The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Wednesday in the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time, Year II, 17 July 2024 Isaiah 10:5-7, 13-16 ><))))*> + ><))))*> + ><))))*> Matthew11:25-27
Photo by Dra. Mylene A. Santos, MD in Infanta, Quezon 2020.
Praise and glory to You, God our loving Father who has the whole world in your hands; nothing happens by chance, all good things come from You and if ever something bad happens, You know it for sure; You never punish us for our sins and whatever bad happens to us is a result of our transgressions, of turning away from You; therefore, let us always hope and trust in You for You never abandon us your children especially in our times of trials and tribulations; in the same manner, let us not be so proud when we are in the height of our success believing we are the best because You have the final say in history; let us not be proud like Assyria of old:
“My hand has seized like a nest the riches of nations; as one takes eggs left alone, so I took in all the earth; no one fluttered a wing, or opened a mouth, or chirped!”
Will the axe boast against him who hews with it? Will the saw exalt itself above him who wields it? As if a rod could sway him who lifts it, or a staff him who is not wool! Therefore the Lord, the Lord of hosts, will send among his fat leanness, and instead of his glory there will be kindling like the kindling of fire (Isaiah 10:14-16).
Teach me, dear Jesus, to be small like a child, simple and trusting in You; feeling more than thinking more, kind and loving than analyzing and sizing up others, most of all, lowly and humble because You alone has the whole world in your hands. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Feast of the Sto. Niño, Cycle B, 21 January 2024 Isaiah 9:1-6 ><}}}*> Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-18 ><}}}*> Mark 10:13-16
Photo by Ms. Anne Ramos, 22 March 2020 in Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria,Bulacan during our “libot” of the Blessed Sacrament at the start of the COVID-19 lockdown.
Our Lord Jesus Christ’s attitude to children is perfectly clear in our gospel this Sunday, “Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it” (Mk 10:15).
Being like a child is actually the main teaching of Jesus Christ who came to us precisely as one. Right at his infancy like most babies these days, Jesus faced a lot of great risks of being harmed or even getting killed.
See how Jesus insisted in all his teachings on this need to become like a child, to go back to one’s beginnings in order to get into God’s kingdom which is actually him, his very person. Keep in mind that the kingdom of God is not a territorial domain but the very person of Jesus Christ himself. It is from this fact we realize that being a child as taught by Jesus is a mystery that can never be explained nor solved in our minds and mental faculties. This we find in that occasion when Nicodemus, a Pharisee, came to Jesus hiding in the darkness of the night to discuss the kingdom of God. When Jesus told him of the need to be born from above (or, be born again in earlier translations) which is to become like a child, he thought it to be in the literal manner.
Jesus chided Nicodemus by saying, “You are the teacher of Israel and you do not understand this?” (Jn. 3:9-10). It was not sarcasm nor an insult by Jesus but a clarification to everyone including us today that being a child to enter the kingdom of God is a mystery we have to embrace and experience and feel in the heart not deduced in the mind.
And this is exactly what the Feast of the Sto. Niño is all about that we celebrate every third Sunday in January.
The Vatican has given us this special celebration as an extension of the Christmas season in recognition of the great role played by the image of Sto. Niño Magellan gifted Queen Juana of Cebu in 1521.
After leaving our shores after Magellan was killed in Mactan, the Spaniards returned in 1565 under Miguel Lopez de Legazpi to claim our islands for the King of Spain. Upon their arrival in Cebu, they found the Sto. Niño enshrined in a house of worship prominently displayed as the main God of the natives along with their other idols and gods. Historians say the people of Cebu during those years between 1521 to 1565 have found the Sto. Niño as the most powerful and effective in granting their prayers for children (fertility), rains and bountiful harvests that rightly it was the Sto. Niño who actually conquered the Philippines that we have become the only Christian nation in this part of the world. In those 44 years after Magellan and his men left the Philippines, the Sto. Niño had remained and stayed with the natives keeping them safe and secured all those years until the Spaniards returned to be colonized through Legazpi.
What a beautiful imagery of the Sto. Niño staying behind with our forefathers conquering them not with swords nor force but with love and mercy, and youthfulness of the Child Jesus!
Recall how last Sunday we have reflected the words stay and remain when Andrew asked Jesus where he was staying: to stay, to dwell mean more than its spatial nature as a place or location but also in a deeper sense, a communion. It is in dwelling in Jesus who is the kingdom of God that we belong, we become a part of that kingdom.
When Jesus spoke of “being born from above” to Nicodemus, he was not only referring to the Sacrament of Baptism but to the very fact how he as the Christ from the very start has always dwelled and remained in the Father.
Three days after being found in the temple in Jerusalem when Jesus was 12 years old, he told Mary his Mother, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”(Lk.2:49). What a beautiful expression of that union in “being in my Father’s house” to show us this mystery of Jesus being like a child, the Son of God who has remained the Father’s beloved One into his adulthood because he had always been in union with the Father. Jesus is inseparable from the Father because he himself takes abode and dwelling in God.
“The Finding of the Savior at the Temple” painting by William Holman Hunt (1860) from en.wikipedia.org.
When Jesus was approaching his Passion and Death, he repeatedly told everyone how everything he had said and done were not his but his Father’s to indicate his communion and union in him. Ultimately there on the Cross, his final words expressed the same truth that he is the Son of God obedient unto death especially when he called out, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Lk.23:46).
Therefore, to accept and welcome a child in Jesus’ name is not just an act of charity nor of a simple finding of Jesus among children. It is ultimately being one, of remaining in the Father because Jesus also said “whoever welcomes such a child in my name, welcomes me” (Mt 18:5).
Photo by author, 2022.
That is why the kingdom of God is for those who are like children always one with God like Jesus.
To be a child is to remain in God, to always love expressed in kindness and care for others especially the weak, being forgiving and merciful and compassionate with those lost like the Father.
To be like a child is being a light who brightens the life of others just like a babies whose very sight and smiles can ease our pains and sorrows, giving us the much needed boost to forge on in life. We are filled with hope whenever we encounter or see infants because they remind us too of God dwelling in them, of a God who assures and ensures us with s bright future.
This the reason we have in our first reading that part of the Book of Isaiah we heard proclaimed on Christmas day to remind us that Jesus is the light born on the darkest night of the year to illumine our lives and the world darkened by sins and evil like wars, poverty, and diseases. We see light in being like a child because that is when we are one in the Father too in being like a child.
Let me cite again that beautiful movie Firefly where the main character, the child named Tonton loved his mother so much that he totally believed her stories that sent him into a journey to search for the magical island filled with fireflies. Tonton dwelled in his mother’s love that he eventually found the magical island with the many fireflies that in the process also brought light into the darkness within the three adults he befriended in the bus going to Bicol.
Many times in my ministry as chaplain in our hospital, I have seen the great powers within every child – of how a sick baby, a sick child could send his/her parents to summon all their faith in God to heal them, to save them.
Listen to the stories of those who join the Traslacion every year in Quiapo: most of them had their panata borne out of answered prayers for their sick children. Every parent knows it so well how they have moved mountains and did the most extraordinary for the sake of their infants and children.
That is the mystery of the kingdom of God belonging to children when God gives us every spiritual blessing we need to achieve the impossible (second reading) to become like children by remaining in God as the only power and salvation in this life.
Be with a child, stay with a child and you shall find God’s kingdom.
Be like a child and you shall experience the kingdom of God! Amen. Have a blessed week ahead!
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Wednesday in the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time, Year I, 19 July 2023
Exodus 3:1-6, 9-12 <*{{{{>< + ><}}}}*> Matthew 11:25-27
Photo by author, sunrise at Camp John Hay, 12 July 2023.
Praise and glory to you,
God our loving Father!
You are so "kind and merciful
for you pardon all our sins,
heals all our ills;
you redeem us
from destruction,
and crowns us with
kindness and compassion"
(Psalms 103:3-4).
Therefore, I pray, O God
for each day that I may
always receive and cherish
your gifts, recognize your love
for me despite and in spite
of my sinfulness and weaknesses
like Moses whom you have called
after he had fled Egypt for a crime;
let me have that same sense of wonder
and curiosity in finding you,
in hearing you, in following you;
the whole earth indeed is sacred,
belonging to you, O Lord;
let me take off my shoes,
walk barefooted to feel your presence
and answer your call to send me
to those crying for your help,
for those numb in experiencing
your presence and coming.
Let me be like children
open and trusting to your
revelations found in the simplest
and most ordinary things in life
unlike the learned who overthink,
holding on to their
beliefs and convictions,
without any room for surprises,
seeking certainties, solving
the unsolvable mysteries
in life long revealed
in Jesus Christ your Son
and our Lord.
Amen.
Photo by author, sunrise at Camp John Hay, Baguio City, 12 July 2023.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Tuesday in the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time, Year I, 18 July 2023
Exodus 2:1-15 ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> Matthew 11:20-24
Photo by author, Egypt, May 2019.
It is still too early,
God our loving Father,
but your words today smell
so Christmassy,
reminding us of Jesus Christ's
coming in the story of Moses
being drawn from water
by the Pharaoh's daughter:
On opening it, she looked, and lo, there was a baby boy, crying! She was moved with pity for him and said, “It is one of the Hebrews’ children.”
Exodus 2:6
Yes, dear God,
your Son came as an infant,
a baby, the most wondrous sight
to behold in this life who can
soften the most hardened heart
because every child reminds us
of you, O Lord, our life;
every child calls us to be
loving and kind because
every baby reminds us of our
credential as your image and likeness,
dear God.
Forgive us, Father,
when we close our eyes and our hearts
and dare ask others of their
credentials, like Moses who was asked
"Who has appointed you ruler
and judge over us?" (Ex.2:14);
or, Jesus who lamented at how
his own folks refused to recognize him
as the Christ despite his wondrous
words and works,
"Woe to you, Chorazin!
Woe to you, Bethsaida!
For if the mighty deeds done
in your midst had been done
in Tyre and Sidon
they would long ago have repented
in sackcloth and ashes"
(Mt.11:21).
But most of all,
loving Father,
enable us to live up
to our credentials as your
beloved children,
forgiven and blessed
to make you known and
present in this world that has
turned away from you,
from some people who think
more of themselves in having
earned their credentials
and hence, be so entitled in the world.
Help us to keep our lines,
our boundaries intact,
of what is sacred and holy,
of what is essential
and true that you are
our Father.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Homily, Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, 16 June 2023
Deuteronomy 7:6-11 ><}}}*> 1 John 4:7-16 ><}}}*> Matthew 11:25-30
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, Quezon City, 20 March 2023.
It has been two months since I celebrated by silver anniversary of ordination to the priesthood. Until now, I still continue to reflect and relish on this immense gift of priesthood, still asking with the same sense of awe and wonder since ordination day, “why me, Lord?”
As I reflected this week the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus which is dedicated for the sanctification of us priests, I have realized how I have remained the same sinful, insecure and fearful man ordained 25 years ago with my six other classmates. As I get closer to becoming a senior citizen in 2025, the more my past sins and stupidities, carelessness and vices are coming back like “Facebook Memory”, reminding me how I have them kept under control, that they could burst and be out in the open if I get careless.
But in the midst of all these darkness and weaknesses still in me, the more I feel so blessed and consoled, and overjoyed by the fact that I still have that same desire to proclaim Jesus Christ to everyone, of how beautiful this life is because of the Lord’s immeasurable love for each of us. Whenever I look back to my past with all my sinfulness and weaknesses amid my getting older, the more I am eager to make Jesus known to everyone while I am still strong and able. There is that feeling of being like St. Paul in saying, “To me, the very least of all the holy ones, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the inscrutable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for all what is the plan of the mystery hidden from ages past in God who created all things” (Eph. 3:8-9).
Or, like in our first reading, I could identify with the Israelites being reminded by Moses in the wilderness that “You are a people sacred to the Lord, your God; he has chosen you from all the nations on the face of the earth to be his people peculiarly his own. It was not because you are the largest of all nations that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you, for you are really the smallest of all nations. It was because the Lord loved you” (Dt.7:6-8).
Beautiful!
Love, love, and love!
That is the “inscrutable riches of Christ”, his immense love for us, dying for us, coming for us even if we are worth nothing at all. And it is because of that love of God for us that we have become so worthy that he gave us even his only Son, Jesus Christ.
That is the essence of this celebration of the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Love.
A reality we all experience and know but could not define for it has no limits. Love can only be described and best expressed in actions than in words.
See this Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus comes right after the Solemnities of the Most Holy Trinity and of the Most Precious Body and Blood of Jesus these past two Sundays. Both celebrations speak of love: the latter is about relationships based on love and the former is about giving of self in love.
Now that we are well into the Ordinary Time of our liturgical calendar, our celebration today tells us to remember throughout this year this most basic truth and reality of our faith – that we are so loved by God.
Beloved, let us love one another because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him.
1 John 4:7-9
Love is symbolized by the heart, the very core of every person. That is why I love the Spanish word for heart which is corazon, evocative of the core, of the deeper self. And of course, love is the very the person of God.
Of all the writers in the Bible, St. John is the one who most frequently used the word “love”, an indication of its centrality in his thoughts. Moreover, he clarified that this love is not human love because its origin, motives and effects are supernatural in nature who is God himself.
Being the very self and also the riches or wealth of Christ, love is for sharing, for giving. Never for keeping. Because of its supernatural nature, love is inexhaustible. The more you give it, the more you share, the more you have it!
In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us.
1 John 4:10-12
Photo by Ms. April Oliveros, March 2023 at Mt. Pulag.
Let me repeat that last sentence, “if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us.”
The more we love, the more we are able to see and recognize God and other people amidst the darkness around us. Likewise, the more we love the more we see our true selves too despite dark spots within us.
Love is the law of life. To love God by loving ourselves and others is not an obligation imposed from outside. It is the very proof of our faith and union with God in Jesus Christ.
Jesus makes this very clear to us today in the gospel that opens with him praising the simple people, those who were child-like who welcomed him and his preaching. They were the ones Jesus referred at his sermon on the mount, “Blessed are the poor” because love is not an intellectual structure or system to be learned or analyzed. Love is a call to be disarmed of everything we hold onto so we can totally love and follow Jesus Christ.
“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30
Jesus came to reveal to us God our Father. And to know the Father is not through the head or intelligence but through our heart that is like Christ’s, meek and humble, filled with love.
By becoming human like us in everything except sin, Jesus who is the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15) enables us to feel and experience God now closest to us than ever. Most of all, we are able to love and still love especially when the going gets tough and rough.
Here Jesus shows us that love is not absence of sufferings. In fact, love is truest and noblest when there are sacrifices and sufferings as exemplified by Jesus in his life and death on the Cross.
There are times we feel grouchy, so sensitive when people seem to ask even demand so much from us.
From Facebook, 2021.
Sometimes we wonder why are we the ones always giving, always loving, always forgiving. Sometimes we even ask God why are we the ones going through all these trials in life, why are we the ones afflicted with this sickness, why are we given with a special child, why your child had gone ahead of you to eternal life?
So many whys, so many questions.
Rest today in Christ. Feel his embrace. Listen to his silence. Be filled with his love. As you ask Jesus with all those questions, realize that each cry, each lamentation is the “inscrutable riches of Christ”, his very love perfected in your labors and burdens. Amen.
Jesus, meek and humble of heart,
Make my heart like thine!
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 07 June 2023
Photo by Mr. Paulo Sillonar, 07 June 2023.
Celebrated Mass this noon in our Basic Education Department’s chapel with 19 students from our Grade 4-Visionary attending. They turned out to be the second batch of first communicants I have prepared since 2021 when I was assigned as chaplain of Our Lady of Fatima University (OLFU) in Valenzuela City.
While preparing them for our Mass, I was overjoyed when they still remembered most of the responses I have taught them more than a year ago that prompted me to promise them of treating them to ice cream after.
Naturally, the kids were so happy when suddenly, something flashed in my memory during my first year in the priesthood as prefect of discipline in our diocesan school in Malolos. During that time, I would go and visit our elementary students during their lunch break just to talk with them and see them. Many of them would invite me to join them to their table, even offering me their baon usually rice with adobo or hotdog. Of course, I would always tell them that someday, I would have lunch with them which I never fulfilled for a semester until a spunky girl told me, “Promise naman po kayo ng promise Father pero hindi naman nagkakatotoo.”
Photo by Ms. April Oliveros at Mt. Pulag, March 2023
Whoa! I felt like being kicked by a little Shaolin master on the face as I remembered it, forever etched in my memory in the early years of my priesthood that taught me to always have that palabra de honor in keeping my promises, no matter how simple and trivial it may be.
How sad that the saying “Promises are made to be kept, not to be broken” has become so ordinary like a cliche so memorized but never realized as nobody seems to fulfill their promises these days. Every day we read and watch of stories of unfaithful couples and lovers, of irresponsible leaders and officials betraying the people’s trust and worst, of clergymen not only disregarding but even prostituting their sacred vows of poverty, obedience and celibacy.
It all begins in childhood when we fail kids with our words to them no matter how simple these may be. Kids eventually grow up frustrated, disappointed and mistrustful because the grown ups never meant what they said, never keeping their promises. Thus becoming a vicious circle of children realizing promises are never meant to be kept that probably when they grow up, they take kids also for granted and never fulfilled their promises.
Promises have lost their sanctity, becoming a mere “carrot” to entice or appease even dupe everyone, from kids to grown ups into believing into something never meant to be kept and fulfilled. It is a very sad truth we have often made a reality when we carelessly promise things we are not bent on fulfilling or would simply forget.
Perhaps, it is not yet too late for us to strive daily in making true our broken promises, especially to the young like the children.
Photo by Mr. Paulo Sillonar, 07 June 2023.
What moved most in fulfilling my promise to our Grade 4 students in giving them ice cream after our Mass this afternoon was when a little girl seated in front approached to inform me that they still have four other non-Catholic classmates who stayed behind in their classroom. She was so concerned they might not have a Cornetto later.
Ohhh… this time my heart melted just like ice cream in the sun.
First, again I realized how kids hold on to our promises. That girl in front must have been so convinced I would buy them Cornetto ice cream after. And secondly, I felt God touching me, consoling me, assuring me of a great future in the next generation represented by that little girl about nine or ten years old so concerned with her other four classmates left behind in their classroom!
Just an ice cream that would cost so little to me amounted to so much, maybe everything to that little girl. How amazing and lovely, is it not?
When I got to their classroom with four flavors of Cornetto, everybody was so glad I have fulfilled my promise, saying thank you as I handed each with an ice cream cone. And that was when I also asked them to promise they would be good, would study their lessons daily and would pray always. As I left their classroom amid their screams enjoying their ice cream, I felt humming this part of one of my favorite love songs by Daryl Hall and John Oates from 1997:
If a promise ain't enough
Then a touch says everything
Got to hold you in my arms
Till you feel what I mean
Know that my heart just tells me what to say
But words can only prove so much
If a promise ain't enough
Hold onto my love
What have you promised lately, to yourself and to others? Have a fulfilling evening ahead.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Sunday in the Second Week of Ordinary Time, Cycle A, 15 January 2023
Isaiah 9:1-6 ><]]]]'> Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-18 ><]]]]'> Matthew 18:1-5, 10
Photo from reddit.com.
The photo above is a sculpture called “Love” by Ukrainian artist Alexander Milov he created in 2015. I have kept the photo as a bookmark in one of the books I have read and saw it recently. Milov rightly called it “Love” because it shows how that mystery of love expressed to us by God in Christ’s coming continues if we could only be like a child!
See how the sculpture depicts two adults after a disagreement sitting with their back to each other while their inner child in both of them wanting to connect. What a beautiful expression of our condition when despite our vast learning and knowledge, we seem to can’t live without ego and pride, hatred and grudges that prevent us from forgiving and moving on in life. The free spirit exhibited by children in this sculpture shows our true nature which is the very core of Jesus Christ’s teaching, of being a child always.
At that time the disciples approached Jesus and said, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a child over, placed it in their midst, and said, “Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven… See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father.”
Matthew 18:1-3, 10
On this Sunday of the second week in Ordinary Time, we extend our Christmas celebration for a day with the Feast of Sto. Niño or Child Jesus in honor of the crucial role of that image gifted by Magellan to Queen Juana of Cebu 500 years ago. It was the Sto. Niño who actually conquered our country to become the only Christian nation in this part of the world – proof enough of Christ’s teaching about being a child so powerful in God’s eyes!
This Feast is a very timely for us too as we go into the busyness of our lives to be reminded anew even for a day of the meaning of Christmas, of Jesus Christ’s coming in love. He came because of love, coming as love himself by being a child, an infant.
It was only recently as a chaplain in the hospital have I felt and realized why a baby is called a “bundle of joy” – my heart melts whenever I visit mothers with their newborn babies especially twins. It is said that even the most hardened criminals are softened upon seeing babies and children. And that is because of what Jesus told us today in the gospel,
“See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father.”
Matthew 16:10
What is there with children and the face of God?
I think that is God’s gift of love in each of us, so innately in us right during our moment of conception when life begins as the Church rightly insists based on Sacred Scriptures. It is nurtured and cared for first by the mother that even after we have matured, we call on our mother when surprised or shocked as in “Inang ko po!” or “Nanay ko po!”. See how those approaching death would always speak of seeing their departed mother, coming and visiting them.
This shows and proves to us the deep impact of a mother’s love to each of us because she is always the first to make us experience God’s love in her womb that even long after our umbilical cords have been cut off at birth, there remains an invisible line always between us and our mothers.
It is not only with our mother but also with everyone. This love innately gifted upon each of us by God who is our very first love remains in us through our family and friends and later the people we meet in life as living representatives of that invisible love of God in us. This is what Jesus meant when he warned his disciples in the gospel today,
“See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father.”
Matthew 18:10
How sad when this love that has always been in us and in the world suddenly becomes unrecognizable – even unrealistic – because of the darkness of sins and evil. When the child is born and begins to see, experience and realize the absence of love in the family, of a lack of that love between the child’s mother and father who quarrel or separate, or when the child himself/herself is threatened or hurt by anyone he/she looks up to, then trouble happens.
Children can only grasp the gift of life and of their existence when they experience the concreteness, the reality of love first right in their homes. One thing we adults always forget which I insist on every man and woman entering marriage that it is always the children who bear all the pains and sufferings when they separate. Experts claim that criminals mostly come from families where children witness domestic violence, especially when the husband beats the wife.
It is unfortunate that today’s gospel did not include Jesus Christ’s most terrible curse against those inflicting harm on children when he said in the same scene that “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and drowned in the depths of the sea” (Mt. 16:6).
As chaplain of a university, I have been hearing the confessions of our students, recently from junior and senior high school. After listening to their stories and woes, I tell them point blank about their parents and family, of the love among them and they start crying. I do not blame parents for their apparent lack of love for their children nor for their separation nor for their need to work abroad; I stress to young people human love is always imperfect. Only God can love us perfectly.
When the world and the people around us miserably fail in showing us the face of our loving God, that is when all the more we have to be like children anew as Jesus tells us today. It is is in going inside our inner child within, in becoming like a child trusting in the great love of God in us like when we were in our mother’s womb can we grasp again this invisible love poured upon us in Jesus Christ.
This is the challenge for us of the Sto. Niño: let us keep the face of God aglow in us, on our face and in our lives like the light Isaiah spoke of in the first reading when the Messiah comes. Anyone who lives in the gospel of Jesus Christ, even amid all pains and sufferings, would always be aglow with that radiant face of God filled with love and mercy, kindness and compassion despite our many imperfections. The beloved disciple said it so well, “No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us” (1 Jn. 4:12). Simply love, love, and love. No ifs nor buts. Just love.
Let us remain children of God most especially in our adulthood like Jesus Christ who upon his death on the Cross called God Abba – Father – because he has always been the Son, the Child of God. Remember how at the Last Supper when he gave the new commandment of loving one another as he loves us: it is “new” because unlike the love the world knows which is all feelings and self-centered, Christ’s love is rooted in God through him, in him, and with him.
Let us pray:
Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in Christ
every spiritual blessing in the heavens (Eph. 1:3),
as he chose us to be born
and be filled with his love as
icons and representatives of his love;
enlighten the eyes of our hearts, Father,
so we may always answer your call
in your Son Jesus Christ for us to follow
him in being like a child
manifesting your face full of
warmth and love,
kindness and care
especially to those
feeling unloved.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Tuesday in the First Week of Advent, 29 November 2022
Isaiah 11:1-10 ><))))*> + ><))))*> + ><))))*> Luke 10:21-24
God our loving Father:
Thank you for this gift of Advent,
especially for the gift of our guide,
your prophet Isaiah who was the first
to announce from afar
the coming of the Christ,
your Son Jesus.
And today he speaks your words
that are so beautiful and lovely
but, so radical and contrary
to what we believe,
to what we always hold on to.
On that day, a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom.
Isaiah 11:1
How wonderful,
that when Jesus finally came,
he called us to be small again,
to be weak and insignificant
like children even to the point
of being nothing, of losing and
dying in one's self.
A day
a shoot sprouting
and a stump.
Then, a bud
shall blossom.
Empty me, O God,
of myself and everything
that fills me so that you
may fill me with your spirit
and form me into your
desired being;
keep me rooted in you
through Christ who had come,
would come again and
comes always.
If I have to be reduced
even to a mere stump,
let it be, Lord;
grant me patience to await
the sprouting of a shoot
until the bud comes
forth to bloom
and make us experience
Isaiah's prophecy:
"Then the wolf shall be a guest
of the lamb, the leopard shall
lie down with the kid;
the calf and young lion shall
browse together with a little child
to guide them.
The cow and the bear shall be
neighbors, together their young
shall rest while the lion eat hay
like the ox.
The baby shall play by the cobra's den,
and the child lay his hand on the
adder's lair" (cf. Is. 11:6-9).
Keep us awake, Jesus
as we await and work
for your peaceful presence
here and now. Amen.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 25 August 2022
Photo by author, 20 August 2022.
I recently attended a children’s party when the youngest daughter of a friend, Mimi, turned seven years old. And I was so glad that I came because of the great fun I had at the magic show, clapping my hands and cheering along with all the kids and their parents.
It was so “aliw” as we say in Filipino.
Very comforting.
Not just entertaining.
Photo by author, 20 August 2022.
There was total sense of wonder in me, of pure joy seeing doves and flowers suddenly coming out of the magician’s clenched fists or folded handkerchief even if I knew it was just a trick or a sleigh of hand.
The most beautiful part of the party, of the joy and comfort was the chance for me to be like a child again as Jesus had repeatedly told us in the gospel that “unless you become like little children, you shall never inherit the kingdom of heaven.”
Imagine the great joy and comfort of believing again at what one sees and hears.
Of suspending reason and logic.
Of just enjoying the moment, of not thinking so much.
Of being like a child again at the circus or fair – “perya” as we call it in the province.
Most of all, of being caught in the magic of wonder and surprise, eagerly awaiting what’s next or how did it happen as you scratch your head while looking at the person next to you with those eyes so bewildered as you laugh out loud because you both know it was just a trick yet so true, so real.
It was so comforting because I had lost senses of time, of reason and of reality that often lead us to many anxieties of things to do and accomplish. Like Mimi the birthday celebrator, I felt I have grown and matured after regaining life, of enjoying life, of believing again in the many mysteries of this life that we can never explain nor even understand at all except to accept simply as it is like children.
Photo by Mr. Red Santiago of his son in our former parish in Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan, January 2020.
To be like a child means to owe one’s existence to another, of being open to every possibility in life, of trusting that there is someone greater than us or anyone we call God who can talk to us through others who may even be different from us like the magician in his tuxedo and magic wand. That is why magic shows are not only entertaining but also comforting or nakakaaliw in Filipino. The word comfort is from the two Latin words cum fortis that literally mean “to strengthen”.
This is the reason why I think children “grow so fast” – they are always surprised because they are open that they are emboldened to try everything, trusting they can do it, that somebody is watching over them, that they are in good hands. Try observing an infant asleep in a crib when suddenly would kick his/her feet or move hands. My mom used to tell me that when babies are surprised – nagugulat – that means they were growing.
Photo by Ms. Jo Villafuerte, sunrise at Atok, Benguet, 01 September 2019.
See how the Blessed Virgin Mary had grown and matured after being told by the angel that she would be the Mother of the Messiah to be sent by God. She was probably 15 or 16 at that time but had kept that child-like attitude of openness, of being surprised which her Son would be teaching later. Mary must have been so wrapped in awe and wonder upon hearing the angel’s annunciation to her.
But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
Luke 1:29
Try to feel the resulting joy and fear of Mary in hearing the good news of the birth of the Messiah through her!
Right there, we could feel her faith in God at work, listening intently as the angel explained everything to her.
In the Old Testament, we find Jacob the younger son of Isaac having that same attitude of being like a child, of being open to God coming in every possibility. Remember when he fled to escape the murderous plot of his elder brother Esau after he had duped their father in bestowing his blessing to him?
On his way toward Haran, Jacob stopped at a certain shrine at sundown and took one of the stones there to place under his head as he slept for the night. It was then when he dreamt of “stairway to heaven” where angels were going up and down before God who spoke to assure him of his protection.
When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he exclaimed, “Truly, the Lord is in this spot, although I did not know it!” In solemn wonder he cried out: “How awesome is this shrine! This is nothing else but an abode of God, and that is the gateway to heaven!”
Genesis 28:16-17
Photo by Dr. Mai b. Dela Peña, Mt. Carmel, Israel, 2016.
Every time we are surprised by something or someone, it brings out the child in us, our wonderful sense of wonder, of believing, of trusting, of being open. Ultimately, of living again, of forging on in life amid all the darkness and uncertainties around us because we have that firm faith in a loving and merciful God who is also a Father to us.
See how this call for us to be childlike, of being surprised has become difficult even almost impossible to achieve in our world that has become so technical and “sophisticated” as we seek to shape and manipulate everything according to our own design.
In this age of the social media all around us, nothing is hidden anymore. Everything is bared open even to the skin and bones we enjoy so much like in Tiktok as if we are a planet of sex-starved, foul-mouthed, filthy rich and wanna-be’s flaunting everything and anything that can be shown by the camera.
Unfortunately, the world of “macho” men and glamorous women we love to relish with delight in the secular and even religious world in all of its trappings of fads and fashion and “hard talks”, of showmanships that we try so hard to project cannot hide the hypocrisies within, of keeping grips and control on everyone, leaving us more empty, more lost, and more alienated with one another and with our very selves.
Photo by author, 20 August 2022.
Many times in life when we feel tired and burned out, we go somewhere for some “me time”, of recharging. But, after some time, we feel lethargic again that we go out of town to find one’s self until we find nowhere else to go for retreats because the problem is actually within us.
Be like a child. Stop insisting of being an adult who knows what he/she is doing.
Set aside everything, especially your own agendas in life and open yourself to God and others to allow yourself to be surprised again, to regain that spark of rediscovering simple things without much thinking and reasoning, of just believing and be comforted that everything in this life is taken cared of by God. Like that magician in a children’s party.
May your week be filled with more surprises to gladden your heart and your spirit! God bless!
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