Category: conversion

Our eyes that see God in others

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe XXVI-C, 29 September 2019

Amos 6:1.4-7 ><)))*> 1 Timothy 6:11-16 . ><)))*> Luke 16:19-31

Photo by Mr. Jim Marpa, 2018.

Last Sunday we focused on our hands that we use to pray and serve in reflecting the parable of the wise steward. Today, let us “look” into our eyes that see God in others as we reflect on another parable only St. Luke has, the rich man and Lazarus.

Eyes are the “windows of one’s soul”.

Eyes reveal what is inside us: how we look and move our eyes, the sparkle or dullness in our eyes indicate the kind of person within. Eyes never lie for they reveal if we are telling the truth or not. Most of all, eyes do not only direct us to sights outside but even visions to beyond what we can see.

This is very clear in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, inviting us to take a deeper look into ourselves, on others, and with the things we possess like money and wealth.

Jesus said to the Pharisees: “There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of scraps that fell from the rich man’s table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores. When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried, and from the netherworld, where he was in torment, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.”

Luke 16:19-23
Photo by Mr. Jim Marpa, September 2019.

For the third consecutive Sunday, we again heard another well-known parable proper to St. Luke like the prodigal son two weeks ago and the wise steward last Sunday. Today’s parable of the rich man and Lazarus follows the same thread of last week’s wise steward which is about the thorny issue of money. But again, there is something deeper than that which is the call for daily conversion by always looking beyond what we can see.

In this parable, Jesus never said the rich man was bad that is why he went to hell or the “netherworld”. Neither did he also claim that the poor man was holy that led him into the “bosom of Abraham” which is heaven. Jesus only described their daily life: the rich man lived in affluence with fine clothings and sumptuous meals while the poor was very destitute feeding on scraps falling from the former’s table as dogs licked the sores that covered his body.

The only critical clues Jesus gives us are the name of the poor man – Lazarus – which means “God has rescued” or El’azar in Hebrew and the final scene in the afterlife.

Let it be clear that the issue here is how people, rich and poor alike, can be blinded by money and wealth that they fail or even refuse to see God and others as brothers and sisters that lead them into evil and sins.

Abraham replied (to the rich man), “My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented. Moreover, between us and you a great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours.”

Luke16:25-26
Photo by Noelle Otto on Pexels.com

The sad reality is that this parable continues to happen in our days when so many of us are oblivious of the poverty and miseries afflicting many of the poor among us.

We are that rich man who has no name but have eyes that refuse to see and recognize Jesus in everyone especially the poor and suffering. How tragic in this age of social media where everything and everyone is exposed and seen, we have become blind to the plight of those around us. No need to look far but right in our own family when members are on their own without bothering to know how everyone is doing in life.

In my 21 years of priesthood, I have realized that most often, the people who truly suffer are often the Lazarus among us who prefer to be silent, to bear all their pains trusting only in God who would vindicate and raise them in the end. The Lazarus are the poor not just in material wealth but “poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 5:3) who completely trust in God.

Reading further that version of the Beatitudes of St. Matthew, we find Jesus saying

Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.

Matthew 5:8
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

The clean of heart are the Lazarus, the poor who try to find God in this life even amid the many sufferings. Our minds and intellect, including our eyes can never see God. As the Little Prince would say, “what is essential is invisible to the eye; it is only with the heart that one can truly see”. Very true!

A clean heart is a loving heart. When we speak of the heart, we also mean person for the heart embodies the whole person. Therefore, a loving heart is the Lazarus, the one who tries to see God, the one who envisions the end that he is willing to sacrifice, to forgive and to welcome the lost.

Lazarus the poor beggar went to heaven because he has a clean heart unlike the rich man who refused to see beyond himself and his affluence. They are the ones being reprimanded in the first reading by the Prophet Amos, the “complacent” people who may have also included the priestly class of Israel unmindful of the real situation of the people because they have been insulated from realities by the perks and good life of wealth and power (Amos 6:1).

Most people have eyes that have sights but only a few have a vision in life. People with a vision in life are the ones who can see beyond the ordinary, they are the dreamers who dream with eyes wide open working hard to make their dreams happen in reality.

Lazarus is a visionary and a dreamer who saw beyond the door of the rich man, beyond his hunger and sickness the glory of God in eternal life. The rich man on the other hand only had sights for what is “here and now”; and, that is what he is so afraid of with his five brothers still alive who have no vision of the afterlife, no vision of God among others in the present life like him.

My dear friends, Jesus is inviting us today while there is still time to go back to the path of conversion, to see beyond ordinary things and see the more essential, the more lasting things that according to St. Paul in the second reading prepare us for eternal life like “righteousness, devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness” (1Tim. 6:11).

Let us listen to the words of God found in the Sacred Scriptures that Abraham referred to in the parable as “Moses and the prophets” (Lk.16:29).

Most of all, let us listen to Jesus Christ, the only one who had risen from the dead (cf. Lk. 16:31) who enables us to see him on the face of everyone we meet, giving us a vision of heaven by helping us in fulfilling our mission as his disciples in proclaiming the coming of the kingdom of God. Amen.

Confessing Jesus Christ

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Feast of St. Andrew Kim Taegon and Companion Martyrs, 20 September 2019

1 Timothy 6:2-12 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Luke 8:1-3

St. Andrew Kim Taegon, first Korean priest with his lay associate St. Paul Chong Hasan with 113 other Koreans died as martyrs between 1839 and 1867.

Thank you very much Lord Jesus for this wonderful Friday… not because it is the end of another week of work and studies but most of all, to remind us in this modern time how we must still confess our faith in you with the feast of the first Korean martyrs led by their first native-born priest St. Andrew Kim Taegon and his lay associate St. Paul Chong Hasan.

Every time we think of Korea, first things that come to our minds are their modern technologies and their very hip K-Pop culture.

How beautiful to reflect that deep in their modernity are the blood spilled and values instilled by their early Christians who have truly followed St. Paul’s admonition to St. Timothy.

But you, man of God, avoid all this. Instead, pursue righteousness, devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness. Compete well for the faith. Lay hold of eternal life, to which you were called when you made the noble confession in the presence of many witnesses.

1 Timothy 6:11-12

Amid the modern life we now have, remind us always Lord like St. Paul that our fulfillment lies in you alone who is coming back again at the end of time. As we await for your return, may we live out our faith in you amid the changing times, always holding on to things of the above and eternal that never change and shall remain the same.

Like your women companion in your ministry, teach us Jesus to remain simple in following you without much fanfare and pomp pageantry. Amen.

Photo by James Lucian on Pexels.com

Prayer to have the look of faith

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Saturday, Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, 14 September 2019

Numbers 21:4-9 ><)))*> Philippians 2:6-11 ><)))*> John 3:13-17

The Brazen Serpent Monument on Mt. Nebo inside the Franciscan Monastery in Jordan, May 2019.

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you. Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.”

As we celebrate today the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, we widen our gaze on your holy cross, Lord Jesus, that remains standing to remind us of your love and mercy, of your abiding presence and light amidst the many darkness enveloping us today.

When we look around us, when we read the newspapers, watch the TV and listen to the radio, we cannot help but cry, even complain deep within like the Israelites in the wilderness why all the miseries still happening around us with all the killings and injustices going on.

Sometimes, Lord, the powers of evil and sin seem to prevail over the world cast in widespread darkness with all the chaos and confusions going on.

But here lies the beauty of your Cross, Jesus Christ: it does not deny the sufferings and pains caused by our sins that led to your death that still continue to this day and cause our grave sufferings; however, despite this gravity of our sins, your Cross reminds us too of your unending love and mercy.

More powerful than evil and darkness are your love and light, O sweet Jesus made manifest on your Cross.

Grant us that gaze of faith, the look of faith needed by so many of us travelling in this wilderness to always see you Lord who was sent by the Father because he so loved the world that whoever believes in you might not perish but gain eternal life. Amen.

Our sense of sinfulness

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Friday, Week XXIII, Year I, 13 September 2019

1 Timothy 1: 1-2, 12-14 ><}}}*> ><}}}*> ><}}}*> Luke 6:39-42

From Google.

Thanks be to you, O God our loving Father for this merciful day of Friday. Today, the whole Church praises you with that beautiful Psalm 51, “The Miserere Nobis”.

Have mercy on me, God, in your kindness. In your compassion blot out my offense. O wash me more and more from my guilt and cleanse me from my sin.

My offenses truly I know them; my sin in always before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned; what is evil in your sight I have done… O see, in guilt I was born, a sinner was I conceived.

From the Breviary

Like St. Paul in today’s first reading, give us the grace of having that “sense of sinfulness” within us, Lord.

So many times, we deny the presence of sin in our lives as we keep on justifying our actions, always having that feeling of uprightness, of never erring. Worst, we have become blind guides you have mentioned, O Lord, in the gospel today.

Give us the grace of a deep sense of sinfulness within us, Jesus, so that like St. Paul and all the other saints who were all sinners before, including Dimas the thief who died with you on the Cross on that Good Friday, we may also have that sense of the Father’s rich mercy.

Garden of Gethsemane, May 2019.

Let us not be blinded by our self-righteousness that make us deny the presence of sin in us that ultimately deny ourselves of your mercy. May we realise that only those who have been forgiven can understand what it means to receive the Father’s mercy. Amen.

Arising in Christ

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Wednesday, Week XXIII, Year I, 11 September 2019

Colossians 3:1-11 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Luke 6:20-26

Petra in Jordan. Photo by author, May 2019.

Lord Jesus Christ, today your apostle Paul calls us to “Think of what is above, not of what is on earth” (Col. 3: 2).

Then, in the gospel also today, you raised your eyes toward your disciples and began your “sermon on the plain” (Lk. 6:20)

What is up there, Lord Jesus, that we have to look up, that you have to raise your eyes looking at us?

When I was young, I was so afraid of heights but I have always wanted to be on top to see the beautiful sights that I did my best climbing trees and walls, even rooftops.

Now I am older, I still yearn to be on top to enjoy the sights but too weak to climb even the stairs.

All I can do now Lord is raise my eyes up to the skies, to treetops and mountains to enjoy the moments of looking up, and most of all, wondering at all your wonderful blessings to me — right here in my heart to find you and see you looking up at me!

What a beautiful lesson today of looking up, of seeing ourselves exalted by you despite our weaknesses and sinfulness. What a wonderful teaching about our new stature as your brothers and sisters, O Jesus, redeemed and loved. What a way of teaching us of our new life in you, dearest Christ and of the need to live accordingly as Christians!

So many times, we look down at ourselves, Lord, forgetting our blessedness in being poor and hungry, weeping and rejected in the name of your love and mercy.

Teach us to realise and value our being blessed in you so that our lives and actions may conform to your beatitudes. Amen.

Being immersed in Christ

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Tuesday, Week XXIII, Year I, 10 September 2019

Colossians 2:6-15 >< )))*> <*(((>< Luke 6:12-19

Blessed Sacrament Chapel of the Sanctuary of San Pietro Pietrelcina-Nuovo Chiesa in Italy. Photo by Rev. Fr. Gerry Pascual, February 2019.

“Brothers and sisters: As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him, rooted in him and built upon him and established in the faith as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. You were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead… he brought you to life along with him.”

Colossians 2:6, 12, 13b

Praise and glory to you, our Lord Jesus Christ! Thank you for dying with us in our sins, forgiving us and raising us to new life in you in the sacrament of baptism!

Let us be immersed in you, Lord Jesus.

Let us claim our new life in you by walking with you who is our Way and Truth and Life.

To be immersed in you, O Christ, is to be free and faithful to lovingly serve you with all our mind, heart and soul. Being immersed in you is letting go of our pains and hurts in the past to start anew in you. To be immersed in you, O Christ, is to see more the goodness within each one of us because of you, the most holy one.

May we heed the call of St. Paul today not to be swayed by false beliefs and other philosophies not rooted in you, claiming elemental and dark powers here on earth.

You alone are the sovereign power here on earth and the entire universe, Lord Jesus.

And the good news is that through baptism, you have made us share in your “cosmic victory” of the Resurrection. More than a rite of initiation, our baptism is a sharing in your great power here on earth to conquer evil with good.

Let us be your modern “apostles” — an apostolein, someone sent ahead of you, someone with special relationship with you, someone truly immersed in you, very personal with you, Lord Jesus, who reign forever and ever. Amen.

The grudges that fester within us

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Thursday, Passion of John the Baptist, 29 August 2019

Jeremiah 1:17-19 ><}}}*> ><}}}*> ><}}}*> Mark 6:17-29

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Today, O Lord, I pray for my hardening heart. I have a festering anger deep in my heart against some people who have hurt me. And I am harboring a grudge against them like Herodias, the mistress of Herod.

Herodias harbored a grudge against John the Baptist and wanted to kill him but was unable to do so. She had an opportunity one day when Herod, on his birthday, gave a banquet for is courtiers, his military officers, and the leading men of Galilee. Herodias’s own daughter came in and performed a dance that delighted Herod and his guests. The king said to the girl, “Ask of me whatever you wish and I will grant it to you.” So she went out and said to her mother, “What shall I ask for?” She replied, “The head of John the Baptist.”

Mark 6:19, 21-22, 24

What is so shameful, O Lord, like Herodias, I want to have the heads of those people. I want to get even with the pains they have inflicted against me. I want revenge.

But more shameful, Lord Jesus, is, unlike Herodias, I have not done anything wrong against these people. And no amount of pain can justify my grudge, my anger, my hatred against them.

This is what makes it more painful with me: the festering anger in my heart is slowly poisoning my soul, my very being.

Teach me, Jesus, to bear all pains like John the Baptist, suffering for you, suffering with you.

Give me the courage and strength to “gird my loin” as you told the Prophet Jeremiah so I may be able to control myself and be on guard against becoming like Herodias or, worst, Herod, who beheaded John in prison.

Let me rise above my instincts and feelings to be not like the evil doers and fake people who fight and malign me because you have assured me that they will never prevail over me, that you will deliver me for you are always with me. Amen.

“The Severed Head of John the Baptist”, a sculpture by the French artist Auguste Rodin in 1875. This is probably a representation of a guillotined criminal’s head during that time. From Google.

Our foolish hearts

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Monday, Week XX, Year I, 19 August 2019

Judges 2:11-19 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Matthew 19:16-22

Grotto at Baguio (Mirador Hill), February 2019.

Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, he would be with the judge and save them from the power of their enemies as long as the judge lived; it was thus the Lord took pity on their distressful cries of affliction under their oppressors. But when the judge died, they would relapse and do worse than their ancestors, following other gods in service and worship, relinquishing none of their evil practices or stubborn conduct.

Judges 2:11-19

Sometimes I wonder why, O God, you did not just fix our hearts on you so we would remain in you?

Like the experiences of your people during the time of judges in Israel, our lives have become like one big vicious circle too difficult to break but so easy to predict: we turn away from you, our lives go wayward, we repent, you forgive us, then we go back to you, we are blessed and then, after some period of peace and prosperity, we again turn away from you, our lives go wayward and the cycle continues.

What a foolish heart we have, O Lord.

But, you are so filled with love and mercy for us, believing in us always for the ability to change and remain in you despite our weaknesses.

Thank you for never completely abandoning us, for always having that gaze filled with love like Jesus looking onto that young man in the gospel who walked away sad because he could not completely commit himself to serving you and loving you with all his heart.

Keep us faithful to you, enlighten our minds and our hearts to trust only in you even if the journey is full of dangers and difficulties.

We pray in a special way for our brothers and sisters suffering with various forms of cancer. May the prayers of St. Ezequiel Moreno grant them healing. Amen.

From Google.

True greatness

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul
Tuesday, Memorial of St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus, 13 August 2019
Deuteronomy 31:1-8 >< )))*> <*((( >< Matthew 18:1-5. 10. 12-14
Photo by Jim Marpa, 2018.

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. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 18:1-4

I must confess to you, O Lord Jesus Christ, that so often I act and think like your disciples, asking you “who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?”

And it is not really to know who that person is or what kind of a person is that.

It is more about me – I want to be the greatest and be looked up to. Or, be affirmed and accepted. Especially by you.

When you called that child, you showed me how you have remained a Son of the Father, always humble and open to instructions from the Father above. Most of all, obedient to the Father’s will.

True greatness indeed is in becoming like a child, always young and willing to learn new things, raring to go and follow those above for new adventures in life like Moses and Joshua in the first reading and, St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus whose martyrdom we celebrate today.

As I prayed on that scene at Jordan where the Israelites prepared to enter the Promised Land, the imagery of Moses and Joshua came to me like children ready to take on new tasks and directions in their lives from God as Father.

The same imagery of little children submitting themselves to you, O Lord, despite their old age I have found in St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus who were both greatly at odds with each other at the beginning.

St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus. From Google.

As Pope, St. Pontian was lenient in readmitting Christians who have turned away from the faith during persecution; St. Hippolytus strongly opposed it that later he broke away from Rome to become an anti-pope as he refused to relax his rigid views of the faith.

But you found ways of bringing them together, Lord, as exiles at the island of Sardinia.

In the midst of harsh labor, the fatherly St. Pontian was able to bring back into the Church the rigorist St. Hippolytus.

Help us to keep in mind, Lord, that age is just a number, that we are forever young like children when we humbly abandon ourselves to you, holding on to these words by Moses:

It is the Lord who marches before you; he will be with you and will never fail you or forsake you. So do not fear or be dismayed.

Deuteronomy 31:8

Let me remain as your faithful and trusting child, O loving God our Father. Amen.

Decluttering our inner self

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul
Monday, Week XIX, Year I, 12 August 2019
Deuteronomy 10:12-22 >< }}}*> < *{{{>< Matthew 17:22-27
From Google.

Moses said to the people: “Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and be no longer stiff-necked.”

Deuteronomy 10:16

Your words, O Lord, today are so shocking. Even funny. And difficult to relate with.

But that is exactly what we need to hear and learn these days: your words that shake and jolt our inner selves that cleanse and lead us to a more genuine and intimate relationship with you.

Like those Israelites wandering at the desert, rebelling against you, we have become stiff-necked. We have refused to look up to you as well as look inside our hearts to see you and follow you.

Help us to circumcise our hearts – not physically but spiritually – like what Marie Kondo has been advocating of decluttering our spaces to experience inner joy. So often we refuse to admit how our outer selves and homes look like indicate our inner selves.

It is you, Lord Jesus, who probes our hearts and guide us like Marie Kondo, step by step, to declutter our hearts.

May your light enable us to see and remove the many stacks of materialism, compartments of insecurities, and drawers of pretensions and other lies that clutter our inner selves, our hearts that keep us away from you and from others.

Like what you did today in the gospel when you taught Peter a beautiful lesson of being nice among our enemies and detractors who try to destroy us always, may we look more often inside our hearts to see YOU as the most essential in life than simply following the ways of the world.

May the example of St. Jane Frances Chantal whose feast we celebrate today, help us to keep that inner glow of your love within us when facing difficult situations in life like problems with in-laws and being widowed.

Fill us with the same charity you have given her in helping the poor as well as the forgotten people of the society.

We pray through her intercession for parents and children separated from one another due to many reasons, either by choice or circumstances.

Bless also the members of the congregation she had founded, the Sisters of Visitation that they may continue her wonderful works of charity among the poor. Amen.