The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday, Memorial of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Religious, 17 November 2023
Wisdom 13:1-9 <'[[[[>< <'[[[[>< + ><]]]]'> ><]]]]'> Luke 17:26-37
Photo by author, St. Scholastica Retreat House, Baguio City, 23 August 2023.
Arouse us, dear God,
our loving Father,
awake us from our sleep,
let us open our eyes,
our hearts,
our very selves
to your divine presence
around us and within us;
let us bask in this most
lovely divine milieu
so many have tried so hard
to negate and discard
as not true.
How true are your words
again this day from the
Book of Wisdom:
All men were by nature foolish who were in ignorance of God, and who from the good things seen did not succeed in knowing him who is, and from studying the works did not discern the artisan.
Wisdom 13:1
How foolish have we become
to reject you, to abandon you,
to not believe nor recognize
you, O God, who can be gleaned
from nature and creation,
most especially in our studies
and search for truth and meaning;
but twice foolish are those who
believe only in themselves,
playing gods, worshipping their
body and beauty,
amazed with their strength and power
full of conceit and self-centeredness
(cf. Wisdom 13:2-4).
Keep us simple, Father,
to find you in little things,
in the unseen realities of this life
that point us to your divine milieu;
let us not wait for that sign
of gathering of vultures
when we lay wasted,
and dead to sin
and blindness.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thursday in the Thirty-Second Week of Ordinary Time, Year I, 16 November 2023
Wisdom 7:22-8:1 <*(((>< + ><)))*> = <*(((>< + ><)))*> Luke 17:20-25
Photo by Dra. Eunice Nikki A. Vergara, MD in Victoria, Laguna, 2020.
Your words are so lovely
today, O God our Father,
citing to us your many attributes
as Wisdom, "a spirit intelligent,
holy, unique, manifold, subtle"
and some 30 others that beautifully
present to us your transcendence
and immanence not only around us
but most of all within us!
What I like most, O God,
are these:
For Wisdom is mobile beyond all motion, and she penetrates and pervades all things by reason of her purity. And she, who is one, can do all things, and renews everything while herself perduring; and passing into holy souls from age to age, she produces friends of God and prophets.
Wisdom 7:24, 27
You are so great and awesome,
dear God, yet so close to us your
mere creatures like our breath,
so personal indeed as a friend,
so loved and always forgiven,
renewed and made pure
in your presence.
Forgive us for those moments
when like the Pharisees in
the gospel continue to ask you
for visible signs of the Kingdom of God;
we just have to feel you inside us,
we just have to recognize your dwelling
in us in Jesus Christ,
we just have to open our selves,
our minds and our hearts
to your little comings
until we have grown so big
in you and your presence,
in your love and mercy.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Tuesday in the Thirty-Second Week of Ordinary Time, Year I, 14 November 2023
Wisdom 2:23-3:9 ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> Luke 17:7-10
Photo by author, Ubihan Island, Obando, Bulacan, 31 December 2021.
Your words today, O God,
remind me of your fidelity,
of your being always faithful
even beyond death.
How reassuring are your words
in the first reading of your great love
for us, "forming us to be imperishable;
the image of your own nature.
But by the envy of the Devil,
death entered the world,
but the souls of the just are
in the hand of God,
no torment shall touch them"
(Wisdom 2:23-24, 3:1).
From the very beginning,
you have assured us of
grace and mercy;
keep us faithful to you always,
seeing everything we have
is a blessing by living a life in faith
in Jesus Christ which is
a life of love
too!
What an honor to serve you,
dear Father, in love and fidelity;
like those servants in the parable,
may we seek only Jesus,
always Jesus so that
in the end of our lives,
we may truly know you
by being with you
in Heaven in all eternity.
Amen.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 10 November 2023
Lady of Sorrows from a triptych by the Master of the Stauffenberg Altarpiece, Alsace c. 1455; photo from fraangelicoinstitute.com.
There’s a beautiful interplay between crying and living. And dying.
When we were growing up as kids, siesta was obligatory at home. It was a moral ought that my mom would tell us stories in bed to fall asleep, always holding a copy of the Reader’s Digest with its beautiful pictures and illustrations.
One siesta time, the image of a newborn baby being delivered caught my eyes from the copy of the Reader’s Digest my mom was holding. Then the next illustration struck me – I was about four or five years old – as it showed the doctor held the baby upside down, crying so hard after being spanked by the doctor! My mom explained to me that’s the way it is with babies when they are born: if they cry, that means they are alive but if they do not cry, the doctor had to spank the baby in order to cry and be alive.
That was my first lesson about life strongly etched in my mind. As I grew up and matured, especially after being ordained as priest, I realized deeper meanings from that simple explanation of my mom: crying is part of our lives. If we get hurt, if we suffer, if we cry, that means we are still alive.
Many times in life for us to live, we have to kick hard and cry so hard enough like newborn babies to breathe and be alive. It is in crying we realize so many things in life, about real friendships and relationships, about joy and sadness. There are times we cry not only when in pain and agony but even when we experience joy. In fact, our most profound experiences in life are best expressed with tears when we cry, best when in silence and alone.
But, death had also taught me something so amazing and lovely about crying. I consider it as the other side of crying. And of life.
Photo by author, Baguio City, August 2023.
It happened when my best friend, Gil died in 2015. He asked me in February that year to pray for his long-delayed medical checkup; that same night, he called me again that his doctor had him confined for suspected cancer. After a series of tests, he had radiation then surgery after which followed his series of chemotherapy.
Gil cried a lot when diagnosed with cancer. He was angry and bitter with his sickness. And for a good reason because among us from high school seminary, he was the healthiest and most health conscious! I knew it because when news of that mad cow disease from Europe broke in early 2000, he stopped eating beef even burgers!
In mid September, her Ate Lily called me that doctors had told them Gil’s cancer cells were very aggressive and would have a short time to live. It was a Sunday and we his friends rushed to Makati Med that afternoon. I came to visit him for another three days before he died early Sunday morning, September 22, 2015.
It was during his final week in the hospital when he asked me for a “permission to die” (see our blog, https://lordmychef.com/2023/11/08/giving-permission-to-die/). Gil simply told me he was ready to go. His face was radiant and light, he was so at peace on his hospital bed as he gave me other final instructions for his kids and ex-wife.
I could not say anything except cried. And I cried so hard, especially as I anointed him with holy oil and prayed the commendation to the dying. It was from Gil that I realized the dying receive that special grace of knowing the end, possibly even of seeing heaven that is why they are always so composed like Jesus Christ on the Cross on Good Friday. I told him how I wish I could have that same courage in facing death when my time comes. He assured me God would give me that grace too.
From that experience, I realized when people get sick, they cry because that’s when death faced them. Who would not cry and be terrified? We their friends and family in turn, console them. The inverse happens when they approach death: they are so composed, we their family and friends are the ones crying. And the one dying are the ones consoling us! When they die, we cry. Why? Because we do not know what happens next, of what lies ahead when our loved ones are gone. Paano na tayong naiwan? That’s the saddest and scariest part of life when someone dear to us dies.
In 1999, St. John Paul II wrote a letter to his fellow elderly where he said that the grace of getting old is to be able to look back to the past with gratitude and to look forward to the future with joyful anticipation of eternity. That holy Pope must have been seeing heaven while still here on earth!
Photo by author, National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, 06 November 2023.
It is in death when we see its strange contrast with life, of how when we were born, we cried and kicked hard to be alive while those around us rejoiced with the gift of life; when we die, we do not cry because we are already joyful with the coming bliss while those around us are filled with grief and sadness, crying not only with our demise but because they do not know what lies ahead.
In both instances, we find the grace of God so pronounced, so present that indeed, St. Paul was absolutely right:
None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself. For if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord; so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.
Romans 14:7-8
When we were growing up, there was a baby shampoo that advertised itself so mild that would not hurt your eyes, marketing itself with the words “No more tears”. It also played a commercial of a young boy going to shampoo his hair declaring, “a man should not cry” to bolster that old belief that crying is weakness.
At the sermon on the mount, Jesus taught us one of the beatitudes as “Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Mt. 5:4). I love using this gospel in funeral Masses. Where is the blessedness of mourning the death of a loved one? What is good with mourning, with crying?
Answer: love.
Blessed are those who mourn because they have love in their hearts. We cry at the death of a beloved because we love them. But, the greatest blessing we have when we mourn is from the love we have experienced from the one who had died. It is said that “if you have love in your heart, you have been blessed by God; if you have been loved, you have been touched by God.”
We are blessed when we mourn, when we cry at the death of a beloved because they loved us, they gave us a glimpse of God, they made us experience God’s love in their love! Is it not a tremendous blessing indeed?
We are so blessed these days that crying is no longer considered as a sign of weakness but actually of strength – the strength to live and the strength to forge on in life after the death of a beloved. Cheers to our tears that keep us alive! Have a wonderful weekend!
Photo by author, National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, Valenzuela City, 2021.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Monday in the Thirty-first Week of Ordinary Time, Year I, 06 November 2023
Romans 11:29-36 ><))))*> + ><))))*> + ><))))*> Luke 14:12-14
Photo by author, St. Scholastica Retreat Center, Baguio City, August 2023.
Dearest God our loving Father,
I join St. Paul today in praising
you through Jesus Christ your Son
who made us experience personally
your transcendence and
immanence:
"Oh, the depth of the riches
and wisdom and knowledge
of God! How inscrutable
are his judgments and how
unsearchable his ways!
For who has known the mind
of the Lord or who has been
his counselor? Or who has
given him anything that he may
be repaid?
For from him and through him
and for him are all things.
To God be glory forever.
Amen."
(Romans 11:33-36)
Photo by author, Katmon Nature Sanctuary & Beach Resort, Infanta, Quezon, 04 March 2023.
Forgive me, O God,
in always trying to reduce you
to our human level when I try
to explain how and why things
are happening in my life,
in the world;
you are simply beyond and
transcendent, surpassing all
we can think about you -
the moment we realize a truth
about you, it is never enough;
at the same time, you are
immanent, totally present in
everything you have made,
yet still, so close and so far
at the same time!
Deepen my faith in you,
Father through Jesus Christ;
let me trust you as St. Paul
assured us today that your gifts
and call are permanent and
irrevocable (Romans 11:29);
let me follow Christ's admonition
in the gospel to think more of
others than of myself especially
the poor, the crippled, the lame,
the blind and those who could
never repay me (Luke 14:13);
let me realize that it is in
sharing your gifts to me with
others that I am truly enriched
not when I insist on my own interests.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Sunday in the Thirtieth Week of Ordinary Time, Cycle A, 29 October 2023
Exodus 22:20-26 ><}}}}*> 1 Thessalonians 1:5-10 ><}}}}*> Matthew 22:34-40
Photo by Dra. Mai Dela Peña, Mt. Carmel, Israel, 2017.
The enemies of Jesus continued with their barrage of questions to trick him into saying something that could lead to his arrest and execution. After failing last Sunday, the Pharisees sent today an expert – a “scholar of the law” – to test him anew with the question:
“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”
Matthew 22:36-40
For the second straight Sunday, Jesus not only responded to his enemies’ malicious questions with brief and brilliant answers but also taught them, including us today, with important lessons on discipleship.
Once again, Jesus is inviting us to have a wholistic view of life centered on God by healing the divisions within our hearts that are reflected in our broken relationships as individuals and family, church and community, and nation. How often do we reveal that same division in our hearts whenever we ask that same question 2000 years ago by the Pharisee, “which of the commandment in the law is the greatest”?
Photo by author, view from temple of Jerusalem, May 2017.
After receiving the Ten Commandments from God through Moses at Mount Sinai, the Jews dissected them into 613 instructions with 248 of these as positive laws every individual “should do” and the other 365 as negative laws everyone “should not do”.
Naturally, it was very difficult – if not impossible – for them to remember and observe these 613 precepts to guide them in their daily living so that their rabbis devised ways in which the Law could be prioritized with some categorized as “important” or “heavy” that should be followed more than those considered as “less important” or “lighter” in gravity. For example, laws pertaining to persons like parents are more important than those concerning animals that included about bird’s nest (Dt. 22:6-7)! Problem with this was when they circumvented the Law to give priority to lesser things that disregard the more important ones as Jesus pointed out so often to their religious leaders who have emphasized the sabbath by neglecting the human person like the sick.
Photo by author, St. Anne’s Church, Jerusalem, Israel, May 2017.
Another solution they have devised was to establish summary statements of the Law that could help put it all in perspective like “whatever is hateful to you, don’t do it to others”. Again, like in categorizing the Law, putting them into perspectives eventually led to their lost of essence because in our human experience, when many factors are weighed into our daily life, the way we see things are often narrowed and dimmed; then we begin making excuses and alibis to be exempted from our religious instructions. That is why Jesus “leveled up” the people’s perspectives in their views of the Law by telling them to shift their sights to higher level not just its letters but its spirit and source – God himself like the love enemies and the beatitudes.
Here we find the beauty and nobility of Jesus Christ’s answer to the scholar’s question by leading us all into the very essence of the Law which is love who is God too! Eventually on the Cross on Good Friday just like during the sermon on the mount, Jesus would show to everyone he was not only the fulfillment of the Law but the Law himself when he gave himself in love – to God our Father and to us his brothers and sisters. Today he deepens his teaching last Sunday that inasmuch as we have to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s like paying of taxes, then, we have to give our total self, our whole heart to God because that is what is due to God, our Maker and Master. To give our hearts to God is to always choosing to love God and love others as one loves one’s self.
Photo by author, garden beside St. Anne’s Church in Jerusalem, Israel, May 2017.
The moment we start categorizing or putting God’s laws into perspectives, into our own points of view, then we deviate from God himself and his plans. When we divide, separate and split the laws of God to find which could best suit us, then it becomes a DIY (do-it-yourself) Christianity where we choose laws applicable to us and disregard the rest we find difficult, calling them as outdated and conservative like divorce, contraceptives, and abortion.
In summarizing the commandments into the law of love, Jesus is inviting us today to welcome him into our hearts to let him alone dwell and reign over us so that when we are confronted with any issue and dilemma or confusion in life, we resolve them in the light of Christ which is always love. Letting Jesus reign in our hearts is choosing to find him in the other person we must respect and love and care.
Photo by author at Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, May 2017.
To choose Jesus and his love is to always choose the human person above material things and even with one’s self. And to choose Jesus and his love is choosing his Cross too because he said there is no greater love than to offer one’s self for another. The true sign that we have really loved is when we love somebody more than ourselves like Jesus!
It is difficult and even insane as St. Paul declared “we are fools for Christ” (1 Cor. 4;10) because anyone who loves like Jesus who loves God with one’s total self and loves others like one’s self is crazy in the world’s point of view and standard. It has always been the way of Christianity ever since, always suspected as a threat to the ways of the world because the ways of Christ and his disciples are opposite the ways of the world as St. Paul explained to the Thessalonians “who received the word in great affliction, with joy in the Holy Spirit” (1 Thes. 1:6).
When I was still a young priest giving Marriage Encounter weekends to couples, I used to ask them this question: when husband and wife have an LQ or “lover’s quarrel”, who should make the first move to say sorry and be reconciled?
Many couples laugh, saying it should be the man first while men claim it must be ladies first. Still others reason out it should be the one who had sinned.
My answer: whoever has more love to give must be the first to make the move to reconcile because whoever has more love should love more!
The more we love, the more we are able to love because love is infinite like God. It is the only thing that will remain in the end because God is love. His laws are his expressions and manifestations of his love expressed in his compassion being a personal God relating with us through men and women around us (first reading). His laws fulfilled as love in the person of Jesus Christ light and guide our path in life often darkened by sin and imperfections. Choose love always and you shall never get lost! Amen. Have a lovely long weekend!
Photo by author, Pater Noster Church, Jerusalem, the Holy Land, May 2019.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Tuesday, Memorial of St. Anthony Claret, Bishop, 24 October 2023
Romans 5:12, 15, 17-19 <*((((>< + ><))))*> Luke 12:35-38
Photo by author at Forest Lodge, Camp John Hay, Baguio City, 12 July 2023.
Praise and glory
to you, God our Father!
So true are the words of
St. Paul everyday, "Where sin
increased, grace overflowed
all the more, so that, as sin
reigned in death, grace also
might reign through justification
for eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord"
(Romans 5:20-21).
Every day you bless us,
dear God in Jesus Christ
with the gift of forgiveness
in every present moment
to start anew and be free
from bondage to sin
and be free to do what is good,
to become a better person,
a better witness of your
grace of forgiveness,
prepared "like servants
who gird their loins and
light their lamp" awaiting his
return with our good deeds
amid all the evil and sin that
persist including death.
Though it is very sad
especially when we turn on the TV
or read in papers all those news
and images of wars and atrocities
that show the reality of how
humanity is still in solidarity
with Adam in our sinful ways,
may we always remember that
sin and death have no more
control over us; the death
is no longer the end we all fear
because it is no longer an end
but a beginning of something better
with Jesus who had overcome it
with his gift of forgiveness in every
here and now,
in every present
that assures us with eternal life.
May we not waste every
present that is a gift.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A, 22 October 2023
Isaiah 45:1, 4-6 ><}}}}*> 1 Thessalonians 1:1-5 ><}}}}*> Matthew 22:15-21
Photo by author, Jerusalem, May 2017.
We are now getting closer toward the end of our liturgical calendar with our gospel scenes of Jesus still at the temple area in Jerusalem where his enemies were growing more intense in banding together to trap him for his arrest and crucifixion.
Many times, that same die-hard religious conceptions of the Lord’s enemies continue to distort our way of Christian living today. First of these is the apparent division between the realms of the world or Caesar and of God and his kingdom.
The Pharisees went off and plotted how they might entrap Jesus in speech. They sent their disciples to him with the Herodians saying, “Tell us, then, what is your opinion: Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?” Knowing their malice, Jesus said, “Why are you testing me, you hypocrites? Show me the coin that pays the census tax.” Then they handed him the Roman coin. He said to them, “Whose image is this and whose inscription?” They replied, “Caesar’s.” At that he said to them, “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”
Matthew 22:15-16, 17-21
Photo by Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images in Laoag City, 08 May 2022.
It’s election fever again in the country (does it ever end?) when talks on the separation of the Church and the state abound in every corner of campaigns and discussions. What is very funny is despite everyone’s insistence of such separation, candidates keep on going to every church and chapel of all faith to meet their religious leaders and followers who in turn endorse some of them!
Then and now, the division was more clearly in our hearts than in religion and political life. Despite everyone’s endless quoting of the Lord’s declaration to “repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God”, we remain more divided as a people and individuals right in our hearts where the first casualty is Jesus Christ. Then us and our loved ones.
The way of God as Jesus had shown and taught us is not found in opposing civil and religious or spiritual realms of life but in giving ourselves for the good of others in all areas of life, first to God and everything follows. Jesus Christ came to the word to heal our divided hearts, to make us whole again (and be holy) by showing us how we are all one in God, our origin and end. St. Francis of Assisi saw this unity of God’s creation and was so central in his life and teachings that he was able to literally live out the gospel values of both material and spiritual poverty.
Photo by author, Jerusalem, May 2017.
There are no divisions between the material world and the spiritual world because everything is created by God, came from God and will ultimately end in God. “Caesar” is everything of the world we so often give more emphasis in life, more attention and more focus. Primary is our own self as we consciously and unconsciously stamp with the image and inscription of “Caesar” as we try to hide and remove God’s image in us.
See how Jesus in many instances did not bother himself with our worldly affairs like being a judge to divide the share of inheritance of feuding brothers (Lk. 12:13-15) or of James and John asking him to have them seated at his sides when his glory comes (Mk. 10:35-45) because those things separate us from God and each other.
One tragedy of Christ’s time that continues today is when we the supposed religious leaders and guides are divided within each of us, so concerned with our own pride and other priorities in life like fame and wealth. Forgive us your priests and bishops whose lifestyle and way of relating to others betray like the Pharisees who and what is first in our lives.
Keep in mind how the Pharisees were not supposed to have anything that bears semblances of idolatry in the temple area like the Roman coin with image and inscription of the Caesar considered as god and emperor by the Romans. We priests and bishops still have that “Roman coin” today in the form of social media especially Facebook that show and prove more than ever how we are a church for the rich and not of the poor no matter what the gospel and documents say. What a scandal of our time to find priests and bishops shamelessly posted on social media always present, readily available especially for funeral Masses of the rich but never or so rare with the poor! These only prove to the people of the existence of the great divide among us Jesus had supposedly healed more than 2000 years when churchmen continue to play these days the very game of the Pharisees, scribes, chief priests and elders of Christ’s time.
Photo by author, Jerusalem, May 2017.
When we examine world history, it has actually felt easier for us to divide our lives into the material and spiritual realms by giving what is due and proper to each one. This has been the way of the world especially in the past 300 years at the start of the Industrial Revolution that resulted in so many inventions and scientific breakthroughs that have spawned various thoughts and philosophies.
On the outside or in the realm of Caesar, we seem to be better with more technologies and affluence but as persons, we have remained lost and more hurting inside that drive many into suicides and depression. How ironic when we are supposed to be better, crimes against human persons get worst these days with wars and atrocities still happening. Life may had drastically improved especially in the fields of medicine and communications but the gaps among us peoples have grown wider especially these last 20 years known as the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” characterized by digitization and robotics that include Artificial Intelligence or AI. Like in the parable of the wicked tenants, we have usurped everything from God, even our very lives and the world itself.
Of course, the obligations to Caesar and to God are radically different: to the state we pay taxes, but to God we give our undivided hearts, our total being. This is what Isaiah told us in the first reading that everything in history is directed by God for the good of his people. He is the God of history. Let no one mistake any god for God because “I am the Lord, there is no other” (Is.45:6).
When Jesus asked his enemies to show him the coin that pays the census taxes, he is also asking us this Sunday to bare our hearts before him to let him heal us of the divisions within that are reflected by the many wars and divisions in the world. The deepest divide within us in this time is when we live and act like the Pharisees and Herodians with insincere hearts living a big lie of living in “accordance with the truth” (Mt. 22:16).
Let me end this reflection with those beautiful words by St. Paul in our second reading today:
We give thanks to God always for all of you, remembering you in our prayers, unceasingly calling to mind your work of faith and labor of love and endurance in hope of our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father, knowing, brothers and sisters oved by God, how you were chosen. For our gospel did not come to you in word alone, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much conviction.
1 Thessalonians 1:2-5
Photo by author, Church of St. Anne in Jerusalem, May 2017.
So lovely! St. Paul is also talking to us today, assuring us how despite our many sins, of being slaves of Caesar and other gods like the Thessalonians who were pagans before, we too were willed by God to be called as his children in Jesus Christ.
We in the Church are a people despite our many flaws and imperfections especially us your priests were called out of sin and darkness to be God’s own people, beloved children. He has given us life in the Holy Spirit that when we look back in our lives, we are convinced in our hearts it was him who worked in us in the realm of material world. God has always been the “invisible hand” leading us when we felt so down and lost, defeated and almost dead. Here we are, still alive and forging on amid the many difficulties we encounter within and outside us.
When we cooperate with the grace of God and focus more on him than to the many Caesars, when we live in faith in Christ, laboring in his love for others, God becomes more present in our material world, enabling us to endure further life’s challenges in hopes that Jesus Christ will come again. Amen. Have a blessed week ahead.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday in the Twenty-Eighth Week of Ordinary Time, Year I, 20 October 2023
Romans 4:1-8 ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> Luke 12:1-7
Photo by author, Liputan Island, Meycauayan City, Bulacan, 31 December 2021.
Our loving God and Father,
help us learn St. Paul's beautiful
teaching today about your
righteousness and our justification -
that, essentially, everything
in this life is our relationship with you
and with one another.
You justified and redeemed us
in your Son Jesus whom you
sent to restore that relationship with you
broken by sin in Adam and Eve;
to renew and make that relationship
work, you made us new in Christ
to make us worthy before you
and with one another in your grace.
How wonderful as St. Paul explained
that long before your Laws came,
that relationship has always been there
wondrously expressed most especially
by Abraham in his deep faith in you;
faith is a relationship which Abraham
proved thrice to you:
when he obeyed your command for him
to leave his family and city to go to
the land you would show him;
when he believed even in his old age
you would give him a son in his wife
Sarah to become the father of all nations;
and when Isaac was finally born
as he grew up, Abraham willingly
gave him up to you when you asked
him to be offered.
In all three instances,
Abraham never sinned to you
because he upheld and
valued so much your relationship
with him.
Help us, God,
to be like Abraham in
upholding and preserving
most dearly this relationship
with you and with one another
we keep and nurture in faith.
For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. A worker’s wage is credited not as a gift, but as something due. But when one does not work, yet believes in the one who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.
Romans 4:3-5
Forgive us,
merciful Father,
for being so proud,
always proving our worth
with all our works without
realizing that you have done
everything in our favor,
that there is nothing we can do
nor we may do for us to be saved
in ourselves, by ourselves
except to believe in you like
Abraham; let us not be hypocrites
like the Pharisees who do not
realize that everything is revealed
in you, including our thoughts;
let us remember that sin is
more than the evil acts we do
but most of all, our lack of faith
in you that we destroy
our beautiful relationships with
you and with one another.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thursday in the Twenty-Eighth Week of Ordinary Time, Year I, 19 October 2023
Romans 3:21-30 ><))))*> + ><))))*> + ><))))*> Luke 11:47-54
Photo by author, Makati sunset from Antipolo City, August 2022.
Your words today,
O God, invite us to look
deeper into your "righteousness"
which is beyond measure
for it is your way of being God -
your are kindness,
your are righteousness,
your are uprightness
that you justified us all
by acquitting us of our sins through
your Son Jesus Christ.
It was not that simple,
Father, when after you have
justified us in Jesus,
you went further in making us
a new creation in Christ
by setting us free from
the bondage of sin.
And there lies the beauty
and challenge of your righteousness:
you have made everything possible
for us to be better persons assured of
heaven but are we willing to take
and treasure that gift that calls
for commitment and responsibility?
What occasion is there then for boasting? It is ruled out. On what principle: That of works? No, rather on the principle of faith. For we consider that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of law… for God is one and will justify the circumcised on the basis of faith and the uncircumcised through faith.
Romans 3:27-28, 30
Forgive us, God,
for being so proud,
of putting too much premium
on economic achievements
as benchmark of success;
forgive us for being so proud
of being able to do
and have everything
in this world forgetting
that the entire humanity is
utterly dependent on you for
salvation and fulfillment and life;
most of all, that nothing we do is
accomplished apart from your
grace, Father.
Keep us humble and simple,
keenly awaiting Christ's daily coming
so we may walk with him
and lead others to him too
unlike the scribes and Pharisees
who have "taken away the key of
knowledge, refusing to enter
God's kingdom and worst, stopped
those trying to enter" (Lk. 11:52).
Amen.
lordmychef.com 