Getting married in time of pandemic

Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 25 June 2024

*Photo by Joseph Kettaneh on Pexels.com*

It’s been more than four years since the breakout of the COVID-19 pandemic that threw many of us out of sync in life, especially those planning to get married during those critical years of 2020-2022.

I had four weddings affected by the COVID-19 lockdowns in that period; three were postponed but I was able to officiate at the two weddings when reset to another dates except the first one that did not fit my schedule. The fourth wedding I was not able to officiate because I got the virus and had to be isolated.

This is the homily I delivered at one of those three weddings postponed I officiated, between Cris my former student at the Immaculate Conception School for Boys (ICSB) in Malolos City and Tim whom I met when they were going steady while we were all taking MA courses at UST.

More funny than that was the fact Cris and Tim have planned of getting married in 2020 but have to move it to 2021 due to the pandemic; but, when COVID still persisted that year, they finally fixed their altar date to early 2022. Alas! Just as they were all set in January 2022, the church was closed on the week of their wedding after its priests got the virus!

Cris and Tim were at a loss when their wedding would finally take place until they were offered by the parish the date February 22, 2022 after the weddings of those others postponed like them. I told them to go for it than wait further for other dates lest they in turn get the virus too!

Looking back to their wedding day, I have realized how God always finds ways in helping married couples in all their problems for as long as they are willing to cooperate. This is why we cannot allow divorce to be legalized in the country for God never fails in His grace and blessings. We just have to work on them.

*From stillromancatholicafteralltheseyears.com, January 2022.*

You must have heard the saying that “God writes straight crooked lines”. And today that proves so true not only with how God wrote so crooked His straight lines in your life, Cris and Tim, but even wrote in circles to make this date your wedding day – 22 February 2022!

Cris and Tim, God has always been so sure in calling you before His altar on this date, which will similarly happen again in 200 years – 22 February 2222! God writes straight crooked lines because everything in him is perfect, like numbers. Precise and exact. Like this date you never chose, 02-22-2022.

When you consulted me last month when priests here offered you this date due to their recent lockdown, right away I told you it is the most wonderful date for your wedding being the Feast of St. Peter’s Chair… St. Peter as in San Pedro like Cristopher Tabafunda San Pedro and later, Mrs. Fatima Macam San Pedro!

It was God who willed in all eternity that you, Cris and Tim, be married today — not last year, not the other week nor next week because today is the day that the Lord has made!

*Cris and Tim are both very prayerful and good, practicing Catholics.*

You are both good with numbers like God, a mathematician who is very precise and exact like an economist and stock trader (Cris) and a marketing and sales executive (Tim) who used to do a lot of chemical research before.

But God has better and deeper plans for you that numbers cannot count nor quantify.

God wants you to always go back to basic numbers, not to those found in equations only you two can understand or multiple digits only you can count.

Jesus said it so well in the gospel today: two is equal to one. So mathematical ba?

“For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate.”Matthew 19:5-6

Life is not about having the most but the least. That is where faith grows and deepens.

When we have so much in life, when we feel so sufficient, when we are so filled with things, we forget God. We stop believing in him, we believe more in ourselves.

And when we stop believing in God, we lose our faith and then, we stop loving, too. Sooner or later, we become empty and miserable.

So, be simple, Cris and Tim.

Reduce everything to the barest and simplest. Simplify, simplify, simplify as Henry David Thoreau said: “let your affairs be two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand.”

When we get complicated like our Facebook, life becomes difficult as we can’t find right away who and what matters most to us.

Kaya nga isa lang ang asawa, Cris at Tim, kasi hindi puwede marami. Hindi lang magulo. Magastos pa. Imagine kung dalawa o tatlo wedding rings? Pag isa lang, kita agad at alam na this – married na ang mamang ito na may cute na dimple o itong girl na ito na naka glasses at dalawa pa ang dimples! Hayaan ninyo sabihin ng mga makakita singsing ninyo na sayang at taken na pala siya!

You see, the lower the number, the simpler, the better. Madaling tumaya at manampalataya.

That’s faith! Parang PBA game kung saan kayo nagkakilala. And you have both experienced, walang tatalo sa faith in God ninyong dalawa!

God is greater and more than the numbers the wiz kids and supercomputers of the world can calculate and predict. His thoughts are not our thoughts, nor His ways. He first created just one man and one woman – just two – to be one with each other in Him, and to be faithful to Him and each other.

Because the more we become faithful, the more we become loving.

That is the message of this Feast of the Chair of St. Peter which is the “Primacy of Rome” or of the Pope: it is the primacy of faith and the primacy of love together which cannot be separated.

*Chair of St. Peter in Rome, from Wikipedia.*

Forget all those numbers Cris and Tim, focus only in the One – God in Jesus Christ. Just focus on Jesus, always Jesus.

Love is not about counting or keeping tabs and tallies, like how many “likes” and “followers” we get in our posts.

The true measure of love is when we love without measure, when we simply love, love, love. And love.

That is why we only have one heart so we can love with all our heart. Forget Sana Dalawa ang Puso Ko. It is just a song.

When you have LQ (lover’s quarrel), who should blink first, or smile? Who should take the first move to reconcile, the first to offer the hand of peace?

Whenever lovers and couples or even friends quarrel, I always say, whoever has more love to give must be the first one to initiate reconciliation, the first to blink, or smile, the first to offer the hand of peace.

To have the most love to give and share does not mean to be better or superior than the other; to have the most love to give and share is to have more faith, to have a deeper faith the he/she is ready and willing to lose everything for the sake of the loved one.

Like Jesus Christ who gave everything for us on that Cross because of love.

God bless you more, Cris and Tim. Amen.

You may check our original post at https://lordmychef.com/2022/02/23/faithful-and-most-loving/.

High school life, married life

Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 19 June 2024

*With our Grade 7 Students in our San Fernando, Pampanga campus last March.*

In my 26 years in the priesthood, the primary reason I have always objected to divorce aside from its being against the teaching of the Lord are the children. When couples separate, their children suffer the most.

Whenever I would speak to couples getting married, I always insist on this important aspect of marriage, of having children, of how this life calls for much maturity and responsibilities from husband and wife to ensure a bright future not only for them but for humanity. From them will come children and future generations. The kind of life they surely affects their children for better or for worst. And there is our future.

Marriage is not a question or a thing based on luck – the Sacrament and grace of God are not everything. Couples need to work harder and pray hardest to keep their union strong in faith, hope and love so that they would have good children who shall be matured and responsible Christians and citizens.

*Praying with our students in our main campus in Valenzuela City.*

Allowing divorce is opening the floodgates of so many abuses and excuses that will surely destroy the basic unit of the society, the family. Very often in my interaction with students from separated parents, they always have two wishes: that their parents would not separate or if still possible be reunited; and the second, how they wished they were not born to experience all pains and difficulties of having parents on the verge or already separated.

Very sad. Even tragic.

That is why the more I find meaning in my priesthood assigned in the school. Actually, it is more difficult than being in a parish but most fulfilling as I get to see my students mature and bloom, though there were times some of them got lost or went wayward in their lives.

My first assignment after ordination was as administrator-teacher of our diocesan school in Malolos for 11 years, the Immaculate Conception School for Boys (ICSB) and Immaculate Conception School of Malolos (ICSM). In 2011, I literally begged our bishop to assign me to a parish as I have never experienced being a pastor. During our grand reshuffle in 2021, our new bishop assigned me anew as chaplain here at my present assignment at the Our Lady of Fatima University (OLFU) in Valenzuela and its five other campuses.

Every day in my encounters and engagements with students in the sacraments and casual talks, the more I feel my “fatherhood” – here are thousands of kids longing for a dad, a father. Many times I tease God, asking Him if this is the reason why we priests do not get married so that we could take care of somebody else’s children?!

What a joy that even for a brief moment I become a dad for many of them in my stories and teachings. And presence.

*Speaking to our elementary students after their weekly Mass in our Valenzuela campus.*

That is why I feel so glad and proud of many of my students especially from ICSB who have turned out so well as responsible dads and faithful husbands to their wives. One of them was Micah who asked me to officiate his wedding to Lery shortly before the pandemic in 2020.

The homily I prepared for their wedding was actually a review of the five important things I used to tell Lery and all my students in ICSB to have in their pocket as a man: handkerchief, money, pen, comb, and Rosary.

Here’s my homily (just click the link).

Five reminders from high school for married life

*Lery at my back in another wedding of his classmate in January 2020.*

Micah and Lery are happily married with two kids and a third coming in eight months. They all live abroad where Micah is working.

Most of his barkada are also happily married, many abroad too like him.

I send them my prayers and reflections once in a while as I remember them all in prayers, hoping their marriage will remain strong, that they – and their kids – would truly be icons of the love of God in Jesus Christ. Amen.

Independence Day prayer

The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Wednesday in the Tenth Week of Ordinary Time, Year II, 12 June 2024
1 Kings 18:20-39 <*{{{{>< + ><}}}}*> Matthew 5:17-19

*Photo from Colombo Plan Staff College, cpstech.org, 12 June 2020.*

Praise and glory
to You, God our loving Father
for the gift of Independence,
for the gift of a country
and a nation, of culture
and identity until now many
of us continue to debate;
forgive us, Father,
for being like your people
during the time of Elijah
when we could not make up
our minds on whether to follow
and obey You or follow other 
pagan gods that still about these days.
How sad, dear Father,
when many of our supposed
learned men and women are
ashamed of our being the remaining
nation faithful to You,
making divorce illegal;
doubly sad, O God,
when some of our own countrymen
laugh and insult the Spaniards
who conquered our land to
bring Christianity here.

Ahab sent to all the children of Israel and had the prophets assemble on Mount Carmel. Elijah appealed to all the people and said, “How long will you straddle the issue? If the Lord is God, follow him; if Baal, follow him.” The people, however, did not answer him.

Like the psalmist today,
I pray that You "keep me, O God,
for in you I take refuge,
show me the path to life,
fullness of joys in your presence,
the delights at your right hand forever"
(Psalm 16:1, 11);
teach me the way to true
freedom and independence
of lovingly serving the weakest among us
by protecting life in all its stages
especially its basic unit, the family.

May we take into hearts
Jesus Christ's words to bring into
fulfillment the words of your laws
into our own laws like the 1987 Constitution
that had enshrined marriage as
an "inviolable social institution"
in Article XV; let us stop
all these fantasies of legalizing divorce,
of separating from
your divine order of things
that only enslave us to sin and evil.
Amen.

Marriage is a prayer

Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 11 June 2024

What is very sad in this ongoing debate against divorce in our country is how some people claiming to be graduates and professors of Catholic institutions insist on their many “intellectual reasonings” why divorce should be allowed while at the same time declaring it is wrong to profess we are against divorce simply because we are Catholics.

What a tragedy when those educated or teaching in Catholic schools and universities who are supposed to know more and better about Jesus Christ and His teachings are the ones favoring divorce. They cite so many studies and authors even theologians to support their stand in favor of divorce without ever mentioning Christ’s teachings found in the Sacred Scriptures that were explained by the Church in our Catechism as well as in so many other documents by the Popes and bishops.

We understand how journalists could err regarding names and other details that essentially do not effect the veracity of their news like the recent sakalan blues in Gagalangin, Tondo when the interview of a priest was ascribed to another; but, to be one sided in the presentation of a story is something else like Rappler’s “The Problem with I am Catholic, I say no to divorce”. There’s a reliable maxim in journalism that says “Opinions are free but facts are sacred.”

The main fact we have been holding on the sanctity and indissolubility of marriage for over 2000 years is our Lord Jesus Christ’s teaching against divorce that the pro-divorce everywhere have refused to accept.

Yes, we need to listen to different views about divorce but not to those views condemned by the Church because they are wrong.

Divorce cannot be isolated as merely a political issue to be resolved because marriage as a natural sacrament is spiritual in nature, a path to holiness.

Marriage is a gift and a call from God for men and women to live and work together in order to attain eternal life. This we achieve firstly by having a prayer life, a relationship with God expressed in our love for one another especially between husband and wife.

In arguing against divorce, we need to look for those couples who have made it through thick and thin in their marriage in order to inspire others in following the path of Holy Matrimony.

*Joyce and Tony in 2019 with son Atty. JA and wife Kathleen with their two sons, and daughter Rosella.*

As a contribution in our fight against divorce, I share with you my homily at the 40th wedding anniversary of my cousin Joyce Pollard to Tony Lopez in October 2019 which I titled as “Married life is a prayer”.

Oh what a joy to officiate weddings especially of relatives and friends!

Hope you find some lessons and inspirations on the beauty of marriage we have to keep.

As I prepared my homily for your anniversary, Joyce and Tony… “the moment I woke up and before your Mommy Fely put on her make-up, I said a little prayer for you.”

Of course that is not the theme song of Joyce and Tony. They haven’t met yet in 1967 when Dione Warwick recorded I Say a Little Prayer. But they were already married when it became one of the tracks in the movie “My Best Friend’s Wedding” starring Julia Roberts.

And since this is my “best cousin’s wedding anniversary” in this part of the city, I have thought of reflecting on married life as a prayer.

In our gospel we have heard Jesus Christ narrating the parable of the unjust judge and persistent widow to underscore “the necessity to pray always without becoming weary” (Lk. 18:1).

Prayer is an expression of faith.

When there is faith, there is also love.

And when there is prayer, faith, and love, what we have is a relationship, a community of believers who love each other.

People who love and believe with each other always talk and communicate. They make time to be with one another. And most often, that is what really matters with people who love and believe – simply to be together.

Even in silence.

Like prayer.

Prayer is more than asking things from God but most of all, prayer is a relationship with God expressed with others. That is the beauty of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony: husband and wife are bound together in marriage to become signs of the saving presence of Jesus Christ.

Marriage as a sacrament means it is a prayer as well, a relationship of a man and woman with God as its source and foundation.

I am sure, Joyce and Tony along with all the other married couples here today will agree that married life requires a lot of prayers. In fact, married life is a prayer, a very difficult one that is much needed.

Like in that movie My Best Friend’s Wedding, there are real forces of evil that are trying to destroy couples. So many couples have already fallen, going their separate lives after several years of being together while on the other hand, more and more couples are refusing to get married at all due to this reality of breakups and separations.

And that is why we are celebrating today Joyce and Tony’s 40th wedding anniversary! We are praying with them in expressing our faith and love for them in Christ Jesus. Prayers have kept them together, transforming them into better persons.

At the end of the parable of the persistent widow and unjust judge, Jesus posed a very crucial question for us, especially to every married couple here today: When the Son of Man comes again at the end of time, will he find faith on earth? (Lk.18:8)

And what shall be our response?

“Yes, Lord, you shall find faith when you come again in Joyce and Tony!”

Like Moses in the first reading, they both prayed hard with arms outstretched on many occasions as they battled life’s many challenges and struggles.

“Yes, Lord, you shall find faith when you come again in Joyce and Tony” because they have both proclaimed your word with persistence, whether it is convenient or inconvenient like St. Paul in his second letter to Timothy. They have weathered so many storms in the past 40 years and your words, O Lord, have kept them together, sharing these with their children and with everyone in their life of fidelity and love.

“Yes, Lord, you shall find faith when you come again in Joyce and Tony” now before your altar to renew their vows to love and cherish each other for the rest of their lives!

“Yes, Lord, you shall find faith when you come again” among the many couples gathered here who have remained faithful to each other despite their many sins and failures, weaknesses and shortcomings.

Joyce and Tony, you are not only a prayer of faith but also a homily of the Holy Matrimony, showing us the light and power of Jesus Christ to transform people in prayer and bring them to fulfillment.

Prayer does not change things like typhoons and earthquakes. We cannot ask God in prayer to spare us from getting sick or be exempted from life’s many trials and sufferings. Prayer cannot stop those from happening.

What prayer does is change us, change our attitude so we may hurdle life’s many blows and obstacles. Especially with couples who always find God in their lives, in good times and in bad.

Prayers transform us into better persons as children of God, especially couples who eventually look like brothers and sisters after living together in faith, hope and love.

Tony and Joyce, I am sure everyone in our family and among your friends here can attest to the many good things that have transformed you in the past 40 years.

You have changed to become the best for each other.

In the bible, the number 40 means perfect.

May God continue to perfect you, Tony and Joyce.

Keep us too in your prayers as we pray for you. Amen.
https://lordmychef.com/2019/10/23/married-life-is-a-prayer/

*Joyce and Tony in 1979…may forever basta may prayer!*

Marriage as path to heaven, sign of the living God

The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Wednesday, Memorial of St. Boniface, Bishop & Martyr, 05 June 2024
2 Timothy 1:1-3, 6-12 <*((((>< + ><))))*> Mark 12:18-27

*Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 20 March 2024.*

Thank you so much,
dear Jesus for your words
today that shed light again
to this issue about divorce:
of how resurrection is real because
God is very much alive,
very much present with us
and in us!

Jesus said to them, “Are you not misled because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but they are like the angels in heaven. As for the dead being raised, have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God told him, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not God of the dead but of the living. You are greatly misled.
Mark 12:24-27

Most of all,
you have shown us too how 
marriage is a path towards heaven:
man and woman marry in this life
for a taste of heaven,
to work for heaven,
to try making this imperfect world
a heaven, your dwelling;
we pray for all couples
especially those going through
crises these days 
to heed St. Paul's words to
Timothy, "to stir into flame 
the gift of God" they have received
on their wedding day before
your altar:

For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control. So do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord, not to me, a prisoner for his sake; but bear your share of hardship for the Gospel with the strength that comes from God.
2 Timothy 1:7-8

Remind us that life
is always difficult
because there is always
the cross we have to carry;
however, let it sink into us too
that the cross is meant to make
us better and stronger,
that every sacrifice and
mortification we make is not to lose
life but actually to gain it more,
to have it more fully!
Most of all, every perseverance
to love and to forgive,
to be kind and be caring
happen all in your grace, O God;
in this age of instants
when every difficulty has become
a door to escape and exit from problems,
let us not be ashamed of the
real stuff that truly makes
life meaningful
by suffering and dying
in You, dear Jesus;
in this time of serious attacks
against marriage,
may we remember the words
of your servant St. Boniface
"Let us be neither dogs
that do not bark
nor silent onlookers
nor paid servants
who run away before the wolf.
Instead,
let us be careful shepherds
watching over Christ's
flock."

May we stand for what
is true and good,
O Lord,
not only in words but
especially in deeds,
 witnessing your Gospel.
Amen.

*Photo by author, Ubihan Island, Meycauyan City, December 2021.*

Husband & Wife, an Icon of Christ

Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 04 June 2024

Here is our second instalment of our contribution in reflecting why divorce should not be allowed because it is against the plan of God and therefore, a sin. Please, we are not judging anyone here.

It is the simple truth that for the longest time people have refused to accept in their hearts that they have continuously sought ways of justifying divorce because right in their hearts, they are the first ones bothered. They had their chance to confront Jesus Christ about it 2000 years ago but the Lord minced no words when He declared the painful truth any pro-divorce would not discuss, “Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so” (Mt.19:8).

How sad when articles come out trying so hard to dilute this truth by deliberately interpreting it in their own terms especially the many statements by Pope Francis which he had repeatedly clarified including that of the same sex union.

Most sad is when a news report supposed to present all sides chooses to cite only the questionable teachings of some experts in religion or theology without citing the Sacred Scriptures, the Catechism of the Catholic Church and Church documents for official teachings on marriage. Worst, the same report highlighted views of Catholic theologians silenced long ago (may they rest in peace) by the Church for their misleading views on morality!

Divorce is against God’s plan. Marriage is only between a man and a woman as created by God, not invented by any one that is subject to changes or whims. Jesus explained this clearly in the same gospel scene which we shall echo today and forever: “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’ and he said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate” (Mt.19:4-6).

As a creation of God, marriage is a sacrament, a sign of His saving presence in this world in Jesus Christ who had come to reassert this truth. The problem remains the hardness of the hearts of people, especially of those getting married who are so preoccupied with the accidentals of marriage without realizing that they are an icon of Jesus.

My first assignment after ordination in 1998 was to teach at the Immaculate Conception School for Boys (ICSB) in Malolos City. We also run an all-girls high school and an elementary school for boys and girls.

Marian was my student from elementary to high school whom I have known so well including her parents. We call our students ICONS, from the initials of our school name. Here are parts of my homily to Marian’s wedding last June 29, 2019 at the Malolos Cathedral.

Congratulations to you, my dearest Marian and Matt!

God willed that you get married today on the Solemnity of St. Peter and St. Paul, the two pillars of the Church established by our Lord Jesus Christ.

Like you, Marian and Matt, St. Peter and St. Paul are two people of opposite personalities, of different social and cultural backgrounds but were able to overcome these to work together for Jesus Christ. We celebrate their feast together because despite their many differences, they were united in their love for Jesus Christ. It was Christ who brought them together and kept them together so his Church would grow and be what it is today.

The same is true with you, Marian and Matt: Jesus Christ brought you together in spite of your many differences to be united in his love. Most of all, Marian and Matt, Jesus wants you to be his ICONS or images in the world today that has become individualistic.

An icon or image of Jesus like St. Peter and St. Paul is to be one in the Lord. A man and woman get married to become disciples of Christ, to become one in Christ, to look like Christ. That is the meaning of the word sacrament, visible sign of the saving presence of Jesus in the world.

And that is why the gospel you have chosen for your wedding day is so perfect, the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus gave us his Beatitudes that are actually directions for discipleship… let us reflect on the sixth Beatitude of Jesus: “Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God” (Mt.5:8).

Remember the Little Prince where the fox told him that “What is essential is invisible to the eye; it is only with the heart one can truly see”?

We can only see God with our hearts. The intellect alone is never enough.

And so it is with any person.

We can learn and know so many things about another person with our intellect but nothing will be enough for us to truly love him or her unless we let our hearts see the real him or her.

The heart is the wholeness of the person. Yesterday we celebrated the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Sometimes, when we use our minds, we see the world as so dark and so evil. But, if we have hearts that can see, we will be more surprised that there are more goodness, more beauty in this world than what we hear and see in the news and around us.

Marian and Matt, always have a clean heart to see each one’s goodness and beauty.

Always go back to those early days when you first saw each other with your hearts. Aside from the kilig factor, you felt and realized something deeper with each other. The beloved disciple, St. John, wrote in our first reading, “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. 4:11-12).

And that is how we see God and others: always with our hearts when we love.

To have a clean heart, Marian and Matt, is to enter into the mind of Jesus Christ and that is to embrace his Cross. Having a clean heart is becoming one with Jesus Christ, especially in his love and fidelity.

A clean heart is a loving heart that always gives life, other-centered, veritable and enduring. Always in communion with Jesus Christ who gave us the new commandment to love like him by being rooted in the Father.

The love of Christ is the fire that purifies and cleanses our hearts, unifying our intellect, will and emotion that enables us to see oneness in ourselves before God. We see not only the good and the bad sides in ourselves but also among those around us, especially those we love.

Look back at your many experiences, Marian and Matt. Look at your past lives, your struggles, your mistakes and sins. Despite all these, you have also seen and experienced God’s loving presence in you in spite of your many darkness and divisions within.

That is why you are so “blessed”, Marian and Matt, because today on your wedding day, you enter God himself and you are able to “see” him with your loving hearts despite your pains and hurt, failures and shortcomings. Keep your hearts clean in Jesus Christ so you may always see God in each other. Amen.
https://lordmychef.com/2019/07/06/husband-and-wife-icons-of-christ/

*Photo by author, Malolos Cathedral 2019.*

My dearest married couples, please do not forget that fact, that reality: you are an image, an icon of Jesus Christ. And what a great honor!

That is why Jesus made His first miracle in a wedding at Cana to show your special place in God’s plan. You have chosen a most difficult kind of life but that is why you chose to get married in the Church – to be blessed by God.

God keeps His promise. Keep yours too! Praying for all couples especially those going through difficulties these days.

Be careful not to fall

The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Tuesday in the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time, Year II, 04 June 2024
2 Peter 3:12-15, 17-18 <*((((><< + >><))))*> Mark 12:13-17

*Photo by Dra. Mylene A. Santos, MD, an orange-bellied flowerpecker (Dicaeum trigonostigma) somewhere in the Visayas, December 2023.*

Therefore, beloved, since you are forewarned, be on your guard not to be led into the error of the unprincipled and to fall from your own stability.
2 Peter 3:17

Your words of caution
through St. Peter are so timely,
Lord Jesus in this time
of discussions and debate
on the proposed law on divorce;
how sad there are some
supposed to be learned and
knowledgeable, seemingly stable
in their positions as teachers
and educators and journalists
calling for more openness
in the discussions
 of moral and social issues
are the ones who are really
closed to their own thoughts
and ideas they have labeled as
progressive and liberal,
insisting their own interpretations
of Scriptures and moral laws;
what is most sad,
even deplorable at times,
is when they cite so many
thinkers without even citing You,
dear Jesus
 regarding Your own words
and teachings
that are clearly against divorce.

Forgive us, Jesus,
when we look so highly
of ourselves,
believing so much
 to whatever we know
like those Pharisees and
Herodians who banded together
to test You;
keep us humble, Lord
with whatever sense of stability
we feel we have or know;
let us grow in grace by constantly
affirming that feeling and
experience of being
loved by God
and most of all,
to grow in Your knowledge
which is to grow in a deeper
and personal relationship
with You.
dear Jesus.

Lord Jesus,
let us not only fall from our
own stability
but most of all.
may we not mislead
others to joining us in
our follies.
Amen.

The Eucharist: our experience of divinity & unity in love

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ-B, 02 June 2024
Exodus 24:3-8 ><}}}}}*> Hebrews 9:11-15 ><}}}}}*> Mark 14:12-16, 22-26

When I was a teacher-administrator of the Immaculate Conception Schoo for Boys (ICSB) in Malolos during my early years in the priesthood, I used to tell my students that in every first date they would have, always bring their girlfriend to a restaurant because what matters most is not the food and drinks but the moments we share together to know each other.

That’s the spirit behind every gathering we host with family and friends. What we really offer our guests are not food and drinks and desserts but our very selves, expressing to them our desire to be closer and intimate in our relationships as family and friends. When we tell them to have more food and drinks including sending home with tons of “Sharon Cuneta”, we actually share to them our selves as food and drinks in the same manner they nourished us with their coming. That’s Filipino hospitality so known even abroad, so appreciated by foreigners as we see in many reels and TikTok in social media.

Universally speaking, every meal is more than eating and drinking but of togetherness, of deepening of our bonds as family and friends nourishing each other, becoming food and drinks for one another.

It is the same thing the happens in a more complete and perfect manner whenever we celebrate the Holy Eucharist.

By giving us His very self as Body and Blood, Jesus Christ our host in this sacred meal not only nourishes our spiritual and deepest longings but most of all offers us the most intimate communion possible with others and with God. Jesus is the one who makes everything possible for us to be together, calling us to “come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest…for I am humble and gentle of heart” (Mt.11:28-30).

On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus’ disciples said to him, “Where do you want us to go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?” He sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city and a man will meet you, carrying a jar of water. Follow him. Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, “The Teacher says, ‘Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready. Make the preparations for us there.” The disciples then went off, entered the city, and found it just as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover.
Mark 14:12-16

*Photo by MART PRODUCTION on Pexels.com*

See how Jesus personally prepared everything for their Passover meal when He arranged everything with coded messages like following “a man carrying a jar of water” because at that time, it was the woman who fetched water. You cannot find a man carrying a jar of water unless there is something extraordinary like in our gospel today. And that is how much God loves us, always taking the initiative to meet us, to encounter us, to be closest with us.

It is always Jesus Christ who takes the initiative to meet us and bless us like in the Holy Eucharist. Imagine at the start of the Mass, right away He welcomes us even if we are sinners, granting us pardon even before we have asked forgiveness. In the Eucharist, we receive Jesus Christ personally like the apostles at the Last Supper this time under the signs of bread and wine as His Body and Blood, drawing us closer to Him.

That is what really happens in the sacred meal of the Holy Eucharist, a divine communion!

I tell people that after receiving Jesus in the Holy Communion, speak to Him in the most personal manner, tell Him everything whatever you want, including your cries and complaints. But, like in every meal, listen too to Jesus who has always has something so personal to tell us.

Here we find an essential element in every meal, in every conversation, in a covenant: our responsibility, our response to the offer of our host Jesus Christ. This is the meaning of Moses splashing the blood of the animal offerings to the people in sealing their covenant with God: the blood symbolized life or gift of self, our giving of ourselves to God our Lord. Jesus perfected this in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist as the Letter of the Hebrews tells us:

Brothers and sisters: When Christ came as high priest of the good things that have come to be, passing through the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made by hands, that is, not belonging to this creation, he entered once for all into the sanctuary, not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. For this reason he is mediator of a new covenant: since a death has taken place for deliverance from transgressions under the first covenant, those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.
Hebrews 9:11-12, 15

*Photo by author, Chapel of St. Francis Xavier, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 20 March 2024.*

Here we find the element and essence of sacrifice of Jesus as sacrifice of the Mass. From the Latin words sacra facere that means to make holy or sacred, Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice for us to make us holy like Him. In the Mass, we do not repeat His sacrifice but makes it present, actual in ourselves.

For us to receive Jesus Body and Blood in the Eucharist, we too give ourselves to Him to become His very presence in the world not only in the community gathered as His mystical Body or Church but most of all, in our union as family and friends like in Marriage. But, remember that the sacrament is not everything. We have responsibilities to nurture, deepen and protect the grace every Sacrament bestows us. What do we give? What do we sacrifice?

My dear friends, that aspect of mortification in sacrifice is accidental. We do not sacrifice or give up something merely to deny ourselves of something good. To sacrifice is not to deprive oneself of life but actually to offer oneself to a higher life. That is why we sacrifice for our loved ones and even for ourselves to achieve our dreams and aspirations. God asks us to sacrifice not because He needs us but in order to make us better, to make us holy, more equipped to keep our end in His covenant. Hence, divorce is contrary to the Eucharist, to the covenant of God.

*Photo by Ka Ruben, National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, Valenzuela City, 2022.*

There is no perfect marriage nor perfect couples but every marriage is made in heaven, blessed by God. Problems do happen indeed in many marriages or in life in general but these are of human origins – the hardness of our hearts as Jesus declared, not with the sacrament or with life itself.

Everybody has got to give, has to sacrifice. The best things in life are not free, especially a happy marriage. Or a fulfilling ministry or career or whatever. We have to give ourselves too in the same manner Jesus gave us Himself on the Cross. Problem is we no longer sacrifice in these days of instants that even that most wonderful union of man and woman called marriage is being destroyed by some in the pretext of a solution with divorce.

In celebrating the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ today, we experience the love and unity of God expressed in last week’s celebration of the Blessed Trinity, of how the three Persons in their mutual giving of self to each other outpoured upon us life and abundant blessings.

Like the three Persons bonded in love, we too can achieve that unity with God and with others through the Holy Eucharist when we too learn to sacrifice, assuring us of God’s presence among us in the ordinary instances in life. Experience God in every movement, in every step as He always takes the initiative to meet us, to be with us so we become like Him.

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus Christ,
You have given me Your total self
in love, Body and Blood
on the Cross and daily in 
the sacrifice of the Mass;
You never asked me to give
myself literally: You merely ask me
to be more loving and kind,
to be more forgiving and merciful,
to be more charitable;
what's more, every good deed 
I am able to do actually comes from You!
I practically just have to be Your lips,
Your hands, Your limbs, Your Body and Blood
and yet, I could not give up myself to You!
Help me Jesus
to learn to sacrifice,
to offer my body,
my total self to You
through the loving service of others.
Amen.