The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Monday, Memorial of Dedication of St. Mary Major in Rome, 05 August 2024 Jeremiah 28:1-17 <*((((>< + ><))))*> Matthew 14:13-21
From en.wikipedia.org
God our loving Father, teach us to appreciate bad news that comes our way because most often from it comes too the good news; like in the life of your prophet Jeremiah who spoke always of bad news, of gloom and doom to the people of Judah so that they would repent and be converted; but they chose to listen to the good news of Hananiah you have not authorized to speak on your behalf, greatly misleading them with false hopes of liberation from the Babylonians that actually worsened as Jeremiah had told them.
Truth hurts but we must always hear and accept it so that we may grow and mature like the Apostles when Jesus told them, "There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves" (Matthew 14:16); from that bad news, the Apostles were able to surrender themselves and their loaves of bread to Jesus who multiplied them to satisfy the great crowds with so many leftovers!
The construction and dedication of St. Mary Major in Rome happened during those problematic years of the fourth century Church with many bad news like Nestorianism that denied Christ's divinity; in accepting all the bad news at that time, the church of St. Mary Major was miraculously built and finally named in honor of Mary, Mother of God after resolving the heresy of Nestorianism.
In this time of so many bad news especially when immorality and decadence seem to prevail and govern lives these days, help us dear Jesus to hold on more to you, to implore the Holy Spirit to enlighten our minds and our hearts in seeking, following and standing by your truth to finally win over people back to sanity and deceny. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B, 28 July 2024 2 Kings 4:42-44 ><}}}}*> Ephesians 4:1-6 ><}}}}*> John 6:1-15
Residents wade through knee to waist-deep flood along P. Florentino Street in Quezon City on July 24, 2024. Photo by Maria Tan, ABS-CBN News
There is a new kind of storm sweeping us these days, more disastrous and silently wreaking havoc among us especially in our relationships with one another. It is a kind of storm borne out materialism that had given rise to other thoughts that have left us more lost and empty in life.
Photo from sunstar.com.ph, 22 July 2024.
More powerful than typhoon Carina was that storm in Cebu when a celebrity had a waiter stand in front of him simply for addressing him a “sir”, not as “mam” as he claimed to be a “beautiful” transwoman. The storm swept the whole social media on Monday with negative reactions and memes even from LGBTQ members. Many women rose to speak against this insistence by some in introducing wokism in the country for the sake of inclusivity which is nothing else but an exaggeration of one’s self and of the truncated truth they know.
*As I wrote this Saturday morning, there came the news of how the Paris Olympics made a mockery of the Lord’s Supper with a drag show in its opening ceremony. What a shame on France!
Photo from rappler.com.
Right after the devastation by the habagat, many were shocked to find Sen. Gil Puyat Avenue in Makati changed into “Sen. Gil Tulog” for an advertising stunt. Again, it flooded social media with criticisms that reached the Mayor of Makati who ordered the signages removed with the city official who approved it reprimanded.
Here we find two recent storms indicating how eroded our value system has become. Both are symptoms of our sick society that have allowed these to creep into our social consciousness on the pretext of inclusivity and creativity along with other western idiotic thoughts displayed in the opening of the Paris Olympics. The incidents show how some people have become so conceited without any sense of respect at all to God and to others, whether alive or deceased, as well as lack of sense of history.
Photo by author, Parish of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, Valenzuela City, 24 July 2024.
Sorry for the long introduction. I only wish to invite you my dear friends to stop for a while and honestly ask ourselves this question: what are we pursuing in life these days?
Beginning today until the next four Sundays of August, all our Gospel accounts will be from John’s sixth chapter that opens with the story of the feeding of more than five thousand people. It is the continuation of last Sunday’s gospel scene when Mark narrated how Jesus invited the Twelve to a “deserted place to be by themselves” only to be followed by a vast crowd of people “like sheep without a shepherd.”
Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee. A large crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick. Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. The Jewish feast of Passover was near (John 6:1-4).
The beloved disciple’s account of the event is so rich with many signs that point us closer to Jesus Christ.
Keep in mind that the miracles of Jesus in the fourth gospel are called “signs” because they were not just extraordinary things done like some form of magic; for John, the miracles of Jesus were signs that point and reveal superior realities of the highest order, of God Himself in Christ. This is difficult to understand unless our pursuits are clearly on God and not something else.
Photo by author, Fatima Avenue, Valenzuela City, 25 July 2024.
In his brief introduction of the scene, John tells us that if we really want to find and experience liberation from all the problems besetting us as individuals and as a nation, we must first pursue God, not our self-interests and well-being. See how John declared the great number of people pursued Jesus due to the “the signs he was performing on the sick” that they must have found hope and life in Him amid their many sufferings.
How sad many people today spend and waste time in social media and other material things forgetting the persons around them. In the pursuit for money and fame, persons are made into objects to be possessed; perhaps this is the reason of the growing number of many kamotes and pabebes in our time – the objectification of people, when persons are degraded into mere objects. It is an utter lack of respect for others which only shows too the lack of self-respect among many of us because we have lost our rootedness in God.
Do we still have that desire for God which leads us to higher ideals like virtues and qualities that make us more human and humane?
Pursuing God is not just celebrating the Sunday Mass or praying often but applying these holy activities into our daily lives to experience and find Him working in us and through us in our daily life. As we have reflected last Sunday, the more we get closer to God, the closer we must get with others too!
Many times we are like Philip and Andrew, two of the closest Apostles of Jesus that even if we go to Mass every Sunday or even daily, we never meet Christ at all because we are so absorbed with ourselves and the world. Philip and Andrew saw only saw the huge problem before them, they saw what they lacked – bread – but never found Jesus Christ Himself as the answer to their problem despite their having witnessed His many healings and raising to life of the dead daughter of Jairus.
When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that a large crowd was coming to him, he said to Philip, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?” He said this to test him, because he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many (John6:5-9)?”
I love that small detail by John that “Jesus knew what he was going to do”, of how the Lord was merely testing them in asking where to buy bread.
From psephizo.com
It does not really matter how Jesus multiplied the loaves of bread. What was very clear was the presence of Jesus, the Son of God who can do anything!
It was His person that was most important in this scene set when “The Jewish feast of Passover was near” which would later explain to us the meaning of the Last Supper and Good Friday. It is the very person of Jesus Christ who matters always in life. Recall our most trying moments in life when we have given up hopes but suddenly something happened and everything was reversed that we are still here, very much alive. Until now we are clueless how it all happened except that deep within our hearts, it is only Jesus whom we find as the answer and reason for everything.
In the first reading we heard how Elisha the prophet was given with twenty barley loaves of bread he gave to feed one hundred people that had plenty of leftovers.
Again, we are not told how Elisha multiplied the loaves of bread but one thing was very clear: the barley loaves were given by the man from Baal-shalisha as an offering to God through Elisha. The man clearly desired and pursued God that he baked those bread from “the first fruits, and fresh grain in the ear” of his bountiful harvest (2 Kgs.4:42). It was a thanksgiving offering for God that made wonders not only for him but for everyone. If we could just do the same in desiring God first of all!
Remember what Jesus told the devil during His first temptation in the wilderness, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God” (Mt.4:4).
There in the deserted place, miracle happened because everyone desired God first by listening to the teachings of Jesus. When Jesus saw them opening to God’s words, He then fed them with bread and fish. This week, let us pursue God more sincerely by foregoing our usual pursuits for comfort and easy life so that Jesus may multiply whatever we have. Let us pray:
God our loving Father who is over all and through all and in all (Ephesians 4:6): empty us of our pride that make us pursue worldly things like wealth, fame, and power; let us desire You alone in Jesus Christ so that we may find You again in our hearts and on the face of one another we meet in this world that has become so empty, hostile and unkind. Amen.
Photo by author, view of Jerusalem from the Church of Dominus Flevit, May 2017.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Friday, Memorial of Sts. Joachim and Anne, Parents of the BVM, 26 July 2024 Jeremiah 3:14-17 <*((((><< + >><))))*> Matthew 13:18-23
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 19 March 2023.
As we reel from the aftermath of the recent storms that caused widespread floods and affected so many lives, Your words today Lord Jesus Christ direct our thoughts to our roots and rootedness in God and with one another especially our grandparents.
The seed sown on the rocky ground is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy. But he has no root and lasts only for a time. When some tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, he immediately falls away (Matthew 13:20-21).
How lovely that on this Memorial of Saints Joachim and Anne, the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary and grandparents of our Lord Jesus Christ, the gospel invites us to go back and nurture our roots; like any good tree planted firmly that provides shades and food as well as holds water when rains come, roots evoke a sense of interconnectedness, of trust with each other, of our grounding in life and mission that give direction for us in life; without the root, we not only wither and die but lose sense and meaning in life; it is in the root we find our identity and mission; in the root is found our true selves; it is the root that holds us to remain whole despite the many blows we encounter in life. That is why the Prophet Jeremiah invites us in the first reading to go back to God, to be converted always. It is not difficult to find out what kind of people were Saints Joachim and Anne because when we study and reflect the writings we have about the Blessed Virgin Mary and her Son Jesus Christ, the more we discover their roots must be so good indeed.
God our Father, let us be rooted in You always, finding You among the people You gift us beginning with our family and friends; let us realize our roots extend beyond people but also with all your creation so that we may love and care for the blessed environment You have given us called Earth. Amen.
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 19 March 2023.
It is very disappointing that the recent statement of the CBCP on divorce was so unusually soft, trying to balance everything like walking on a thin line, very cautious of not stepping on whoever’s feet or hurting their feelings.
What is most sad is how this statement so watered down unlike the bishops’ previous pronouncements in the last elections supporting a candidate. It is so frustrating for us Catholics when our bishops have repeatedly crossed boundaries getting into partisan politics supporting many election candidates when on this part of our nation’s history they are tepid in standing by the Lord’s flock under attack by fierce and intense pro-divorce lawmakers and supporters. This is the crucial moment when our bishops should rally us more in defending our stand against divorce being the last country where it is still illegal.
We shall have another piece on that later as we continue today our sharing of our past wedding homilies we hope can help you be clarified why we must oppose the divorce bill. Of course, we cannot impose our stand against divorce but we make it clear to everyone why we are against it. After all, it is an informed choice we make guided by the grace of God and the Holy Spirit.
Here is our homily at the wedding at the Manila Cathedral on January 16, 2006 of our very good friend from UST’s the Varsitarian, Dra. Chona T. Capulong and Mr. Stephen Kemp of Kansas.
Twenty three years ago and less than 50 pounds today, our friend and former managing editor Chona had a column at the Varsitarian called “Choice Cuts.”
I will never forget her column with its very catchy title, so well written and most of all, more than 20 years later today, the gospel she had chosen for her wedding speaks about choosing, about choices, Jesus told his disciples, “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain…” (John 15:16).
Today we are so blessed to have been called and chosen by Chona and Stephen to be present in this most joyous day of their lives when they pledge their love for each other before God and His people. Let me stress on those words of Jesus saying how we are all “called and chosen to bear fruit.”
God calling and choosing us to bear fruit. The all-knowing God making a choice for us and should we be glad and grateful for that!?
When God calls and chooses us, He does not remove our freedom which is the ability to choose what is good, not simply whatever you want. What happens is that when God calls and chooses us, this gift of freedom is actually enhanced because the Ultimate Good shows us what’s best for us.
That God choosing us rather than us choosing Him is evidently true in friendships and marriage. Chona is from this city of Manila, thousands of kilometers from Wichita, Kansas where Stephen comes from.
How they have met and be in love is a long story; what matters is the choice made by God for them and how they cooperated in that choice.
Most often, whenever we make a choice, it is oriented towards success and triumph. We always make it a point that it would be advantageous for us and most of all, easy and convenient because as much as possible, we want lesser problems and lesser risks.
Being successful, whether in life or in marriage or in business is characterized and based on strength and powers, of how we are able to control situations and bend them to our own advantage. It is about power.
On the other hand, when God makes a choice for us, it is different.
When God makes a choice for us, it is always difficult and never convenient, slow and time-consuming. Most of all, God’s choice always entails sacrifices from our part because, it is so good that we have to be emptied first in order to receive such a beautiful gift like marriage.
When God makes a choice for us, it is always based on our weakness and vulnerabilities. God is not concerned with our being “successful” but more with being fruitful because in this life, especially in marriage, it does not really matter what or how much we have achieved but what have we become.
We may have all the wealth and power in the world, all the success but, what have we become?
Have we been more loving, more forgiving, more understanding, more generous, more honest, more faithful?
Bearing fruit is different from being successful in the sense that when God makes the choices for us, He makes us into better persons, becoming the best husband or best wife or the best person in the world. This He does by letting us come to terms with our own weaknesses and vulnerabilities, emptying ourselves of these impurities and being filled by God’s goodness and holiness.
Being fruitful in marriage means being able to understand and accept, even own because of love the shortcomings of a spouse or of those around us. Being fruitful in life or in marriage is being able to bear all the pains and hardships of life because like in gardening, it is the constant pruning of trees and plants that lead to more blossoms and fruits. It is being like Jesus Christ who willingly accepted His Cross because of His great love for us. He did not remove the Cross but made it holy instead.
Chona and Stephen, this wedding is already a fruit of that call and choosing by Jesus on you. After so many pains and hurts as well as sacrifices from both of you, this day had finally come for both of you to stand before the altar of God and offer yourselves to His plans and choices. This is not the end but the beginning of more pains and hurts and sacrifices.
I am not scaring you, Chona and Stephen; however, may this wedding be an assurance for for both of you that, although there would be more problems and difficulties and trials waiting for you along the way of your married life, be assured of the great glory and fruitful life ahead for both of you.
Continue to cooperate with God’s choices for you by leading a life of faith, hope and love rooted in prayers. Jesus had called and chosen you, Chona and Stephen; Jesus would always be with you because He knows what’s best for you. Amen.
Stephen died a few years ago before the COVID pandemic but our friend Chona had remained firm in her faith in God, raising their daughter into a lovely young lady she is now. Last week, Chona told me how proud and happy she is her daughter is going to take her college abroad, away from her!
So glad that despite her fears as a mother, she had allowed her daughter to study abroad, believing, of course, it is God’s choice for her to eventually become a better woman someday. May we be faithful not only in our duties and responsibilities but especially with the people entrusted to us by God whom He had chosen to become parts of our lives.
Many people today see marriage in the human level, downplaying or outrightly refusing its supernatural dimension being a gift and a grace from God. What is most funny with them is how they also insist on giving weddings some semblance of “spiritual” meanings with all the crazy symbolisms and dramatics conjured by some wedding planners that have prompted – rightly so – many parishes to impose strict rules and guidelines to stop all these follies that have robbed Matrimony of its holiness and sanctity.
We in the Church have never failed to remind couples getting married that more important than their weddings becoming Instagrammable is their spiritual preparation because marriage is a vocation, a call from God to a life of holiness for husband and wife to become Christ’s saving presence in the world.
Divorce has always been the easiest way out of many failed marriages even among God’s chosen people in the Old Testament, an attempt to free couples of moral responsibility and culpability in their failures they could not humbly admit. Jesus had explained and clarified it 2000 years ago and still, here we are insisting for divorce which is a symptom of pride, the first sin of Adam and Eve when they broke away from God. That is why, divorce is a breaking away from God too.
There are many ways to succeed in marriage but there is only one sure way to fail which is to turn away from God, to disregard God, to stop believing in God. Here now is a homily I shared two years ago at the wedding of a very good friend in my former parish in Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan.
Photo by author, Don Bosco Chapel on the Hill, Bgy. Cahil, Calaca, Batangas, 03 January 2023.
My dearest Gracie and Chino:
Congratulations on this most joyous day of your lives. Finally, after much prayers and waiting, following so many detours in your lives, you are now before the altar of the Lord to exchange vows in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony.
I am sure you must have heard so many things on being successful and fruitful in marriage. In fact while praying over this homily since last year (yes, believe me), a lot of things have also come to my mind that I felt very important so you may grow and mature in your married life. But, as I prayed more, I realized lately that while there are many ways to be successful and fruitful in marriage, there is only one sure way in order to fail as husband and wife.
Disregard God.
Stop believing in God.
Live as if there is no God.
Do not pray. Do not celebrate the Sunday Mass.
Forget God. And you will surely fail in marriage.
Without God, Gracie and Chino, you cannot truly love each other because the only true love we must all imitate despite our weaknesses and imperfections is the love of Jesus Christ poured out on us there on the Cross. He said it so clearly today in our gospel, “This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you. There is no greater love than to offer one’s life for a friend.”
Remember, Gracie and Chino, human love is always imperfect; only God can love us perfectly.
Here lies the great mystery and joy of human love, of marriage: God willed from the very start that man and woman be united in marriage. When His Son Jesus Christ came to the world, He not only reminded us of this wonderful plan of the Father for us but also elevated marriage into a sacrament, a sign of the saving presence of God.
In sharing His life with us, we are able to love like Jesus that is why He tells us too that it was Him who chose and called you, Gracie and Chino, not you who chose Him. God willed that on this day, Gracie and Chino that you get married. It was also part of His plan that you met during the COVID pandemic when we were locked down and when many weddings were either postponed or cancelled.
Very clear, Gracie and Chino, it was God who designed your marriage! Do not disregard Him. Invite Him daily into your lives in the same manner you invited Him on this day of your wedding.
Photo by author, Don Bosco Chapel On The Hill, Bgy. Cahil, Calaca, Batangas, 08 February 2023.
Let me warn and remind you, Gracie and Chino, that a wedding nor a sacrament is not everything. Love is difficult because love is not just a feeling but a decision we renew daily. You must have heard how some couples ran out of love that eventually, they split up, separated and failed. When we have that deep faith, fervent hope and unceasing charity and love of God, you will never run out of love, Gracie and Chino, because God is love.
Keep that in mind. If you want to remain in love, love God. That is what marriage is all about: in loving your wife, your husband, you are actually expressing your love to God who is after all our very first love. That’s what Tobias realized when he married Sarah in our first reading. Tobias went to a far away land not only to look for a wife and a cure for his father Tobit’s blindness but also for God! When he found Sarah, he also found God.
Is it not the same thing happened with you, Chino, upon meeting Gracie? It was not love at first sight but more like the experience of Tobias when God revealed by silently speaking into your heart Gracie is the woman whom you shall marry. In a flash, you felt so certain about it, Chino, and despite your distance from each other, you felt this love growing deeper every day.
There is no perfect marriage, Gracie and Chino, but every couple is surely blessed by God. Cooperate with Him, do whatever He tells you as the Blessed Mother told the waiters in the wedding at Cana where Jesus transformed water into wine. Imagine, the first miracle by Jesus Christ was in a wedding just like this!
You know why? Because love is most truest when there is forgiveness and mercy. As I have told you, human love is imperfect, only God can love us perfectly. Without God, it is impossible for us to forgive and move on with life. Without God, it is impossible for us to say sorry and ask forgiveness too. It is God who gives us the grace to be sorry and to be merciful and forgiving like Him.
Photo by author, Don Bosco Chapel on the Hill, Bgy. Cahil, Calaca, Batangas, 08 February 2023.
When couples become hardened in their hearts as they keep tabs of each other’s sins and mistakes and misgivings, they get tired and fed up with each other and then separate.
With God, we are able to clean our slate, delete our memories and restart/refresh our programs like the computer to begin anew each day.
Without God, the festering anger within us gets worst and soon, everything crashes. That is when we fail because we do not have God as our foundation and root.
Try seeing it this way: human relationships are like two hands together.
Without God, they are like interlocking fingers where the partners are both so good, so bilib in themselves, filling each other’s needs that soon, they get filled with themselves. Like interlocking fingers that get painful, they eventually breakaway or separate from each other because love has become a demand than a gift, sex an obligation than an offering, with each one becoming more an object to be possessed than a person to be loved.
With God, human relationships are like two praying hands. Very flexible. You keep your identities and personalities intact, growing together, maturing together in love as you both create an empty space for each one’s shortcomings and most especially for God to have a place in your lives.
Like Tobit and Sarah in our first reading, pray always. Handle your lives with prayer, Gracie and Chino. The more you pray and believe in God, the more you will love Him, and the more you will believe each other too and hence, love more each other too! Keep God in your life as husband and wife. Whatever you do to each other, that you do first to Jesus who is always between you.
You see, Gracie and Chino, there are so many ways to be fruitful in marriage for as long as you are rooted in God. Take away God and you will surely fail as an individual and as a couple.
My prayer for you, Gracie and Chino is that today may be the least joyful day of your lives. Live in God through Jesus Christ with Mary our Mother. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Monday in the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time, Year II, 01 July 2024 Amos 2:6-10, 13-16 <*((((><< + >><))))*> Matthew 8:18-22
Photo by author, Anvaya Cove, 15 April 2024.
Glory and praise to You, God our loving Father for this brand new month of July; we have passed the first half of 2024, help us to make good of its remaining six months, most especially in finding ways to address and mitigate if not eradicate the social injustices that continue to happen among us since 3000 years ago your Prophet Amos had denounced.
Thus says the Lord: For three crimes of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke my word; because they sell the just man for silver, and the poor man for a pair of sandals. They trample the heads of the weak into the dust of the earth, and force the lowly out of the way. Son and father go to the same prostitute, profaning my holy name (Amos 2:6-7).
What a shame, O God, how this passage written in 750 BC remains still the same these days; give us the sincerity to confront our selves, to look into our own lives to see how these accusations can be thrown against us too; let us realize there can be no real love of God nor even true religion without the practice of justice and loving concern for the weak and marginalized.
Give us the will to have Jesus our priority in life in order to build a more humane and just society in this imperfect world, instead of relying on our abilities and expertise as well as comfort and ease; both Amos and Jesus have showed that doing the work of God is always other-centered, entails a lot of sacrifices and suffering so that we decrease and lose our very selves for God through others. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Friday, Memorial of St. Irenaeus, Bishop & Martyr, 28 June 2024 2 Kings 25:1-12 <'[[[[>< + ><]]]]'> Matthew 8:1-4
It is the end of another week of work and studies for most of us, God our loving Father, but for some, it is like the end of everything for them like your people at Judah and Jerusalem:
In the tenth month of the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, on the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar, king od Babylon, and his whole army advanced against Jerusalem, encamped around it and built siege walls on every side. On the ninth day of the fourth month, when famine had gripped the city, and the people had no more bread, the city walls were breached. The king was therefore arrested and brought to Riblah to the king of Babylon, who pronounced sentence on him. He had Zedekiah’;s sons slain before his eyes. He then blinded Zedekiah, bound him with fetters, and had him brought to Babylon (2 Kings 25:1, 3, 6-7).
Many times, when life becomes so difficult even so terrible for us, all we ask, O God, are simple words and acts of encouragement; send us someone who is like Jesus your Son, our Lord and Savior who, upon meeting a leper, told him, "I will do it. Be made clean" (Matthew 8:3).
Like Jesus, may we stay and remain even for a few minutes with those so burdened in life; when the leper approached him, Jesus did not hide nor run but stayed to let the leper feel He was with him; many times, we forget our mere presence can be so encouraging; forgive us for abandoning and turning away from those who come to us even for company and warmth.
Like Jesus, even if we do not have the power to heal and cleanse anyone of sickness, grant us the gift of words that encourage others to hold on in faith, to keep hoping, and most of all, to believe in love when all is dark because like Jesus, we may tell them how much we desire their well-being. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Monday, Solemnity of the Birth of John the Baptist, 24 June 2024 Isaiah 49:1-6 ><}}}}*> Acts 13:22-26 ><}}}}*> Luke 1:57-66.80
Photo from Wikipedia, mosaic of Jesus with Mary and John the Baptist at the Hagia Sophia in Turkey.
Praise and glory to You, God our loving Father in sending us John the Baptist as Precursor of your Son Jesus Christ our Savior; on this Solemnity of his birth six months before Christmas during the summer solstice to remind us of John's vocation, "a burning and shining lamp" (John 5:35) set to decrease when the Light that illuminates the world appeared in December, the winter solstice.
Everything about John pointed to the unexpected - his conception in the womb of his old, barren mother Elizabeth, his being named not after his father Zechariah, and his life being spent in the wilderness, not in the temple to follow the footsteps of his father; most of all, his "manifestation to Israel" (Lk.1:80) was not about himself but pointed to the Christ, Jesus our Lord and Savior.
What is not unexpected, dear Father, is the connection between John and Jesus and the salvific events that have everyone filled with joy and fear at the same time for "surely your hand hand was with him" (Lk.1:66).
Photo by author, Binuangan Is., Meycauayan, Bulacan, 31 December 2021.
Open our eyes and our hearts, merciful Father, to always expect the unexpected in this life and mission, to learn to withdraw in the wilderness of our lives like John to realize that our whole being like his is directed to our relationship with Jesus the Christ.
Let us decrease
so that Jesus may increase!
Let us strive to go to the wilderness
to empty ourselves to be filled
by the Holy Spirit;
most of all,
let your words comfort us
when life becomes so difficult
in being a herald of Jesus by proclaiming
repentance and conversion (Acts 13:24):
“You are my servant, he said to me, Israel, through whom I show my glory. 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 49:3,4).
How wonderful that when I learn to expect the unexpected from You, O God, that is when I am less, Jesus becomes more in me, then truly, You are most gracious, Father through me, like John. Amen.
Photo by author, birthplace of St. John the Baptist beneath the church in his honor in Ein Karem, Israel, May 2019
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Friday, Memorial of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, Religious, 21 June 2024 2 Kings 11:1-4, 9-18, 20 ><]]]]'> + <'[[[[>< Matthew 6:19-23
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 20 March 2024.
On this Friday, Lord Jesus Christ, there are two things I pray: give me a pure heart and eyes like a lamp.
Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be (Mt. 6:19-21).”
Help me realize, Jesus, that to "store up treasures in heaven" is not just to pile up a lot of good works in heaven that will be to our credit in the next life for they too can be lost when we slide down into sin and evil; rather, like in your beatitudes, give me a clean or pure heart that is like yours, that is inclined to You always; a clean heart, O Lord, is not of "doing" but of "being" and "becoming" that truly becomes a treasure, something we value most.
How sad in this world so materialistic that many believe there is nothing money cannot buy, nothing money cannot solve even though this belief is proven false all the time!
Cleanse our hearts of pride and sins, fill it with your humility, justice and love, Lord Jesus! Dwell in our hearts, reign over us!
“The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness. And if the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be” (Mt.6:22-23).
Give us that light and vision, Jesus to see the most essential, the most valuable in life that are beyond wealth, fame, and power; free us from the darkness and blindness of not seeing beyond material things so we may discern the real treasures, what is most valuable in this life like You and others, love and peace and joy. Amen.
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 20 March 2024.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Thursday, Memorial of St. Anthony of Padua, Priest & Doctor of the Church, 13 June 2024 1 Kings 18:41-46 ><]]]]’> + <‘[[[[>< Matthew 5:20-26
Photo by author, 2023.
God our loving Father, thank you for this memorial of St. Anthony de Padua, your humble servant who is also the patron of lost items; in sending us your Son Jesus Christ, You gave us the chance to recover, to have anew, to find whatever we have lost like our dignity and honor as your children, life in You with all the grace and fulfillment, forgiveness, and peace.
In a trice, the sky grew dark with clouds and wind, and a heavy rain fell. Ahab mounted his chariot and made for Jezreel. But the hand of the Lord was on Elijah, who girded up his clothing and ran before Ahab as far as the approaches to Jezreel.
1Kings 19:45-46
How lovely is this scene, Father: of You sending rains again to Israel after punishing them with a drought that lasted three years; most especially of your prophet Elijah despite his old age and weak body being able to outrun King Ahab in your immense power and grace simply because he relied only in You; help us find our way back to You, O God, through Jesus Christ your Son; take us back to your side, to seek and follow your will by being pure and clean before You through our dealings with one another; like St. Anthony, may we immerse ourselves in your words and teachings so that we may be more loving caring and understanding, Amen.
St. Anthony of Padua, Pray for us!
The former residence of St. Anthony in Lisbon, Portugal converted into a church after his canonization as saint, a year after his death in 1231 at the age of 36. Photo courtesy of Mr. Jilson Tio of Our Lady of Fatima University, Valenzuela City.
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