
as i rested in you, Jesus i have realized something deeper, and pernicious: my worst enemies are those within me like a sin i refuse to admit, a sin i continue to justify, a darkness i'm afraid to look into.
yes, Jesus! my worst enemy is actually myself when i deny your love and presence in me; let me look deep inside me where in my life is God asking me to love more like you, Jesus?
yes, it is terrifying, disturbing and difficult but it is only when i love more like you Jesus that i experience your love more and begin loving my enemies within!
Photo by author, Hidden Valley Springs Resort, Calauan, Laguna, 20 February 2025.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C, 23 February 2025 1 Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23 ><)))*> 1 Corinthians 15:45-49 ><)))*> Luke 6:27-38
Photo by author Santisima Trinidad Parish, Malolos City, 18 March 2023.
We continue this Sunday Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Plain with his teachings getting more disturbing, twice telling us to love our enemies. Yes, you heard it right…
Jesus said to his disciples: “To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse, pray for those who mistreat you… But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:27-28, 35-36).
See that after selecting Twelve from among his many disciples, Jesus will be asking more from his followers that includes us today. As we have reflected last Sunday with the four woes of Christ, there is no middle ground in being a Christian. We have to make a decision, to choose Jesus always.
This Sunday, Jesus shows us it is no simple choice we have to make because loving our enemies is easier said than done.
In this age of social media when everything is blown out of proportion with everyone dragged even into the quarrels and infidelities among celebrities, the more it is difficult to avoid making enemies with many of us easily taking sides in the petty issues that are trending.
It is the same thing with our way of loving these days with how easy it is to love people who love us too. Anyone can be so nice to people nice also to them as it comes naturally.
But real love is not really that natural.
True love as Jesus had shown us on the Cross is more than the natural flow of things. It is always supernatural, beyond the natural flow of emotions. Jesus is asking us that we go beyond what comes naturally especially with love because love is a decision, a fruit of the meeting of mind and of heart, a oneness within every person that is also a sure sign of one’s maturity, spirituality.
Loving our enemies, doing good on those who do bad against us is love of the highest order. It is not weakness but actually a strength for no weakling can muster the courage and clarity to be loving with one’s enemies.
Loving our enemies is knowing better than the rest on the repercussions, the intricacies and complexities of being adamant and insistent.
This is the beautiful example shown by David in the first reading: instead of delivering into his hands King Saul he had found sleeping unguarded inside a cave while pursuing him and his men, David spared his life out of respect for God who anointed Saul as King of Israel.
See also the practicality of Jesus in teaching us to love our enemies and those who do us bad: if you only love or care or be kind with those who love and care and are kind to us, then it is not real love and caring and kindness at all you are giving. Jesus pointed out that even criminals and bad people do it. If that is the case, then, we are no different from them if we love only those who love us!
Fatima University students spent a Sunday afternoon of prayers and fun with kids with cerebral palsy and their families, 09 February 2025.
True love, real love is never transactional, never a deal nor an agreement in this age of many marriages punctuated with pre-nuptials. True love is freely given without any reservations, no ifs nor buts. As St. Mother Teresa used to say, the true measure of love is to love without measure.
Love is something we fully give away, never kept. You never scrimp on love. It is always given in full. Scrimp on your love, you lose because the love you keep and withdraw is never kept nor save. In fact, a love not shared and given becomes stale. Or expired. Napapanis.
Like the things we love eating or using, love comes without any expiration date that says “best consumed before February 23, 2025.”
Love is best when freely given and shared. Once “opened” or given, no need to keep and refrigerate it. Consume it right away! Everything. No love is ever wasted. Walang sayang na pagmamahal, lahat may pinatutunguhan at binubungang mabuti.
Photo by author, Hidden Springs Resort, Calauan, Laguna, 20 February 2025.
Love is like a natural spring water, or the waterfalls that keep flowing, watering and refreshing countless tributaries, people, plants and animals. Just keep loving! Love, love, love!
At his Sermon on the Plain, Jesus clarifies that true love like his love is first of all not of natural level and flow but of supernatural nature, divine like him. Jesus emphasized this at his Last Supper, describing it as a “new commandment of love” because it is a love rooted in God not just in man.
The following Good Friday on the Cross, Jesus proved his love as true and real. Most of all, free.
We today experience that true love of Jesus even to this day because of his rising three days after his crucifixion at Easter. This is what Paul meant in the second reading that in Jesus Christ, we have become heavenly and spiritual. The love of Christ have made us like him, divine and heavenly. What a great honor we now have! For being so loved by God in Jesus Christ, we too must love truly and freely like him!
Photo from vaticannews.va.
Last month, I strongly reacted to a statement by Rappler’s Ms. Maria Ressa in her interview before a speech at the Vatican Jubilee of Journalists.
That night in my prayer, I felt God “disturbed” me for being so harsh and judgmental of a journalist presumably totally unaware of the meaning of “dogma” in the Church.
The following day, I got a message from the reporter who posted that story and naturally, did not like what I wrote. As days went on, I felt “disturbed” and “uneasy” with my calling her “heretic”. After three days, I edited my blog and removed the harsh word as I realized calling others with names or labels would not help at all in clarifying things especially about our faith.
Most of all, it is not the Christian way of loving others, of putting others down just to uphold our faith and beliefs. It is not love. And I felt so afraid Jesus might personally get down from his Cross to take away that harsh word I have written.
Next month, I will be turning 60 years old, a senior sixty-cent so excited with my discount card. As I reflected these days on the immense love of Jesus for me in these 60 years, 27 as his priest, I have been praying, where in my life is God asking me to love more like Christ?
Loving our enemies is not merely the people we hate, or those who have hurt us or different from us, not like us. Loving our enemies includes those darkness within us, those weaknesses we hide and cover, sins we refuse to admit or continue to justify. Many times our worst enemies are those within us, our very selves.
It is difficult. And terrifying. Loving our enemies is easier said than done. It is also disturbing but at the same time, so liberating because the more we love, the more we feel free for Christ and for others. Amen.Have a blessed, loving week ahead.
Sharing with you a video I have taken last Thursday at the Hidden Springs Resort in Laguna; the sight and scene of a waterfalls reminded me so much of God’s love that never runs out.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Friday, Sixth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I, 21 February 2025 Genesis 11:1-9 <'[[[[>< + ><]]]]'> Mark 8:34-9:1
What a blessed Friday, Lord Jesus! You are still with us, about to cross the week into another new set of seven days but, here you are again reminding us of our journey that's not to a party and all fun but to the Cross:
Jesus summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the Gospel will save it” (Mark 8:34-35).
As I prayed on this scene, Jesus, I could hear both the murmuring and deafening silence of people in the crowd especially when you spoke of denying, losing one's self and that dreaded Roman punishment, the cross! But, yes, Jesus, even deep down in me, I felt at a loss... OK na sana Lord ang lahat, bakit may paglimot pa ng sarili at pagpapasan ng krus?
Forgive me, Jesus for being so used to your words without really appreciating them, masticating them enough to extract their meaning and timeliness; many times, I have that attitude of the the Tower of Babel when all we want is to be on top, to be in control that is why you confused them with many languages at that time because we always forget you speak only one language in Jesus: the language of love by self-giving, by self-sacrifice, by being one in you in the Holy Spirit.
Take us to the streets, Jesus, to keep your words your language lived and spoken especially among the poor and suffering. Amen.
Photographer: Veejay Villafranca/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Thursday, Sixth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I, 20 February 2025 Genesis 9:1-13 <*{{{{>< + ><}}}}*> Mark 8:27-33
Jesus and his disciples set out for the villages of Caesarea Philippi. Along the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” They said in reply, “John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others one of the prophets.” And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter said to him in reply, “You are the Christ.” (Mark 8:27-29)
You are always on the move, Lord Jesus: you are always moving, crossing the lake, hiking in the mountains and most often, walking the streets.
What a lovely imagery of you, Jesus, always on the road with me following you, watching you, observing you, sometimes stopping because of being tired but you are always there waiting for me.
And now, what a lovely scene of you back on the road again but this time asking those closest to you - including me! - with that most personal question of all: "But who do you say that I am?"
Who are you for me, Jesus?
So many, actually. I may not be as eloquent like Peter, but no doubt about who are you for me, Jesus: my life, my meaning, my love, my hopes, my fullness.
But, very often along this road, on these streets we walk and cross, dear Jesus when that who are you for me is shaken, is tested, even doubted like Peter: how could you allow yourself and us your followers suffer and cry, and die?
He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days. He spoke this openly. Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him (Mark 8:31-32).
Let us think always as God does, Jesus, not as human beings do seeking fame and prestige, comfort and wealth, self and ego; let me walk closer with you Jesus on the streets, on whatever road you take upholding that covenant of God with Noah to uphold and respect human life by "accounting for human life" (Genesis 9:5); more than the colorful rainbows of the skies, may we always see in your outstretched arms on the Cross the true and new covenant of God with us sealed in your blood. Amen.
Photo by author, St. Scholastica Spirituality Center, Baguio City, August 2023.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Wednesday, Sixth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I, 19 February 2025 Genesis 8:6-13, 20-22 <*0000>< + ><0000*> Mark 8:22-26
I really wonder, dear God, how it felt to be inside Noah's Ark for 40 days? The feeling of restlessness, of anxiety and uncertainty of the future, so unsure of what was to come while at the same time filled with hope praying for the best.
How was the boat too? How did it look like? What was the smell inside, the feeling inside that big ark, the sounds from all the animals and everything within and outside?
We have been there many times, Father, in that big ark called life; we have passed through many floods, have waited many times for the waters to recede, for the sun to shine, for life to return to normal.
Through it all, you never left us, Lord; send us Noah who would stand with us inside the ark for 40 days and 40 nights, stay afloat, stay alive wherever direction you bring us.
Help us, dear Father to be patient even if we can't see right away the distant shore like that blind man healed by Jesus at Bethsaida; lead us, Father in this ark of life away from the idolatry of modern world, away from the trappings of easy and comfortable life, away from sin and evil to be closer to your mercy, to your "beth hesda" - to your house of mercy. Amen.
Photo by author, Cathedral of St. Catherine of Alexandria, Dumaguete City, November 2024.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Tuesday, Sixth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I, 18 February 2025
Genesis 6:5-8; 7:1-5, 10 <*000>< + ><000*> Mark 8:14-21
Photo by author, Nagsasa Cove, San Antonio, Zambales, October 2024.
When he became aware of this he said to them, “Why do you conclude that it is because you have no bread? Do you not understand or comprehend? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes and not see, ears and not hear? Do you still not understand?” (Mark 8:17-18, 20)
Yes, dear Jesus, I still do not understand; enlighten my mind and my heart, Jesus, to see your light, to find your face among the people I meet so I could understand more; I still do not understand so many things and people, Lord Jesus, because I have become numb and oblivious to your presence; worst, I have become so complacent with those around me without realizing their needs nor situation as I focus more on what I have and what I do not have.
Cleanse my heart and my mind, Jesus, like what the Father did to earth at the time of Noah; wash away my many presumptions and prejudices against others so I may understand more, stop concluding right away until I have seen more in order to love more like you. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Monday, Sixth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I, 17 February 2025 Genesis 4:1-15, 25 <*((((>< + ><))))*> Mark 8:11-13
Photo by author, DRT, Bulacan, November 2024.
How interesting are your words today, O God our loving Father, of how Cain like the Pharisees came to Abel to "discuss" about something as a pretext before killing him; the Pharisees went to Jesus to argue with him and asked him for a sign from heaven to test him.
How funny and insane, dear Father, how much time we spend just to discuss and argue things about you and your ways, asking for many signs just for us to believe you; how unfortunate, our quest for signs has often led us to sin, to more divisions and separations, more lies and more hate because we have too much self.
Forgive us, Father. Teach us to offer you a sacrifice of praise as the psalmist sings today by "doing well, holding up our heads" (Genesis 4:7) giving our best to listen to you, to seek you, and follow you. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C, 16 February 2025 Jeremiah 17:5-8 ><}}}}*> 1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20 ><}}}}* Luke 6:17, 20-26
After the call of his first disciples last Sunday, Jesus went on to preach in Galilee as great crowds followed him with some of them becoming his disciples too. From among these many disciples, Jesus chose twelve to be his Apostles after praying one night on a mountain (Lk. 6:12-16).
As they went down from the mountain, Jesus taught the Twelve along with his other disciples and crowd of people who have gathered to listen to him in what came to be known as his Sermon on the Plain.
Luke patterned his Sermon on the Plain on earlier account of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount that portrayed Jesus like the new Moses and moreover, the new Law himself. Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount has a smaller audience that was limited to just the Twelve while Luke’s Sermon on the Plain had a wider audience of not just the Apostles but also the other disciples and the crowd of people who have been following him.
But, more than their differences in their setting and audience, the two sermons differ greatly in the message itself. Both Luke and Matthew begin with four beatitudes, but Matthew concludes with additional beatitudes while Luke matched the four beatitudes with four woes that frankly speaking, are very disturbing.
“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way” (Luke 6:24-26).
Again, Luke is telling us something deeper about Jesus in his version of the Sermon on the Plain that actually echoes the Blessed Virgin Mary’s Magnificat found only in his gospel too.
Recall in the Magnificat how Mary spoke of God sending the rich “away empty” (Lk.1:53) as he blessed the poor and the hungry. And here now is Jesus Christ fulfilling those words of his Mother.
The gospels and the whole Bible itself teem with many pronouncements against the rich and those in similar good fortune in life. Is God against the rich, those happy and those of good reputation? What’s wrong with being rich or well-off, of having our fill of food and laughter, and being spoken well of by others?
Photo by author, November 2024.
Nothing really.
Jesus is not against anyone for he loves everyone as he preached extensively on the need to love one another as we love God. If Jesus preached only love, he would have not been crucified, and most definitely would have not made so much enemies. But, the kind of love Jesus preached was so radical that shook not only the ways of the old but also of modern time because it is a kind of love that pulls down the mighty and favors the poor and those suffering. His Sermon on the Plain rings louder than ever today as we have not seemed learned from the lessons of the past. And believe it or not, the four woes declared by Jesus in his Sermon on the Plain are actually expressions of his magnanimous love, contrary to what others claim.
The four woes that are antitheses of the four blessings are not actually maledictions as most interpretations have expressed. A malediction is like a curse, an expression of one’s desire for someone’s harm like in calling down God’s wrath. The four woes of Jesus in his Sermon on the Plain is far from that reality nor a condemnation against anyone.
Photo by author, Church of the Beatitudes, the Holy Land, May 2017.
In calling the rich “woeful” along with those who are filled and those who laugh “now” as well as those of whom “all speak well”, Jesus is neither condemning them nor declaring them as evil-doers; in calling them “woeful”, Jesus reminds them and us today of being on the wrong and bad path in life that can lead to a fatal outcome or end.
Like in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus that only Luke has an account in his gospel, Jesus Christ’s “woes” are warnings – “red flags” – everyone must consider who might be in the wrong direction and wrong choices in “enjoying” life “now” without any concern for those who are suffering like the poor and the hungry, those who grieve and those maligned and hated.
Photo by Mr. Jay Javier, Quiapo, 09 January 2020.
The poor, the hungry, the weeping and the hated are blessed not simply because of their state in life but more of their willingness to forego so many worldly things “now” for they trust in God who shall deliver them to salvation and justice.
They are blessed because they have realized that things of the world are passing, something that the worldly could not accept. How sad that many today have lost sight of eternity and even of God, living only for the “now”.
Jesus is not asking us to be “masochists” or at the other end of the extreme, to be complacent in the face of widespread suffering and pains. Remember how in the synagogue at Nazareth one sabbath when Jesus launched his ministry by proclaiming from the Prophet Isaiah how the Spirit of God rested on him to bring glad tidings to the poor, liberty to captives, healing to the sick (3rd Sunday, Jan. 26).
By calling the poor and the suffering as “blessed”, Jesus assures them that God is with them and that justice shall be reestablished on “that day” when they enter the kingdom that has been prepared for them in eternal life. He called us “woe” to warn us while there is still enough time to change our course in life to be blessed not only now but in all eternity too!
Photo from forbes.com.
See how our readings this Sunday are actually about our making of wise choices in life: in the first reading, Jeremiah warns us of the consequences of trusting God or trusting humans while the psalms show us the ways of the just and the ways of the wicked; Paul in the second reading presents to us the grace of believing in Christ’s Resurrection and the folly of denying it while in the gospel, Jesus offers us blessing or woe in living.
These readings show us there is no middle ground in following Jesus nor grey areas in God. Our decisions in life define the course of our lives like what the Pepsi Cola ad used to say in the 1990’s, “we are made (or unmade) by the decision we make.”
Moreover, in giving us those four woes, Luke reminds us that in making our decisions, we must consider more than the moral but the Christological perspective of life to be like Jesus Christ – who is himself the “blessed” because he is the poor one, the hungry, the weeping and the hated.
Should we make the wrong decisions in life, Jesus remains magnanimous, remaining in us, telling us those woes over and over so we would still make the right choices in life. Don’t take it personally; Jesus cares for you.
In three weeks we shall be entering the Season of Lent. Incidentally, the last time we celebrated Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time in Cycle C was in 2010, the Seventh Sunday in 2007, and the Eighth Sunday in 2001!
Our gospel readings in the coming two more Sundays before Ash Wednesday would still be taken from Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Plain to emphasize the closeness of God with those who are poor and suffering.
As we approach the holy Season of Lent that calls us to more prayers, fasting and almsgiving, we can already start this Sixth Sunday examining our lives to see if we are aligned with the blessed ones of God or are we the woeful ones. The choice is ours. Let us pray for the grace to choose Jesus, only Jesus, always Jesus. Amen. A blessed week ahead to everyone!
Lawiswis ng Salita ni P. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Ika-14 ng Pebrero 2025
Larawan kuha ng may-akda, Tagaytay, 17 Enero 2025.
Pansamantalang titigil sa mga kinikilig pag-inog nitong daigdig sa araw na ito ng mga pusong umiibig; tiyak bibigay din ano mang hinhin at yumi ng sinomang dilag kapag nakatanggap ng bulaklak kanino man magbuhat.
Ngunit ang masaklap tuwing katorse ng Pebrero ang maraming pag-ibig katulad na lamang ng petsang dumaraan, wala nang katapatan at kadalisayan mga magkasintahan pag-ibig dinurumihan isa't isa'y sinasaktan at dinudungisan.
Pagmasdan ating kapanahunan pilit binibigyang katuwiran kasalanan at kasamaan matutunghayan saanman mga larawan ng kataksilan wala nang kahihiyan ipinangangalandakan mga kapalaluan sa gitna ng kapangahasang magmaang-maangan na wala silang kalaswaan.
Alalahanin
at balikan tagpo sa
halamanan
nang magkasala
una nating mga magulang
sila'y nagulantang
sa kanilang kahubaran
nabuksan murang malay
at kaisipan
nang kainin bawal na bunga
ng puno ng kaalaman
ng mabuti at masama;
mabuti pa sila noon
nahiya at nagtago
habang ngayon
namamayagpag
sa yabang at kapalaluan
ang karamihan
kanya-kanyang rason
maraming palusot
puro baluktot
at paninindigan
2day
2morrow
4ever
nakalimutang
pag-ibig
ay panig
sa katotohanan
hindi kasinungalingan;
ang tunay na pag-ibig
hatid ay kaayusan
hindi kaguluhan,
kapayapaan at kapanatagan
hindi takot
at kahihiyan
ang diwa
nitong Valentine's.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Friday, Memorial of Sts. Cyril (Monk) & Methodius (Bishop), 14 February 2025 Genesis 3:1-8 ><0000'> + ><0000'> + ><0000'> Mark 7:31-37
Photo by author, 14 August 2024.
On this most joyous day when most hearts has only one thing to say, I pray dear Lord Jesus Christ that I remain and stay at your side, never to hide because of shame and sin.
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked… When they heard the sound of the Lord God moving about in the garden at the breezy time of the day, the man and his wife hid themselves from the Lord god among the trees of the garden (Genesis 3:7, 8).
How times have changed, Lord, when in the garden at Eden the man and his wife sinned, they hid whereas today no one is ashamed anymore of their nakedness; what a shame that today, we don't hide in shame instead flaunt our nakedness for everyone to be convinced we are clean, we are right, we have not sinned.
Heal our deafness, Jesus; take us off away from others to be with yourself like that deaf mute, put your fingers into our ears, pierce our hearts, touch our souls for us to see our indifference to sin and evil and shout your words "Ephphatha" that we may be opened anew to the sad realities of our nakedness we ironically use to cover our sins. Amen.
