Life, sometimes, is a series of “good news-bad news” situation like the Beatitudes preached by Jesus during His sermon on the plain last week: the blessings are the good news while the woes are the bad news.
But, wait…! Such a view is the way of the world, not of Christ’s disciples!
As we have reflected last Sunday, the Beatitudes are the paradoxical happiness of the disciples of Christ because they all run directly against the ways of the world. Today we hear more paradoxical teachings from Jesus that are actually His “win-win” solution for our many problems like wars and other forms of enmities. Unfortunately, we have never given them a try because we always complain the ways of the Lord as being far from realities of life, impossible to imitate because He is God and we are not.
Today let us set aside all these reservations and arguments to reflect on this new set of paradoxical teachings by the Lord: Jesus said to his disciples: “To you who hear I say, love your enemies.od to those who hate you, bless those who curse, pray for those who mistreat you… But rather, love your enemies and do good to them. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. For the measure with which you measure will in turn be measured out to you” (Lk.6:27-28, 35, 36, 38).
It is very striking that Jesus repeated twice His call to “love your enemies”.
Does He not care about us who have to bear with the sins of evil people? What a good news to those who hate us, curse us, and mistreat us! Suwerte sila! We would surely say they must be so lucky, even blessed with us who strive to heed the calls of Jesus to love them our enemies.
But, on deeper reflections, we are actually more blessed when we try to love our enemies because that is when we elevate – or “level up” as kids would say – our hearts to be merciful like God. Experts claim that the best way to exact revenge against people who have hurt us is to shower them with good deeds and kindness from us they have offended. According to these experts in counselling and psychology, evil people get disappointed and angrier with themselves when their evil plots fail especially when their targets do not react negatively. They sound understandable because evil people derive joy in making people miserable. So, why be miserable?
Far from being their “punching bag”, the Lord simply wants us to teach our enemies to respect us, to be kind to us by not being like themselves. In loving our enemies, we teach evil people that more powerful than sin is the power of love. Sin and evil consume a person while love and kindness make a person grow and mature and bloom to fullness.
Far from being passive, to love our enemies by returning evil with good is always the most active method in fighting sins. When Jesus asked us to offer the other side of our cheeks to those who slap our face or when we give them our tunic when they demand our cloak, we are showing these evil people that love is never exhausted unlike evil. Love is boundless and the more we love, the more we have it, the more we keep on doing it. Evil, on the other hand, reaches a saturation point that we get fed up with it, then we we stop doing it because it is exhausting and worst, consumes us within that in the
process destroys us. Think of the most evil person you have known and surely, you find that person so ugly, so zapped of life and energy, eaten up from within by a festering wound. Evil people will never have peace and joy within, glow on their face and skin because they are rotting inside like zombies.
In the first reading we heard how David as a type of Christ foregoing vengeance by holding on to God, trusting Him completely that he chose not to strike King Saul who was then trying to kill him out of jealousy. As disciples of the Lord, we have to trust in the Word of God that can transform our hearts of stone into natural hearts filled with love and mercy like Him. This is the point being explained by St. Paul in the second reading wherein Christ as the “second Adam from heaven” had made us bear the “heavenly image”despite our “earthly image” that is weak and sinful having come from the “first Adam from earth”. Through Baptism, we have been endowed with all the necessary grace from God, transforming us into better persons of heaven.
One of my favorite sayings came from the desk of a friend of mine I used to visit in their office that says “If you have love in your heart, you have been blessed by God; if you have been loved, you have been touched by God.”
See how God has loved us so immensely without measure! Remember that scene two Sundays ago when Jesus borrowed the boat of Simon as He would do with our voice, with our hands, with our total selves? Who are we or what do we really have and own that the almighty God would borrow from us? Nothing! Yet, Jesus comes to us daily with all His love without measure to bless us with everything we need. So, who are we now to love by measuring everything, loving only those who love us, lending only to those who could repay us?
Imagine how astonishingly disproportionate is the love of God with our kind of love. It is in this light must we see the meaning of Christ’s final lesson this Sunday: “For the measure with which you measure will in turn be measured out to you.” So paradoxical and provocative yet so true! This Sunday, may we share God’s love in our hearts with others, especially with our enemies so they may also experience the loving and merciful touch of God. Then we begin to realize too the “win-win” solution of Christ to humanity. Amen.Have a blessed week!Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan.
Side garden of the Church of the Beatitudes with the Lake of Galilee at the background. Photo by the author, April 2017.
During His Last Supper, Jesus rose from His seat to wash the feet of His apostles to show them what position is all about: loving service to one another. See in this icon from Google there are only 11 apostles present; Judas left the Last Supper to “unseat” the Lord. Above is the word “mandatum”, Latin for “command”, Christ’s command for us to love by leaving our seats of power and comfort to stand with Him at His Cross.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 22 February 2019
If you are a Catholic and a regular Mass-goer, most likely you always follow the “Roman seating position” – that is, you always sit at the back, avoiding the front seats even in other gatherings outside the church.
According to Msgr. Gerry Santos who used to give us retreats and recollections while we were seminarians, the “Roman seating position” is a carry-over from the martyrdom of the early Christians who were always seated at the front rows of the Colosseum in Rome who were forcibly pushed to be devoured by hungry lions and beasts below.
Of course it is a joke but it holds so much grain of truth because we often refuse to take the front row seats for fears of being put on the spot, of making a stand. How ironic that in this age when seating positions matter so much for us, we have forgotten that more important than the position and prestige that come with the seats we occupy – literally and figuratively speaking – is the stand we take in every issue we face. Protocols dictate in so many occasions how seats indicate power and authority; the throne is always reserved to the highest in rank like kings and presidents. And the closer one is seated to the one in command, the wider is one’s sphere of power and influence too. Unfortunately, this is not everything because every seat of power and authority is always a call to serve, to make a stand for what is true and what is good.
Jesus Christ showed us the true meaning of our seating positions during the Last Supper on Holy Thursday evening when He rose to remove His outer garments to wash the feet of His apostles (Jn.13:1-15). It was a task left for slaves only but Jesus used it as a gospel parable in action to show us that what matters most in life is not where we are seated with Him but where we stand with Him. It was exactly what He meant when He said that anyone who wishes to be the greatest must be the least and the servant of all.
Recall my dear readers how during that evening of the Holy Thursday when John the beloved disciple sat not only beside Jesus but even rested his head on His chest to signify their intimacy as friends (Jn. 13:23). That touching gesture of friendship and love took its summit the following Good Friday when John the beloved was the only one of the Twelve who remained standing with the Lord at the foot of His Cross with the Blessed Mother Mary. In that scene we see how John literally stood his ground as the beloved disciple by remaining faithful and loving with the Lord from His Last Supper to His Crucifixion. Peter, the prince of the Apostles, was nowhere to be found on Good Friday after denying Jesus thrice during His trial before the Sanhedrin the night of His arrest. Very interesting was Judas Iscariot who committed suicide after realizing his grave sin in betraying the Lord. See how he had left the Lord’s Supper to deal with His enemies for His arrest. What an image of the traitor who could not stay on his seat during the Lord’s Supper was the same one who could not stand to face Him again at the foot of the Cross. See how those people who refuse to sit with us are also the ones who never stand with us, stand for us like Judas, a traitor!
I tell you these things even if Holy Week is still more than six weeks from now but in the light of the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter which is about the Primacy of Rome or the Pope as Vicar of Christ and successor of St. Peter. We celebrate this Feast to remember St. Peter and his successors love and service to the Church as examples we must all emulate. In 110 AD, St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote the Christians in Rome to describe to them the Church of Rome as the “primacy of love” and the “primacy of faith”. Every power and every authority signified by the chair or cathedra in the Church as well as in the world when we speak of “seat of power” must always be seen in the light of Jesus Christ’s example of loving service at His Last Supper. This is especially true for us priests who are united in Christ and with Christ in the Eucharist.
This festering problem of sexual abuse in the Church is largely due to our deviation from this primacy in love for Jesus as priests. We have been so focused with our seats – positions and titles – that we have forgotten to stand with Christ at the foot of His cross, standing for what is good and true, just and right. We have been so focused with the “party” of the Supper of the Lord and have forgotten Jesus Himself. Seminarians have been so focused with the vocation and the call, with ordination, forgetting the more essential, the Caller Jesus Himself! And that explains why some in the clergy and those in the hierarchy come up with so many excuses and alibis for the many things we do in our ministry, in our churches, in our parishes, and in our lives because we are only concerned with our office and position but never the Master.
When we love Jesus or any other person, we do not have to justify our actions. Love that is true and pure does not need justifications. But the moment we start making justifications, something is wrong like when we justify our special relationships, no matter how deep or shallow it may be for clearly, there is no primacy in love for Jesus and the Church.
When we justify our vices, our lifestyles, our business endeavors that Canon Law prohibits, clearly there is no primacy in love for we cannot be poor for Christ.
There is no problem with having advocacies as priests but when we are aligned with ideologies contrary to Christ, or when we play in partisan politics, there is neither primacy of faith nor primacy of love. It is the Lord who changes the world, not us, not our programs, not our ideas.
It is our duty as priests to love like Christ but to adopt children and raise them as our own children using our names, there is no celibacy, only stupidity.
Like Jesus, we need money to get our programs going but when we lack transparency and accountability, that is stealing and banditry.
When all we have is the ministry, the priesthood without prayer periods, without the Eucharist, we only have the call but not the Caller Jesus Christ Himself.
More than ever, today Jesus Christ is asking us all His priests to make a stand for Him, to stand with Him, to suffer with Him and to die with Him by leaving our seats of comfort and seats of power.
The Chair of St. Peter at the high altar of the Basilica of St. Peter at the Vatican flanked below by the two teachers of the East, St. John Chrysostom and St. Athanasius with the two Latin Fathers of the Church St. Ambrose and St. Augustine. All four saints showed us how love stands on faith; that, without both love and faith, everything falls apart in the Church. Photo from Bing.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul
Friday, Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, 22 February 2019
1Peter 5:1-4///Matthew 16:13-19
Glory and praise to you, O Lord Jesus Christ as we celebrate today a most unique feast, the Chair of St. Peter!
It is so unique O Lord especially in this age when the world is so concerned with seating arrangement whether at home, in school, in offices, in buses… everywhere seats matter these days because every seat is about position, rank, power and convenience.
And we have forgotten that more important than our seating position is where we stand.
On this Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, remind us Lord especially your priests of that beautiful example you have shown at the Last Supper when you left your seat to wash the feet of the Apostles.
How sad and shameful, O Lord, when we your priests fail to realize that the throne of the Eucharist is not a seat of power or prestige but a seat of loving service to everyone.
So true were the words of St. Ignatius of Antioch in his Letter to the Romans in the year 110 that the Primacy of Rome is the Primacy of Love because primacy in faith is always primacy in love, two things we can never separate.
May we your priests heed the call of St. Peter, the designated “owner” of that Chair, that we “Tend the flock of God in your midst, overseeing not by constraint but willingly, as God would have it, not for shameful profit but eagerly. Do not lord it over those assigned to you, but be examples to the flock” (1Pt.5:2-3). Amen. Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan.
My dearest God and Father, today you remind me of the beautiful story of Noah, of how you had promised through him never again to destroy earth.
What a joy always to my eyes to see your rainbow, its beautiful colors without any definitive origin nor end, reminding me of how you have given us more than a promise but a covenant.
When I was a child, I always heard that at the end of every rainbow is a pot of gold that would make anyone who would find it very wealthy. As I matured, I realized O God that the pot of gold of your rainbow is your Son Jesus Christ our Lord: whoever finds Him becomes wealthy indeed!
Like the song of the psalmist today, “From heaven the Lord looks down on the earth”, Jesus became your rainbow, your new covenant who stretched His arms on the Cross to save us.
Give me the grace O God to think like Jesus as the Christ who willed to suffer and die for us in accordance with your Holy Will.
Give me the grace O God to think like Jesus as the Christ so that my life and those around me are enriched in your love and mercy. Amen. Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan.
A street performer at the Tamsui Fisherman’s Wharf in Taiwan must have tried and failed so many times before getting his permit from Taipei officials to perform in public. Photo by the author taken last January 29, 2019
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul
Wednesday, 20 February 2019, Week VI, Year I
Genesis 8:6-13, 20-22///Mark 8:22-26
Lord Jesus Christ, yesterday you taught me of your great love and mercy through your fidelity and patience in my being too slow in understanding your signs of presence.
Thank you very much, Lord, for bearing with my mindlessness.
But today, I praise and thank you twice, even thrice, in giving me the grace of being patient like you in my persevering to keep on trying and hoping for your love and mercy, healing and grace.
Like that blind man in Bethsaida you have healed gradually, you have taught me how things are not that clear right away at your coming. Sometimes, everything seems to be so blurred when “I see people looking like trees and walking” (Mk.8:24).
Like Noah in the first reading after the rains and the floods, it takes time before plants sprout and bloom again. So many times, I just have to be like Noah, always waiting, always trying until the floods have subsided.
Let me offer you a sacrifice of praise today O Lord through my kindness and patience with others just like you. Amen.Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan.
Buds starting to grow on one of the many Cherry blossoms of Taiwan’s Yangming National Park near Taipei. Photo by the author, 28 January 2019.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul
Tuesday, 19 February 2019, Week VI, Year I
Genesis 6:5-8;7:1-5, 10///Mark 8:14-21
Thank you very much Lord Jesus Christ for your patience and fidelity in bearing with my mindlessness and lack of understanding in reading your signs in my life.
So many times, despite your many blessings and very presence in my life, I still don’t get it like your disciples that I can feel as so real, O Lord, your seeming desperation, asking me, “Do you still not understand?” (Mk.8:21)
There are times Lord that my mind wanders far into other concerns like the material “bread” being offered by the world that I easily forget the wondrous signs of far more important things you have been showing me like love and mercy, kindness and compassion.
Cleanse my heart, dear Jesus, especially when all I desire are evil like the people during the time of Noah. Let me be on guard against the leaven and understanding of the world that is fleeting and temporary. Amen.Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan.
A paradox is a statement that seems contradictory but may be true in fact. From the Greek words para for beyond and doxa for opinion, a paradox promotes critical thinking and deep introspection or reflections. Christian living is a life of paradoxes as we often hear Jesus our Lord telling us to lose our lives in order to gain it. St. Francis of Assisi knew it so well that in his prayer to be an instrument of peace, he rightly claimed that “it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned and it is in dying that we are born into eternal life.” We shall have a taste of some paradoxical teachings by Jesus Christ beginning today until the next two Sundays before we get into the Season of Lent as we listen from the account by St. Luke of the Lord’s “Sermon on the Plain”. For this Sunday, we hear the centerpiece of His sermon on that day, the Beatitudes.
And raising his eyes toward his disciples, he said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours. Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice and leap for joy on that day! Behold, your reward will be great in heaven” (Lk.6:20-23).
Beatitudes are words of promise that have a strong link from the long line of tradition of Old Testament teachings like the one we heard from the first reading today from Jeremiah: “Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose hope is the Lord” (Jer.17:7). Recall how last Sunday Jesus called His first four disciples led by Simon whom He had asked to be “fishers of men” (Luke chapter 5). As Jesus went around Galilee preaching and healing the sick, He gained some disciples or followers. In chapter six, St. Luke tells us Jesus departed to a mountain to pray for the night and upon coming down the following morning, He chose 12 men among His disciples whom He called apostles. This is now the setting of our gospel today when a vast crowd have followed Jesus, many of whom are poor people with some pagans from Tyre and Sidon who all wish to listen to Him about the word of God and to be healed from their sickness.
Speaking to His community of disciples that include us now, the Beatitudes by Jesus express the meaning of discipleship which is paradoxical because they run directly against the values of the world. For Jesus Christ, true blessedness and the way of happiness for us His disciples is being poor, hungry, weeping, and hated. What a paradox indeed! Yet, we know deep in our hearts, in our love for Christ and for others especially to those dear to us, we are willing to live with these promise of trials and sufferings because it is the only way to follow Jesus who said “anyone who wishes to follow Him must deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow Him” (Lk.9:23). The paradox becomes deeper and more paradoxical that we are willing to go through all pains and trials for our love for Jesus and others because we trust in the Lord’s promise that “He will provide us with wisdom in arguing with our enemies… and most of all, not a hair on our head will be destroyed. By our perseverance we shall secure our lives” (Lk.21:14-19). We forge on with the Beatitudes because we are convinced in the words of Jesus about the complete reversal of fortunes when that “day” comes for our “rewards in heaven shall be great!” (Lk.6:23) And that “day” is the “now” when the scriptures are fulfilled in our hearing, when despite the many hardships we go through, we have that firm assurance within of meaning and joy in life because like St. Paul, we firmly believe in our resurrection in Jesus Christ. Every day we die in our sins, in our sufferings, we share in the passion and death of Jesus; but every day too, we experience rising to new life in Christ in this little deaths we go through in daily living.
It is along this line that we discover how the Beatitudes reveal to us the mystery of Jesus Christ Himself who calls us into communion with Him and in Him. When we examine the Beatitudes, we find Christ being referred to as the one who is poor, hungry, weeping, and hated for He is the first to be so blessed and filled with God when we recall His baptism at Jordan. In His life, Jesus showed us true blessedness as prophesied by Jeremiah, the one “who trusts and hopes in the Lord… like a tree planted beside waters that despite drought, it shows no stress and still bears fruit” (Jer.18:8). Without doubt, Jesus was the first to go through all the sufferings and pains of the Beatitudes and the first to resurrect from the dead as St. Paul insisted to the Corinthians. In following the Beatitudes, we become true fishers of men who catch nothing all night without Christ; but, with Jesus, despite our many losses in life, we continue to cast our nets into the deep so our lives may be fulfilled in Him always. Life is a mystery, filled with paradoxes that make it so wonderful and beautiful in God. A blessed week ahead to you! Amen. Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan.
Sanctuary and altar of the Church of the Beatitudes in Israel. Photo by the author, April 2017.
Image from Google: Open ears, Open hearts, Open minds.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul
Friday, 15 February 2019, Week V, Year I
Genesis 3:1-8///Mark 7:31-37
Our dearest God and loving Father, thank you very much for this month of February when we celebrate Valentine’s, the day of hearts.
It must had been your Holy Spirit guiding us these days when we prayed the other day that we may look inside our hearts to see you and follow your holy will; yesterday as we celebrated Valentine’s, we prayed for the grace to see with our hearts.
Today we pray for the grace to listen with our hearts so we may not repeat the sin of Adam and Eve when they listened to the voice of the serpent who misled them into believing that the moment they eat the fruit of the tree of in the middle of the garden, “their eyes would be opened and they would be like gods who know what is good and what is evil” (Gen.3:5).
Give us the grace to separate ourselves from the crowd, from all the noise and different voices of the world, to listen with our hearts in silence with Jesus Christ like that deaf man brought to Him in Decapolis.
“Ephphatha!” (Mk.7:34)
Let our ears and our hearts be opened to you O Lord.
Let us be “deaf” sometimes to the cacophony of sounds in the world, competing for our attention, listening intently with our hearts to your tiny voice deep within us, telling us to love freely and truly by avoiding sins and doing only what is good. Amen.Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music, 10 February 2019
It is a very lovely Sunday despite the very warm weather. Perfect for listening to the music of Seawind with vocals by Fil-Am Ms. Pauline Wilson who would surely touch your heart and delight your soul with “Still in Love” from their self-titled album “Seawind” released in 1980.
How lovely to realize that after all these years, you are still loved by someone you have loved. Exactly the kind of love of Jesus Christ to us all. In the gospel today, we find Jesus calling His first apostles while preaching by the shores of Lake Gennesaret after being rejected at their synagogue in Nazareth. That is how true and faithful Jesus is with His mission to reach out to everyone proclaiming His good news of salvation. Jesus is the only one who would always still be in love with us no matter how often we turn away from Him or reject Him.
Are you still in love with someone special? Or with Jesus?
Rejoice because most likely, you are still loved by that someone.
lordmychef.com 