The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Thursday, Fifth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I, 13 February 2025 Genesis 2:18-25 ><0000'> + ><0000'> + ><0000'> Mark 7:24-30
Photo by author, Fatima Ave., Valenzuela City, July 2024.
Your words today, O Lord, are very striking: in the gospel you were seeking rest while a Syrophoenician woman - a pagan and outsider - was seeking healing of her daughter; in the first reading, God felt it was not good for man to be alone and he cast him into a deep sleep, took one of his ribs and made it into a woman; in both instances, you listened and heard O God the needs of your people whether it was loudly voiced out like that pagan woman or simply kept in the man's heart.
And that's the good news so good for us to hear today: you listen. Always.
Likewise, in both stories, there is always a giving up on our part for us to be heard and answered by you, Lord: the Syrophoenician begged and disregarded her very self for her daughter possessed by the demon while the man gave names to all the creatures and animals given him; moreover, the man had to lose his one rib to give way for the woman's coming in order for him to have company while in the gospel, the pagan woman accepted her being a foreigner, an outsider that Jesus reintegrated her into the fold.
Many times, Lord, we feel left out in you, we feel you not listening nor hearing our deepest pleas and longings when in fact you know them so well that you only await us to come to you and voice them out, express them to you trustingly. Amen.
Photo by author, Fatima Ave., Valenzuela City, July 2024.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Tuesday in the Twenty-fifth Week of Ordinary Time, Year I, 26 September 2023
Ezra 6:7-8, 12, 14-20 ><))))*> + ><))))*> + ><))))*> Luke 8:19-20
Dome of the sanctuary of the Malolos Cathedral.
God our loving Father,
thank you for the gift
of the sense of belonging;
every one of us long
to be one with others,
to belong and
be accepted
in one's own family,
circle of friends,
and in various
groups and clubs
that help us grow and
mature as persons.
Sad to say,
many times our sense
of belonging is hinged
on its physical and
outside appearances.
The mother of Jesus and his brothers came to him but were unable to join because of the crowd. He was told, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside and they wish to see you.” He said to them in reply, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it.”
Luke 8:19-21
More than our
blood relationships
and other basis of
ties as family and friends,
as peoples and a nation,
make us realize
dear Father that our
belongingness is more
in our hearts;
true belonging is
when our hearts
are linked together
feeling and believing
in you through
Jesus Christ.
Teach us the same
lessons learned by your
people who were exiled
and have to rebuild the
temple of Jerusalem upon
their return: nothing indeed
is permanent in this world
except change; only you,
O God, who does not change!
May we continue
to change into a better
person, a more loving
and kinder fellow,
more understanding
and faithful to
family and friends
in you through Christ;
we pray for our beloved
family and friends
whose hearts have been
far from us because
of hurts and misunderstandings
in the past; we pray for those
physically present with
everyone yet
emotionally
and spiritually absent,
living so far away
from those by their side.
Enable us to open
our hearts anew to your
Holy Spirit that we may
be healed of our hurts
and begin to feel one
again with others
in faith,
hope and
love in Jesus.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Wednesday in the Fifth Week of Easter, 18 May 2022
Acts 15:1-6 ><}}}}*> + <*{{{{>< John 15:1-8
Photo by author, February 2022.
Lord Jesus Christ,
you are the "true vine,
we are the branches...
Let us remain in you,
just as you remain in us"
(John 15:4).
Today I pray for diversity
without the divisions that come
along this beautiful development
among us when we learn to accept
one another amid our many
differences in color and cultures,
traditions and roots.
May we focus more on what is
common among us than on
what differentiates us from each other.
While it is true that we have to
keep some of our traditions from
the past, make us realize the need
to always assess its centrality to
our faith in you as well as its
meaningfulness in our practices.
Keep us open and sincere in
keeping up with the signs of the
times without losing sight of
you, dear Jesus as the very
core of our being together
as one Body, one Church.
May we emulate the Apostles
and the presbyters to enter
into a dialogue in resolving
issues of differences among us
(cf. Acts 15:6), a very fine example
of your kind of peace being given
to us that calls for sacrifices and
dying into one's self, exactly the
meaning of being pruned like
the vine in order to bear much
fruit in you (Jn.15:2-3).
May we always focus on you,
Lord Jesus, so that we may keep
our communion intact amid our
diversities. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Fourth Sunday in Easter-C, 08 May 2022
Acts 13:14, 43-52 ><}}}}*> Revelation 7:9, 14-17 ><}}}}*> John 10:27-30
The Good Shepherd is the earliest portrayal of our Lord Jesus Christ in art. Mostly done in paintings in the catacombs of Rome, Jesus the Good Shepherd is shown as a young, muscular man to signify his eternity carrying on his shoulders a lost sheep.
But that imagery of a shepherd taking care of the lost sheep and flock was an original thought among peoples in the ancient Near East that included Israel. Kings in Babylonia and Assyria regarded themselves as shepherds tasked by their gods to care especially for the weak. This concept we also find in the Old Testament like in the Books of Psalms and of the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel where God promised to send true “shepherds after his own heart” (Jer. 3:15) who shall lead his flock Israel with justice back to him.
That prophecy is fulfilled in Jesus Christ who is not just a shepherd but “the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep” (Jn.10:11) because he is one with his flock.
Oneness is an inner sense of belongingness in personhood and experiences, a common union or communion of selves and experiences like in Jesus becoming human like us to be one in our pains and sufferings and death so that we may be like him in his glorious resurrection and eternal life.
Jesus said: “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand. The Father and I are one.”
John 10:27-28, 30
Photo from Pinterest.com.
Jesus knows us, gives us eternal life; we hear and follow him.
To know in Jewish thought is not merely an intellectual activity of having information and details especially when used in relation with persons. To know somebody means to have a relationship. Knowing is belonging.
Jesus as the Good Shepherd knows us his sheep because we belong to him, and whether we like it or not, we know him precisely because we are his! Recall that during his trial before Pilate, Jesus declared “You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice” (Jn.18:37).
Photo by Dr. Mylene A. Santos, MD, 2020.
From the very start, we have always belonged to God so that out of his great love for us he sent us his Son Jesus Christ so we can find our way back home to him. We are all God’s children created in his “image and likeness” who have become in many instances prodigal sons and daughters living like lost and injured sheep who need all the care and redemption to gain our status again as the Father’s beloved.
Our “belonging” to God is different from “possessing” in the same manner we belong to our parents or spouses to their partner. Human belongingness is way different from things as belongings, although so many times, it happens that people treat persons as things and objects to be possessed than subjects to be loved and cherished.
What do we mean? Children belong to parents and spouses belong to their partner but they can never be considered as possessions or property to be used and manipulated. People belong to one another like children to parents, husband to wife, and wife to husband as most cherished possessions in the sense that they are gifts from God, so unique in one’s self, free to grow and mature as a person. We belong to one another in mutual responsibility not as property; hence, the need for us to accept and support each other in love which leads to deeper communion and oneness through intimacy that extends to eternity!
Now we see why Jesus said he knows his sheep and gives them eternal life. Here we find the image of Jesus the Good Shepherd is in fact the image of Christ the King of the universe which sheds light on his very kingship as seen by John in his vision in our second reading today “of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands” (Rev. 7:9) which is reminiscent of his triumphal entry to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.
In the first reading we have also heard how from the very beginning, it has been God’s plan to lead all men to salvation in Jesus Christ. Despite the setbacks encountered by Paul and Barnabas in Antioch when they were rejected by their fellow Jews, their decision to turn to the gentiles to proclaim the Gospel was in fulfillment of of the Lord’s will that “have made them a light to the Gentiles to be instruments of salvation to the ends of the earth” (Acts 13:47).
The mark of a true shepherd is like a light who leads us to Jesus Christ and his values of prayer, life, persons, family, and justice among others. Here is the distinction between the true shepherd and a thief – a robber does not pass through Jesus, the gate of the sheep (Jn.10:1ff). A thief like many politicians and dictators including their handlers see the flock as things and properties they own and possess who can be bought and be forgotten, even disregarded, until the next elections. (So, vote wisely by listening more to Jesus than to anyone like the candidates’ endorsers.)
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 2018.
Belonging and mutuality
Human belongingness calls for mutuality for it to truly lead to oneness and communion. Jesus said he knows us and gives us eternal life because according to him, we his sheep hear his voice and follow him (v.27).
Do we listen to him and follow him?
Today we are also celebrating Mother’s Day. What a wonderful tribute to mothers who are indeed one of the truest good shepherdess in the world – the one to whom we all belong to, having cared for us from the very beginning in their womb.
Mothers are the most loving, most merciful, and most forgiving of all persons in the world, just like Jesus our Good Shepherd but sad to say, the one we most hurt when we disrespect her, from answering her back to swearing and sadly, when we disobey her. Ironically, when things go wrong with us and our lives, the first person we go to and accepts us is our mother too!
So many times, mothers bear all pains and hardships in life just to see their children fulfilled in life, choosing to suffer and cry in silence to hide the great difficulties they face daily, both physically and emotionally. That is how loving mothers are that in the Old Testament, God introduced himself as a mother, “Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you” (Is.49:15).
It is so easy to say “we love our mom” like claiming “Jesus is our Good Shepherd” but it is entirely another thing to live as a mother’s child or Christ’s sheep.
The grace of this Good Shepherd Sunday is Christ’s coming to us not only to lead us to greener pastures but to renew our relationships, our belonging to him and the Father to experience fulfillment in life. Whether at home or in our nation, may we listen more to Jesus by being mutual in our respect and love for one another and to our Motherland too!
May we have a peaceful and matured elections this Monday! Amen.
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