Jesus said to his disciples: “Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.” Judas, not the Iscariot, said to him, “Master, then what happened that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?”
John 14:21-22
So often in life, Lord Jesus, we feel like St. Jude Thaddeus asking you the same question of why did you not reveal your self to more people, especially the unbelievers and your enemies so there would be no more questions about your Resurrection and most of all, of your existence.
Why did you not appear to powerful nations and not just Israel or to more people not just the few Apostles whose testimony about you we must now rely?
But, Lord, the more we wonder about your ways and compare it to our supposed to be bright ideas of making you known and accepted, the more we experience your presence and realize your goodness. Most of all, the more we appreciate and embrace your mystery.
You always act so gently in history, Lord, always waiting for the right time to come and reveal your self. You chose the more difficult way by becoming human, being born an infant subjected to so much dangers early in life and when you matured, you chose to suffer and die so that when you rose again, you came knocking into everyone’s heart inviting us all to have faith that you have risen.
For the world, your way is always laughed at because we always think we know better like the people at Lystra who insisted that Paul and Barnabas are gods, without us knowing that the more we insist on our ways, the more we get lost from what is really true.
Teach us today, Lord Jesus Christ, to learn from your divine way of revelations by choosing silence than noise, simplicity than complexity, hiddenness than spectacles.
Teach us today, Lord Jesus Christ, that your divine way of revelation is always the path of weakness and smallness that lead us to more freedom and more love. Amen.
Rock formations at Petra in Jordan that nature had carved slowly through time. Photo by author, 01 May 2019.
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Clouds over the vast desert of Egypt going to Cairo, 07 May 2019.
Thank you for following our LordMyChef Sunday Music.
It is nice to be back again this Sunday with a music from the Bee Gees with their second international hit single called “To Love Somebody” released in 1967.
According to Barry Gibb, the only surviving member of one of the world’s most successful musical group composed of his late brothers Robin and Maurice (and Andy), To Love Somebody is his most loved composition because of its “clear, emotional message” (Piers Morgan’s Life Stories interview in 2017). In another interview earlier in 2001, Barry said the song was meant for their long-time producer Robert Stigwood’s gift and brilliance, as a sort of a tribute. He explained that Stigwood asked him to compose a soul for Otis Redding in 1967; they presented To Love Somebody to Redding in New York who liked it very much. Unfortunately, Redding never had the chance to record the song when he died in a plane crash that year. To Love Somebody was then offered to other artists but despite their good reviews of the song, nobody wanted to record it. Hence, the Bee Gees included it in their first international debut album Bee Gees 1st, releasing it as a single that reached the 17th spot in the US charts and 41 in UK. The brothers reissued it in 1980 and the song has been covered by so many other artists worldwide that included Michael Bolton, Rod Stewart, Janis Joplin and Nina Simone.
To Love Somebody sounds so close to our gospel today when Jesus gave his disciples a new commandment to love one another as he has loved us, which is, “to love somebody the way I love you”!
Of course, the song is romantic in nature but it gives us also a hint of the newness of Christ’s new commandment to love like him that is always unitive, creating a communion and bond of unity with the lover and the beloved. That unity for Jesus is rooted in God our Father who is love himself.
Human love is always imperfect. There will always be people so difficult to love or deal with or simply accept. Even more difficult to forgive. But when we love in Christ Jesus, in him and with him, our love becomes more truer and doable and possible. After all, as the Bee Gees sing in this song, it is Jesus Christ who first loved us too and desired so much that unity in him. We are able to love because of Christ’s gift of love for us. Let us not waste that gift of love. Love somebody, the way Jesus loves you! Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul, Easter Wk. V, Yr.C, 19 May 2019
Acts 14:21-27 ><)))> Revelations 21:1-5 ><)))> John 13:31-33, 34-35
Sunrise at Lake Tiberias, the Holy Land. Photo by author, 04 May 2019.
I was sleeping soundly along with other customers at our barbershop last Thursday noon when we were jolted by a boy about four years old who shrieked and threw on tantrums as he vehemently refused to have a haircut. It was a big scene and the poor young mother was at a loss how to pacify her son who kept yelling at her “I do not want to have a haircut!”
After a couple of minutes, everybody sighed with relief – except me – when the boy finally finally cooled off to sit on the barber’s chair for his haircut. I felt no relief first because the more I pitied the young mother who had to bribe her spoiled son with a cellphone to play computer games just to behave. And secondly, I was never able to get back to my siesta due to the sounds of the boy’s computer games.
As I looked in horror with the scene, I wondered if this is the new kind of love today when gadgets and things replace persons.
When Judas had left them, Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 13:31, 34-35
Boat ride at the Lake of Tiberias, 04 May 2019.
It is very true that love of neighbor is not a Christian innovation. Other great religions also have love as a fundamental principle.
The newness in Jesus’ new commandment to love lies deeply in his following sentence, “As I have loved you, so you should love one another.”
To love like Jesus Christ is more than doing a higher order kind of love or a more loving way of loving by following a stricter moral standard.
To love like Jesus is to love in union with the Father who is love himself!
This newness of his commandment to love is found deep in the preceding scene of the gospel when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. In the fourth gospel, the washing of the feet is the meaning of love expressed in the Holy Eucharist that prefigured Good Friday’s crucifixion. In relating that scene, St. John used the word “clean” three times as Jesus declared to his disciples “you are clean” (Jn.13:10).
It was in the washing the feet when Jesus first clearly showed the most unique and loving way of God coming down to us to cleanse us of our sins. Purity is always a gift from God because we cannot make ourselves clean. And like in that washing of feet of his disciples, Jesus continues to purify us in every Mass we celebrate today. The more we are “purified” by Jesus in the Eucharist, the more we learn to be like him, to love like him unconditionally and most of all, to love in union with the Father who is love himself.
And there lies the newness of Christ’s new commandment of love, for us to love like Jesus in him and with him.
We will always be imperfect and sinful, always needing to be cleansed and purified to be fitting to God. In the same manner, human love is always imperfect like us. Most often, we love for reasons that are always wrong or sometimes love in seasons that soon go off season. There will always be people and situations when our arguments and reasons not to love are not only right and proper but also justified. But when we come to realize this gift of love from Jesus, of loving like him in union with the Father, we become his extension and channel of love. Love, then, becomes pure and doable, even easier and acceptable because first of all, we experience it in us.
Franciscan Monastery, Mt. Nebo, Jordan where God let Moses view the Promised Land to be given to the Israelites. The cross with serpent prefigured the salvation to come from Christ’s death: the Israelites complained against God who punished them by sending poisonous snakes that bit and killed them. The Israelites repented and God ordered Moses to make a copper snake image to mount it on a stick that whoever looked at it was healed of the snake bite and lived (Numbers 21:6). Photo by author 03 May 2019.
To love like Jesus is totally new because it is not really us who does the loving but Jesus himself in us and with us. It is a totally new kind of love because it is a love not based on norms or rules but on God himself. It is a totally new kind of love because we allow Jesus to act in us, making God truly present among us. Thus, we all become an Emmanuel like Jesus, God-is-with-us. What a great honor for us to be a presence of God in Jesus! That despite our sins and weaknesses, Jesus continues to cleanse us so he may dwell in us and work through us. When we obey his new commandment to love like him, then his words at the end of today’s gospel are indeed fulfilled, “This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (Jn.13: 35). It is a love so different from the world that sets us apart from others, enabling us to make a big difference in this world marred with sin and imperfections.
This remains the great challenge among us now in our time when Jesus said “My children, I will be with you only a little while longer” (Jn.13:33) when he gave this new commandment. It is the present time where we always have that tension of the here and the not yet oriented toward Jesus who has come, is coming now and will come in the end of time. This is why until now like during the time of the apostles, we have priests or presbyters appointed to care for the flock by leading them in a life of charity and unity in the Church. Every priest as well as every Christian is supposed to be a presence of Christ, loving like Jesus in union with the Father. How sad when we, priests and lay people alike, deny this kind of love of Jesus, destroying our unity in the Father as one family of believers and followers.
Let us not waste Christ’s gift of love so unique that unites us with the Father and with everyone. Let us strive harder that despite our sinfulness and many differences of beliefs and affiliations, through Christ’s gift of purity and love, we may little by little realize “a new heaven and a new earth” as John saw in his vision at Patmos. A blessed Sunday to everyone! Amen.
Facade of the wall enclosing the St. Katherine Monastery in Sinai, Egypt. At its back is Mt. Sinai where pilgrims begin their ascent to the mountain where God met with Moses. Photo by author 06 May 2019.
So many times, Lord Jesus, we desire to see your Father. But so many times, too, we forget that whoever has seen you has also seen the Father…
Philip said to Jesus, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”
John 14:8-9
But, what is really to see you, Lord, that we may also see the Father?
If seeing the Father is seeing in our lives its unity and oneness with you, then, let us imitate you Jesus that our lives may also be like yours.
If seeing the Father is seeing in our lives your mercy and forgiveness of our sins, then, let us be merciful and forgiving with others so we see more of you Jesus among us.
If seeing the Father is seeing in our lives the grace to rise above our lowly selves to become better persons, to be holy like the Father in heaven, then, let us strive to get closer to you Jesus by following you faithfully in loving service with others.
Through you, O Christ, you have brought the Father closest to us; and in you, O Jesus, the Father approaches us, drawing us unto him by leading us beyond ourselves into his infinite greatness and love.
Like what you did through the Holy Spirit to Paul and Barnabas in the first reading today, help us to keep our cool amid many adversaries, filled with joy in the face of many crises and obstacles because we have seen seen you and the Father too! Amen.
Kept inside this chapel in the Monastery of St. Katherine in Sinai, Egypt is said to be the burning bush where God first appeared to Moses. Photo by author, 06 May 2019.
Stations of the Cross at the wall of the Catholic chapel inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Photo by author, 04 May 2019.
Praise and glory to you, O Lord Jesus Christ! Thank you for another week about to close with another one soon to start. Most of all, thank you, Jesus, for always standing by our side especially in our moments of crisis and darkness.
So many times we find ourselves like your Apostle Thomas the Twin in today’s gospel who ask you with so many questions that are often simple and even silly. But, you always answer them filled with profound truth.
Thomas said to him, “Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
John 14:5-6
O Lord, forgive us for being so slow sometimes like Thomas with our level of understanding your words and teachings, even your very self.
However, we pray also for the sincerity of Thomas in asking that question that now defines you as “the way, the truth, and the life.” In answering that question, you have assured us of never abandoning us, of always fulfilling your words and your plans for us that so often we could not see nor understand at the start.
Help us to be faithful to your words as Paul preached in the synagogue of Antioch in our first reading today. May we always trust your words, Jesus, by following your path of the Cross for you always fulfill them and crowned it with your glorious Resurrection. Amen.
Ninth Station of the Cross before entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Photo by author April 2017.
Madaba Mosaic Map on the floor of the Byzantine church of St. George in Madaba, Jordan dating back to 560 AD, one of the oldest maps of the Holy Land discovered in late 19th century. Photo by author, 02 May 2019.
Your readings for today, Lord Jesus, remind me of that wonderful experience you gave us to see so many beautiful mosaics in your Holy Land. Some are very old, some are new. But they are all so lovely not only for our sight to behold but also for our hearts to reflect and cherish.
It was only then when I realized in the production of a mosaic that each stone represents every one of us who has rough edges cut into a tiny piece then glued together to form one big picture by highlighting each one’s smooth and shiny surface.
Just one shiny, smooth surface needed to complete a beautiful picture.
Just one good character or trait of us, never mind our rough and uneven edges and sides, to portray your beauty, your majesty, your glory.
Thank you, Lord, for looking more on our beautiful side like in a mosaic.
Thank you for washing us of our sins so we may be smoother and shinier.
Thank you for that long story of salvation Paul summarized in the first reading at how you patiently waited in time to fix everything until you came to save us. It is the same kind of patience and love you must have put on each of us to be a part of your big picture, Lord.
May we always see the bigger picture of you among us who are tiny pieces of little stones with many rough sides with just one good side needed to portray you. May we keep in our minds and our hearts that “no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him” (Jn.13:16) so we may always focus on the brighter and smoother side of us and of life to reflect you more. Amen.
The Madaba Mosaic Factory in Jordan employs disabled persons with a large part of its earnings supporting other disadvantaged people in the area. Photo by the author, 02 May 2019.
Wednesday, Easter Week IV, 15 May 2019 (Feast of St. Isidore Labrador)
Acts 1224-13:5///John 13:16-20
Plants growing on walls along the Palm Sunday Path of Jesus in Jerusalem. Photo by author, 03 May 2019.
You know O Lord Jesus Christ how grateful I am and my fellow pilgrims for the gift of coming to your Holy Land last week. And you know how we felt later when we were so eager to come home, to get back to the Philippines.
Partly it was homesickness but largely I think due to our “rootedness”, to our desire to get back to our roots in our home, with our family, with my parishioners.
Yes, we have felt and experienced you Lord in the Holy Land but you are felt most when we all go back to our roots, when we touch base to our home, family and friends.
After Barnabas and Saul completed their relief mission, they returned to Jerusalem… While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”
Acts 12:25, 13:2
This touched me so much,Lord: Barnabas and Saul began to venture far and wide in their mission to the Gentiles while they were praying with the others in Jerusalem. It happened when they returned to Jerusalem, their home, their base where you first gathered them together after Easter!
Yes… you are most present whenever we come home and touch base with our roots like family and relatives, friends and neighbors, even schools or places where we first met you!
You can boldly claim that whoever believes in you believes also in the Father who sent you because you remained rooted in the Father, Lord Jesus.
Help us, Lord, to find our way back home to you in the Father. Give us the courage to touch base with our roots, to find you in our selves, in others around us including our places of work and study.
Like St. Isidore Labrador who always prayed and visited you, touching base with you as his roots always before farming, may we come to realize that ultimately, our rootedness is in God alone. Amen.
The Our Father Church in Jerusalem. Photo by the author, 03 May 2019.
Tuesday, Easter Week IV, 14 May 2019, Feast of St. Matthias the Apostle
Acts 1:15-17, 20-26///John 15:9-17
From Google.
Today we are celebrating O Lord Jesus Christ the feast of St. Matthias, the one chosen by your eleven Apostles to replace your betrayer Judas Iscariot. We do not know so much about him except that he was also a witness to all your “earthly events remaining faithful to you until the end” (Acts 1:21-22).
However, from his unique role of replacing Judas Iscariot to complete your 12 Apostles after Easter, St. Matthias teaches us today that we never run out of good men and women in the Church as well as in the society who can always replace the many traitors among us.
There will always be many Judas Iscariots everywhere who betray you, O Lord, and us with their selfishness.
Teach us, Jesus, to truly love you in the most concrete manner like St. Matthias who counterbalanced the traitorous Judas Iscariot found among many of us. Teach us to discern your will in finding the Matthias among us who will continue your work to offset the many evils done by your betrayers in the Church, in the society and in the family.
Forgive us, O Lord, that despite the chance to choose more St. Matthias among us in our recent elections, it seems many of us still prefer to bring back or keep the many Judas Iscariots.
Help us to be your witnesses in this world now plunged into so much darkness where lies and superficiality have become a way of life. Amen.
Icon of the election of St. Matthias. From Google.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul, Monday, Easter Week IV, 13 May 2019 (Fatima)
Acts 11:1-18///John 10:1-10
From Google.
Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep… Whoever enters through me will be saved.
John 10:1-10
Dearest Lord Jesus Christ:
Today we go to the polls to choose our lawmakers and local executives.
We pray for wisdom and enlightenment to use this great power and freedom you have given us. Let us listen to your voice, follow your voice. Let us enter through you in exercising our rights in choosing our shepherds for you are our gate who leads us to true development and growth as a nation.
Help us realize that to enter you as our gate means to keep always in our minds that ultimately, we all belong to you. That every decision we make in this life, be it in politics or in economics or any field of humanity always has an impact to our ultimate end which is to be with you in eternal life.
Help us realize that to enter you as our gate means ultimately, to follow you alone in love and sacrifice, in suffering and in death on the Cross. That there is no such thing as easy way or shortcuts in this life; keep us on guard with those thieves who try to seduce us with so many promises of a better life as they clearly use power to escape the harsh realities of life.
Let your Holy Spirit enlighten us like those who confronted Peter in Jerusalem after learning he had interacted with Gentiles in Joppa.
May your Mother who appeared in Fatima 102 years ago today lead us back to you, Jesus. The message of Fatima has shown us that you continue to work in our lives in these modern time. Most of all, any change in the world and in our lives can only happen when each one of us returns to you in love and penance, O Lord, our gate. Amen.
The Crucifix at the main altar of Basilica di Santissima Trinita in Fatima, Portugal; at the altar is a painting of Mary with the three children of the 1917 apparitions at left and the Apostles with John the Baptist to the right. A beautiful imagery to show that in Fatima, Mary points us all to Jesus who remains our gate. Photo by Arch. Philip Santiago, October 2018.
There is something very unique among us that binds us Filipinos as one whenever we go abroad aside from being “maganda” as the people of Jordan, Israel and Egypt described us in a recent pilgrimage. Whenever we are in a foreign country, we Filipinos have that inner recognition that we are kababayan, something like what Jesus tells us in the gospel today.
“My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand.”
John 10:27-28
This Sunday, we start a shift in our gospel readings: there would be no more stories of the appearances of Jesus after Easter until his Ascension with passages taken from St. John to deepen in us the meaning of Christ’s Resurrection.
Observe, my dear readers, the four verbs we have in our very short gospel today: hear my voice, know them, follow me, and give them eternal life. Right away we notice the inner recognition of Jesus Christ and his followers us, his sheep. See the flow of the first three verbs in our Lord’s declaration: my sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me. It is quite odd in the sense that the sheep follow the voice because the shepherd knows them when it should be the other way around: my sheep know me, they hear my voice and they follow me.
Remember the inner recognition we talked about the other Sunday, that feeling of “a basta!” when deep inside us we are so certain of somebody or something? This is an example of that experience we have going abroad when we meet a kababayan: by just looking at each other, we already know we are Filipinos as if they first knew us, then we hear them, and follow them. It is something we also have deep within us with Jesus our Lord and God.
The lovely district of Jaffa Tel Aviv where you meet many Filipinos too. Photo by author, 03 May 2019.
These four verbs of hearing, knowing, following, and giving express relationship and ties that bind us together as a people and nation. To hear and to follow imply communion; anyone who hears and follows somebody recognizes the speaker’s authority and voice, entrusting one’s self to his or her guidance like in the family where we hear and follow our parents as we celebrate Mothers’ day today. Hearing and following lead to a kind of attachment as children to the parents or a disciple to a master. The parents, especially the mother knows her children very well that she always thinks the best for them, doing her best to give them a better and secured future. On our return flight yesterday from Bahrain, we chanced upon many Filipina OFW mothers returning home with their children – some are still infants, others are little children or young kids. They are the mothers who sacrifice so much so their children and family can have a better future.
Going back to Jesus Christ our Good Shepherd, we level up the meaning and application of those four verbs, especially the knowing and giving that pertain to Jesus Christ.
More than our communion and unity in Christ as his disciples, we ought to hear and follow him because only Jesus knows us so well. Only Jesus knows our deepest pains and hurts, our deepest longings and desires. Most of all, only Jesus loves us so much despite of his knowing of how sinful we are that he calls by name like Mary Magdalene on that Easter morning or Simon Peter at the shore of Lake Tiberias after asking him thrice if he loves him to assure his forgiveness of denying him thrice on Holy Thursday.
Most of all, we ought to hear and follow Jesus because only he can give us eternal life for he is life himself (Jn.11:25)! It was only Jesus who had walked with us in every valley of darkness, never abandoning us, and most of all, passed over through every pain and suffering, even death so that we may share in the glory of his new life. Only Jesus can bring back our shattered lives when we squander this gift of life like the prodigal son. It is only Jesus who would never judge us or put us into shame in our sinfulness to give us a chance to sin no more like the woman caught committing adultery. Only Jesus can promise us heaven because it is only him who had joined us in our sinfulness without committing sin by dying on the cross like Dimas the repentant thief.
These, my friends, are the inner unity that bind us together in Christ Jesus our Good Shepherd of which John the beloved was given a glimpse in the second reading. This also shows us how salvation for everyone, not only for Jews or any particular group, has always been in God’s plan from the beginning that he sent us his only Son Jesus Christ. May we all hear and follow his voice always, especially through our dear mothers. Amen.
Entrance to the miraculous “Milk Grotto” chapel of the Franciscans beside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Photo by the author, 05 May 2019.
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