Category: family

Married life is a prayer

The Lord Is My Chef Recipe for 40th Wedding Anniversary

Tony and Joyce Lopez, 20 October 2019

Presentation of Our Lord Parish, Filinvest 1, Batasan Hills, QC

Tony and Joyce on their 40th Wedding Anniversary, 20 October 2019 at the Presentation of the Lord Parish, Filinvest I, QC joined by their son Atty. JA and wife Kathleen with two kids, and youngest daughter Rosella.

Every Sunday I write a blog connecting the gospel with a secular song.

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.”

Joyce mom Fely Pollard with late husband Charles’ cousin, Beth Javier.

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 form of 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.

Joyce: “During our first few years as couple, I was the one always embracing Tony; but, later until now, it is Tony who often hugs and embraces me! Nabaligtad ang scenario.”

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 on this 40th anniversary of Joyce and Tony’s wedding! 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)

Tony and Joyce at Villa San Miguel, Mandaluyong 1979.

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.

“Time After Time” cover by Tuck & Patti (1988)

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music, 15 September 2019
Photo by Vincenzo Malagoli on Pexels.com

Our gospel this Sunday of the parable of the prodigal son speaks so well of what we may describe as the “wildness and wideness” of God’s love and mercy for each one of us, especially the lost and rejected. It is a love that goes “time after time”….

Lying in my bed I hear the clock tick
And think of you
Caught up in circles
Confusion is nothing new
Flashback, warm nights
Almost left behind
Suitcase of memories
Time after
Sometimes you picture me
I’m walking too far ahead
You’re calling to me, I can’t hear
What you’ve said
Then you say, go slow
I fall behind
The second hand unwinds
If you’re lost, you can look and you will find me
Time after time
If you fall, I will catch you, I will be waiting
Time after time

Written and originally performed by Cyndi Lauper, “Time After Time” is her second single she co-wrote with Rob Hyman that was released in January 24, 1984. It was an instant hit and earned very positive reviews for Lauper.

It is a story of unconditional love despite its being over.

The lover promises to continue loving her beloved despite their separation.

It is a kind of love that is so divine like the merciful father in the parable of the prodigal son. A love so true as it recognises the other person as a “somebody”, a part of the lover. A love that persists time after time because we remain a family despite our separation of distance or even of feelings.

We have chosen the 1988 cover by the jazz duo of husband and wife Tuck and Patti because of its more solemn rendition. The guitar and voice ensemble of the duo for me is one of the music world’s great treasure we are so thankful not only in delighting our senses but most of all in making us experience some of the most beautiful songs of our time.

Enjoy!

The wildness – and wideness – of God’s love and mercy

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe, Week XXIV-C, 15 September 2019

Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14 ><)))*> 1Timothy 1:12-17 ><)))*> Luke 15:1-32

Camp John Hay, Baguio City, 23 August 2019.

Today we conclude the series of “table talks” by Jesus with three parables narrated while dining; but, unlike the other Sunday when he was with prominent people, this time we find the Lord among the notorious ones of his time.

Tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus, but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Luke 15:1-2

It is the perfect setting where Jesus bared what we may call as “the wildness and wideness” of God’s love and mercy for everyone, especially the lost and rejected. This explains why Luke 15:1-32 is the “heart” of the third gospel also known as the Gospel of Divine Mercy. So, please bear with me reflecting today’s long but lovely gospel.

The first two parables are about things – a sheep and a coin – that were lost and later found. There is nothing extraordinary about losing things that we also experience today. But, in narrating these parables, Jesus ended both with a saying to explain their meanings and significance to introduce the third parable of the lost son.

“I tell you, in just the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance.”

“In just the same way, I tell you, there will be rejoicing among the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Luke 15: 7, 10
Photo by Ms. Jo Villafuerte, Atok, Benguet, 01 September 2019.

For the past two Sundays, we have been reflecting about the importance of our personhood, of how God comes first to our very persons, of the need for us to be true and humble because God meets us right in our weaknesses and sinfulness. Jesus warned us the other Sunday that “for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted” (Lk.14:11). As they say, bloom wherever you are planted for God’s grace is more than enough for each one of us!

Such is God’s love us that Jesus demands total faith in him that “if anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Lk.14: 26). In our lives as his disciples, there would be countless times when no explanations, no reasons are enough why we choose to love and forgive, to be kind and understanding except the very person of Jesus Christ. That is what we call as communion, oneness with the Lord, of always preferring Jesus above anyone and anything!

This is the very reason why the Pharisees and scribes were complaining against him: the tax collectors and sinners were turning to Jesus and not to the Laws they represent! And that continues to happen in our time when some people insist more on religion and vocation, roles and rituals, totally forgetting and even disregarding the very person of God who calls us to himself in Christ!

The Return of the Prodigal Son by Rembrandt (c.1661-1669). From Google.

Then he said, “A man had two sons, and the younger son said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of your estate that should come to me.’ So the father divided the property between them. After a few days, the younger son collected all his belongings and set off to a distant country where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation.”

Luke 15:11-13

Feel the solemnity of Jesus in introducing this parable, shifting from lost sheep and lost coin to lost son, from things to persons because the elder son is also lost. It is the father who eventually restored the lost personhood of the two sons when he lavished them with his love and mercy towards the end of the story. And that is why this parable is so lovely as it reminds us of how unconsciously we are “dumping” our own personhood despite our bloated egos. Slowly we are becoming robots or worst, even zombies without feelings and personal relations with others and with one’s self.

Just like the two sons in our parable who both define sonship in terms of servile obligations that is utilitarian and contractual in relationships, not as a family.

The Prodigal Son by John Macallan Swan, 1888. From Google.

Coming to his senses he thought, ‘How many of my father’s hired workers have more than enough food to eat, but here I am, dying from hunger. I shall get up and go to my father and I shall say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers.”

He (elder son) said to his father in reply, “Look, all these years I served you and not once did I disobey your orders; yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends. But when your son returns who swallowed up your property with prostitutes, for him you slaughtered the fattened calf.”

Luke 15:17-19, 29-30

The prodigal son remembered his father when he was starving, thinking more of the food he could have if he returns home as a servant, not as a son. See how in the midst of sin, he never thought of his father as his parent, of himself as a son. He was convinced that the path to reconciliation with his father was becoming a hired worker, forgetting the very fact he is the youngest son.

The same is true with the elder son who refused to join the celebration when his brother had returned home, feeling so bad that his long years of service to his father deserve him a reward. In a sense, he is worst than the prodigal son: no father, no brother – just himself alone!

Both sons have a slanted view of their father, a very truncated one that is self-isolating, very constricting like the Pharisees and scribes who have forgotten their being persons, of being interrelated with one another in God. Very much like us today that slowly as the ties that bind us as family and friends are slowly being severed by so many things, we also start to lose many of our values like “malasakit” or concern for one another.

The father redefined their – and ours, too – relationships as family that lead to joy and celebration.

He (father) said to him, “My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours. But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.”

Luke 15:31-32
Santorini. Photo by Dra. Mai Dela Pena, 2016.

Today, Jesus reminds us, and assures us too that no matter what happens with us, we will always be his brothers and sisters, beloved and forgiven children of the Father.

We call and relate with God as Father because as his children, he is our giver and keeper of life.

And should this life get lost, God as our Father, can also be so “prodigal” to “wastefully” love us and bring back this life to us for we are more valuable than anything else in this universe. That’s how wild and wide is his love and mercy. Amen.

Our Parents and Grandparents, God’s Presence

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul
Friday, Feast of St. Joachim and St. Anne, 26 July 2019
Song of Songs 44:1, 10-15 >< }}}*><*{{{ >< Matthew 13:16-17
Photo by Jim Marpa. September 2018.

On this feast of the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joachim and St. Anne, we praise and thank you almighty Father for the gift of our dear parents as well as grandparents.

In your Ten Commandments, immediately after the first three laws pertaining to you, you commanded us to “honor our father and mother” to stress that “charity begins at home”, that before we can love anybody else in this world, it must first be our parents and grandparents.

Before we can love any other person, we must first love our parents and grandparents for they are the signs of your presence with us, O God. From them we receive our first religious instructions, and most of all, we experience first from them your love and mercy.

Bless us, O Lord, to respect and love them, especially when they are old.

Give us strong hands and arms always ready to reach out to them when they could no longer move well. Let us return that favor this time for us children to help them walk.

Give us more patience and understanding with a lot of kindness when our parents become forgetful and sometimes childish in their ways. Let us be loving to them in their old age and senior moments in the same way they were so fond of us when we were kids and knew nothing at all.

Give us also, O Lord, the eyes to see those white hair and wrinkles they have, including those sickness they now bear were all partly because of us when they have to suffer so much, work so hard to give us a brighter today.

Remind us always, Lord, that of your Ten Commandments, the fourth is the only one with a promise, “Honor your father and your mother and I shall bless you in your old age.”

Remind us, Lord, that even if we are older and wiser, or even if we are already parents too, we always remain children of our parents.

Likewise, we pray for those parents who refuse to take on their roles as mother or father to their children, for those who refuse to be responsible enough to be truly parents teaching their children what is true and good and right.

We pray for all parents that they may all bring you forth, Lord Jesus Christ, onto the world through their children and grandchildren. Amen.

From Google.

“A House Is Not A Home” by Dionne Warwick (1964)

Lord My Chef Sunday Music, 21 July 2019
Old experiment from my room while assigned at the Fatima Shrine in Valenzuela City, June 2010-2011.

Our Sunday gospel today speaks about true hospitality that leads to an encounter of Jesus Christ in our home and family.

Burt Bacharach’s “A House Is Not A Home” composed in 1964 for a movie of the same title easily came as our choice for this Sunday’s music.

Problem was choosing which of the many versions to feature in our blog today.

Though the different versions do matter a lot with slight variations in the lyrics, we decided in favor of the original recording by Ms. Dionne Warwick in 1964 that was the B-side of her top 40 single “You’ll Never Get To Heaven (If You Break My Heart)”.

Despite her excellent voice (a favorite of Bacharach), Warwick’s “A House Is Not A Home” did not fare well in the US charts. However, since its release in 1964 it has become a classic for its lovely tune and truthful lyrics.

A chair is still a chair, even when there’s no one sittin’ there
But a chair is not a house and a house is not a home
When there’s no one there to hold you tight
And no one there you can kiss goodnight….
A room is a still a room, even when there’s nothin’ there but gloom
But a room is not a house and a house is not a home
When the two of us are far apart
And one of us has a broken heart

Hospitality is from the Latin hospes that means to welcome. From this root came also the word hospital.

The story of Martha and Mary reminds us of the need to first welcome our family members so Jesus could dwell in our home. And this calls for love and respect for one another, for kindness and care.

How sad that right in our own family we could feel unwelcomed, or even hostaged which is from another Latin word hostis that means enemy.

This Sunday, experience Jesus and his good news of salvation in your family by breaking those barriers that prevent you from welcoming one another.

Have a “home sweet home” in Christ Jesus with a lot of love and kindness to one another in the family. God bless everyone!

Coming together in the Lord

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul
Wednesday,Week XIV, Year I, 10 July 2019
Genesis 41:55-57; 42:5-7, 17-24 >< )))*> Matthew 10:1-7
Pyramids of Egypt. Photo by author, 09 May 2019.

Thank you very much, our loving Father, for making us all come together as family and friends, colleagues and acquaintances on many occasions you have planned in all eternity in your infinite wisdom.

Like the sons of Israel who have come to Egypt to buy food during a famine and the 12 Apostles summoned by your Son Jesus, our coming together for various reasons in different seasons were all caused by your divine will.

The sons of Israel did not know how their coming into Egypt would reunite them with their lost brother Joseph they have maltreated and sold a long time ago. The 12 Apostles never had an inkling at that time how they would be betrayed by one of their very own that they welcomed each other as disciples of Jesus.

In your time, God, you perfectly know when and where and how we would meet the many people we now have in our lives.

Give us the grace to always seek your holy will, your grand design and plan with the people who come to our lives. Let us take care of them as precious gifts of family and friends you give us, let us shower them with your love and attention while still around us. May we never take them for granted, value them always as they value us too as gifts coming from you.

Let us not take them into someone not meant to be in our lives.

We pray also for people without friends and family around them, for those in far and distant lands working away from their loved ones, for those languishing in jails especially the innocent one that they may soon be reunited with their family.

Most of all, our loving Father, may we always see your face on every person we shall meet this day. Amen.

With our fellow pilgrims at the Sphinx in Egypt, 09 May, 2019.

“O-o-h Child” cover by Lisa Loeb (2017)-

RaffySampaloc Cove4
Photo by Mr. Raffy Tima of GMA-7 News, Sampaloc Cove in Subic, Zambales, 20 January 2019.  Used with permission.

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music, 03 February 2019

            As I was telling you in my last blog, we had a unique weekend yesterday when we celebrated the Feast of the Presentation of the Child Jesus in the Temple because its gospel reading complements our gospel this Sunday.  Recall how yesterday we have heard Simeon telling Mary the Mother of Jesus, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted – and you yourself a sword will pierce you – so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Lk.2:34-35).  Today in our gospel we have seen the fulfillment of Simeon’s prophecy of Jesus being a sign of contradiction when people at their synagogue were amazed at His “gracious words” in proclaiming the word of God on a Sabbath.  Then suddenly, the same people became skeptical of Him, wondering where or how He got such wisdom, asking “is he not the son of Joseph the carpenter?”  This deteriorated more when the people became furious of Jesus, trying to hurl Him down headlong a ravine after He had explained to them the meaning of the word of God that revealed their hypocrisies.

            So many times we go through the same experiences like Jesus in His own hometown when family and relatives and friends would speak highly of us but later put us down with their gossips and nasty words.  Like Jesus when we try to be true and just with everyone, there are those would feel insecure that they would backstab us and even worse, betray us like Judas to Jesus.  These are all a part of our being a prophet like Jesus Christ.  A prophet is more than being a spokesman of God but someone who makes the word of God happen and fulfilled in every here and now like Jesus declaring in the synagogue on that Sabbath day, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing” (Lk.4:21).  Sometimes, the more we try to truly love, the more we try to truly care and be kind with others, the more we are maligned and disliked by others.  Indeed, no prophet is accepted in his own native place.

            And that is why I remembered this beautiful song originally sang and recorded in 1970 by the Chicago soul family group called the Five Stairsteps.  This song was originally meant to be the B-side of the Five Stairsteps’ version of another song but due to its meaningful and soothing message of hope and love, it became an instant hit at that time.  There have been so many versions of this song that has become timeless as it assures everyone in every generation of how things would get better despite the many obstacles and setback in life.  It is the very same assurance of God to us all who try to follow His Son Jesus Christ in being a sign of contradiction in this world where the norm nowadays is selfishness and self-centeredness masquerading as love and service.  A blessed Sunday to you!

Meeting Jesus in 2019 with Mary

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The Lord Is My Chef New Year Recipe
Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, 01 January 2019
Numbers 6:22-27///Galatians 4:4-7///Luke 2:16-21

            One of my favorite sayings came from the waiting the room of our former family dentist Dr. Eddie Calalec of Meycauyan, Bulacan that says, “Time is fast for those who rush; Time is slow for those who wait; but, Time is NOT for those who love.”  We all complain of time being so fast.  Everybody is always in a hurry.  According to an elderly man I have talked to a couple of years ago, time moves so fast these days because people are always busy.  He explained that before, time was so slow because after farming earlier that day, they just waited for sunset and for time of harvest.  Life was so laid back at that time that truly time was so slow.  But life is not about time being fast or slow but of love.  The Church rightly celebrates today not the New Year which is time; remember that we celebrated the new year in the Church calendar last first Sunday of Advent.  Today we are celebrating the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God to celebrate her great love for Jesus that we hope to emulate this 2019.

             Mary embodies the whole meaning of that saying “TIME is not for those who love” as she presents to us not only the first but the perfect disciple of Jesus who loves Him so much.  St. Paul beautifully expressed in the second reading when time is not because of love which is “the fullness of time” (Gal.4:4).  When we love, there is fullness of time as if everything is suspended in animation, everything is frozen.  Every man who had courted any woman knows this very well of how time freezes when conversing with a beloved, not realizing the passing of time.  Old couples experience the same thing and so are good friends who could “waste” time together doing nothing, saying nothing to one another that after a few hours are all surprised at how long we have been together.  Time and space cease to bound people who truly love.  And that is why“if you want to be eternal, then, love” like God.

             People who love are always in haste not to do things or accomplish tasks but to be with their loved ones.  Luke tells us how “The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger” (Lk.2:16) after a heavenly host of angels proclaimed to them the good news of the birth of Jesus Christ.  We also heard from Luke during our Simbang Gabi after the annunciation of the birth of Jesus when “Mary set out and travelled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah” (Lk.1: 39).  This is the kind of haste – to come quickly to meet God, to be with a beloved, dear one – that is slowly fading away among us in this crazy world always on a mad race.  Everybody is rushing, running around, multitasking to accomplish so much that deplete us of energy even of time to be with our loved ones.  Many parents are guilty of this who turn nights into days making money to send their kids into expensive schools because of love; yet, when you ask them to attend a school meeting, to get the card of their children, they send the grandparents or nannies because they are busy at work.  More so with God as seen in the steady decrease of Mass attendance with people coming in late and then rushing to leave for meals and other things.  And admittedly, this is partly because so many priests are also in a rush to celebrate more masses and sacraments sadly for the wrong reasons and most of all, many of us could not share Jesus in homilies because we could not even come to Him for prayers.  It is simply a case of lack of any concern for God despite professions of faith or belief in Him.  Would we be like the shepherds if a host of angels appear tonight or today to tell us where Jesus Christ is?  Would we go in haste to find God, to meet God?  Would we be in haste to be with our loved ones, really?

         In this age of instant connections and social media via modern communications, actual meetings and coming together person to person have been replaced by mediated interactions.  We hardly experience anyone’s presence anymore that relationships have become superficial without any depths and meaning at all.  There is always the TV and the gadgets to entertain everyone, forgetting the tremendous blessing of everyone’s presence.  In the first reading we heard how God instructed Moses and Aaron to bless the people whenever they gather because every human presence is a blessing, a gift or a present.  And the highest blessing we can all have is the presence of God among us in Christ Jesus!  Mary as the Mother of Jesus is teaching us today that God is always present within us and with one another.  Let us not waste our time rushing for so many things that we only realize the giftedness of everyone most especially of our very selves when we are already old or sick.  Mary as the Mother of God and our Mother too shows us the need to always be in haste to meet Jesus right here inside us for He is here to stay with us, to be with us for the next 365 days of 2019, come rain or shine, no matter what.  AMEN. Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan.

Photo of another painting by Bulakenyo visual artist Aris Bagtas depicting Mary with the child Jesus in lively colors, going out perhaps to meet the rainy new year.  Used with permission.

On Becoming Children of God

JimMarpa9m
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe
Feast of the Holy Family, 30 December 2018
1 Samuel 1:20-22, 24-28///1 John 3:1-2, 21-24///Luke 2:41-52

         Christmas reminds us that Jesus Christ comes through our family in the same manner He came through the husband and wife of Joseph and Mary.  It is right and fitting that within the octave or eight days of Christmas we also celebrate this Sunday the Feast of the Holy Family.  In this world of broken families, by choice or by circumstances, the gospel reminds us that a family is always made up of a father, mother and child:  When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to us?  Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety” (Lk.2:48).  But more than our human families, Christmas reminds us most of all of our being a family of God with Him as our Father:  And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me?  Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”  But they did not understand what he said to them.  He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart.  And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man (Lk.2:49-52).

         The good news is that we all remain God’s children no matter how old we may be like Nat King Cole singing “to kids from one to ninety-two” which the beloved disciple reminds us in the second reading,  “Beloved:  See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God.  Yes so we are.  The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him” (1Jn.3:1).  It is becoming disheartening when people claim that Christmas is for kids because of the superficial things about the season like happiness over gifts.  We seem to have forgotten that Christmas came because of adults like Joseph and Mary, Zechariah and Elizabeth who remained children of God in being obedient to His holy will which is at the very core of experiencing Christ’s coming not only on Christmas Day when we remain like children. This Sunday we are invited to join Mary and Joseph in searching for the child Jesus whom we have often lost in our busy schedules, responsibilities and careers so we may also rediscover in the process our being children of the Father in heaven.

         See the beauty of the response of Jesus to His parents upon finding Him at the temple, “Why were you looking for me?  Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Lk.2: 49).  Though Jesus Christ is truly human like us in everything except sin, growing up and maturing in all aspects, His divine Sonship has always been clear with Him even as a 12 year-old child.  His intimacy with the Father was never lost in His becoming human.  His being the Son of the Father in heaven is the very core of His mission that we always hear Him telling us in His preaching about His being one with the Father and most of all, of the need for us to become children to be included in His kingdom.  This He reveals to us in three ways through this only episode about His childhood as recorded by St. Luke.  First is His complete freedom as a person.

         Jesus has always been free from so many conventions and rules even laws that limit humans from being totally free for God as Father.  Remember how Joseph His legal father also showed that true holiness is abiding in the Laws of Moses based on love that he decided to leave Mary in silence after learning of her pregnancy.  But after hearing the angel’s explanation in a dream, Joseph freely decided on himself based on his love for God, for Mary and for Jesus to take her as his wife.  How funny that when we were growing up we kept on demanding for freedom from our parents thinking that being free is being able to do whatever pleases us.  Then we realize that true freedom is choosing what is good, what is true.  That true freedom leads us to be more loving and faithful.  Too often it seems that as the world gives so much emphasis on freedom, the fact remains that the more we try to be free, the more we become unfree, finding ourselves imprisoned and caught up in too much binds and traps that most of us would always go somewhere to be alone, to have “me time” because we are not free deep within as we have forgotten our basic identity as beloved children of God the Father.  Jesus was so free that He stayed behind at the Temple because deep within Him he was at home at His Father’s house.  And deep within Him He spoke freely of His Father that amazed the experts with Him at the Temple because they were constricted with many concepts and thoughts about God when Jesus was so free to share the love He has inside.

          And here lies the beauty of true freedom that leads to amazement and wonder, to being surprised by something bigger, greater, and so beautiful.  Poets claim that children are the closest to God and the spiritual realms because they always have the sense of wonder and awe.  Even Mary and Joseph must have been amazed at the response of the child Jesus, reminding them of the announcements made to them by the angel before His coming.  In this age of Netflix and daily video streaming of everything, we are being robbed of the simple and deep joy of being surprised unlike when we were younger that we have to wait for the next series of the Knight Rider or Dallas or ChiPS.  With these modern technologies, the more we have become not free at all as we just follow the flow of networks, tech giants, advertisers and markets.  We have been imprisoned by economics and profits along with gimmicks that we miss life in the process.  The finding of Jesus at the Temple reminds us that our God is a God of surprises, that when we are truly free for the Father in heaven, there is always awe and amazement with life.  We live and do not rush, enjoying time and every present moment in life, unafraid of what would happen next.  Then, we become grateful or thankful for everything we have, material and spiritual.

         Every Sunday as children of God we gather in the Holy Mass we call Eucharist, the Greek word for thanksgiving.  In the first reading we have heard Hannah offering her son Samuel to the temple as her thanksgiving for the gift of a child after God answered her prayers.  The gospels teem with so many occasions when Jesus would pray often to praise and thank God His Father, even in public.  His life is a thanksgiving in itself that He gave it entirely to the Father for us.  Though I am not a beauty pageant expert, I feel that Ms. Catriona Gray’s winning the Miss Universe title was largely because of her childlike traits of being free, amazing, and thankful.  Only a child-like attitude like hers can see the silver linings amid the children growing at the slums of Tondo and still be grateful.  It is exactly what Jesus had said that“unless you become like children, you shall never inherit the kingdom of heaven”  that she was eventually crowned as Miss Universe!

          To be a child is to owe one’s existence from another, from God and from parents and elders.  When we teach our children to always sayplease and thank you including po and opo, we are actually reminding them of that deep reality within each of us that we are here on earth because we were given as a gift.  We are not really teaching them something new but more of awakening in them something inherent that our existence is not of our own, our “I” or self not of our own making that we have to be thankful always to God and with our parents and with others.  This is something we adults always forget or even discard and abandon especially when we fill to have achieved so much in life.  We all remain children in our whole lives because are always in need of one another especially when we get older and eventually lose our memories and abilities to do things that rightly so, we get into a second childhood.  On this Feast of the Holy Family, let us be thankful for the gift of one another, especially of our family.  How lovely were those Christmas greetings on Facebook – “from our family to yours” – if each one remains a child of God, freely loving and surprising everyone of the reality of the God among us Jesus Christ, the Emmanuel. AMEN. Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan

*Photo above by Jim Marpa.  Used with permission.  Below from Google.

findingjesus

Count People, Not Money and Things

CountingPeopleS
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe-Prayer
Monday, 26 November 2018, Week XXXIV, Year II
Revelation 14:1-3, 4-5///Luke 21:1-4

            I still feel tired, Lord Jesus Christ after celebrating the Solemnity of your Kingship this Sunday.  But I must confess and I am sure you knew it all along why we are so happy with Christ the King celebration:  it signals the end of November, ushering the merry month of Christmas!

            How foolish I am, O Lord!  Sorry that until now I still don’t get it; it has been like a system within to count days, to count things and objects like money and everything I think to be leading to you.  How foolish I am that I count days and weeks and months leading to you but never do I count on you.  What a fool I am that I count everything except people and persons!

             You have shown John all the peoples of all time represented by the 144,000 faithful standing before you in heaven in his vision.  That early, you have counted us all to be included in your glory but sadly, here we are still counting things and objects like those people of your time when you observed how they dropped donations to the temple treasury.

             You said, “I tell you truly, this poor widow put in more than all the rest” (Lk.21:3) because she had counted more on the people to be helped with her donation that was so little compared with others.  But her donation mattered most to you because she gave her very best thinking more of the people, not of the money.

             Teach me, Christ the King, to see more of people, to seek the persons in my heart whom I have long taken for granted.  Teach me, Christ the King, to forget all those ideas and thoughts in my mind about people and focus more on their face as subjects to be cherished and loved.  Teach me, Christ the King, to cleanse my heart, to always seek your face.  AMEN. Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan 3022.

*Photo/quote from Google.

LMC