The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Wednesday in the Twenty-fourth Week of Ordinary Time, Year II, 18 September 2024 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13 <*{{{{>< + ><}}}}*> Luke 7:31-35
Photo by author, 20 August 2024.
What a lovely Wednesday today, O God our merciful Father! Thank you for this wonderful moment, thank you for your presence, thank you for the gift of life. Thank you for the love.
St. Paul tells us today that love is the greatest of all your gifts, O God because no amount of goodness and giftedness will ever be worthy without love. And what is love?
Love is. That is, being present always. Never absent.
Love happens in the present moment, never in the past nor the future.
That is why love is patient, love is kind, love is not jealous, love is not pompous, love is not inflated, love is not rude, love is not self-interested, love is not quick-tempered, love does not brood over injury, love does not rejoice over wrongdoing, love rejoices with the truth, love bears all things, love believes all things, love hopes all things, love endures all things (1 Corinthians 13:4-7) because precisely, love is always in present tense.
Jesus said to the crowds: “Then to what shall I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? They are the children who sit in the marketplace and call to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance. We sang a dirge, but you did not weep'” (Luke 7:31-32).
Forgive us, dear Jesus for being loveless, always missing every moment to love, missing every chance to be kind to others, for desiring and having always the best intentions but never having even the the smallest kind deeds for anyone; let us live in every present moment, that thin line between here and now called present which is the other word for gift.
Let us live, O Lord, in love, finding and cherishing the gift of every presence right here, right now. By being a gift too to others in You. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Wednesday, Memorial of St. Augustine, Bishop & Doctor of the Church, 28 August 2024 2 Thessalonians 3:6-10, 16-18 <*{{{{>< + ><}}}}*> Matthew 23:27-32
Commuters hang from the back of a jeepney as it travels along a road in Manila, the Philippines, on Sunday, April 9, 2017. Photographer: Veejay Villafranca/Bloomberg via Getty Images.
Glory and praise to you, God our loving Father for the gift of this great Saint, Augustine, son of St. Monica, Bishop and Teacher of the Church; in him, O God, you showed us every saint has a sinful past and that no sinner can be denied of a saintly future.
It was St. Augustine who taught us among his so many teachings that "grace builds on nature" which he must have learned from his own experiences, from his conversion to Christianity to becoming a priest then a bishop that did not happen like a magic trick by God but with hard work wrapped in intense prayers by him and St. Monica; what a tremendous blessing that as we honor him today, our first is from a letter by his inspiration, St. Paul:
For you know how one must imitate us. For we did not act in a disorderly way among you, nor did we eat food received free from anyone. On the contrary, in toil and drudgery, night and day we worked, so as not to burden any of you. Not that we do not have the right. Rather, we wanted to present ourselves as a model for you, so that you might imitate us. In fact, when we were with you, we instructed you that if anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat (2 Thessalonians 3:7-10).
Remind us, O God in Jesus Christ like St. Augustine, what is essential is the inside not the outside; let us not be like the Pharisees and scribes, hypocrites, looking like "whitewashed tombs that appear beautiful on then outside but inside are full of dead men's bones and every kind of filth" (Matthew 23:27).
Grant us the zeal and enthusiasm like St. Augustine to strive in becoming a better person, most of all a better Christian by working hard in cultivating the prayer life, love for the Sacred Scriptures so that Jesus may dwell always in our hearts. Amen.
It is very disappointing that the recent statement of the CBCP on divorce was so unusually soft, trying to balance everything like walking on a thin line, very cautious of not stepping on whoever’s feet or hurting their feelings.
What is most sad is how this statement so watered down unlike the bishops’ previous pronouncements in the last elections supporting a candidate. It is so frustrating for us Catholics when our bishops have repeatedly crossed boundaries getting into partisan politics supporting many election candidates when on this part of our nation’s history they are tepid in standing by the Lord’s flock under attack by fierce and intense pro-divorce lawmakers and supporters. This is the crucial moment when our bishops should rally us more in defending our stand against divorce being the last country where it is still illegal.
We shall have another piece on that later as we continue today our sharing of our past wedding homilies we hope can help you be clarified why we must oppose the divorce bill. Of course, we cannot impose our stand against divorce but we make it clear to everyone why we are against it. After all, it is an informed choice we make guided by the grace of God and the Holy Spirit.
Here is our homily at the wedding at the Manila Cathedral on January 16, 2006 of our very good friend from UST’s the Varsitarian, Dra. Chona T. Capulong and Mr. Stephen Kemp of Kansas.
Twenty three years ago and less than 50 pounds today, our friend and former managing editor Chona had a column at the Varsitarian called “Choice Cuts.”
I will never forget her column with its very catchy title, so well written and most of all, more than 20 years later today, the gospel she had chosen for her wedding speaks about choosing, about choices, Jesus told his disciples, “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain…” (John 15:16).
Today we are so blessed to have been called and chosen by Chona and Stephen to be present in this most joyous day of their lives when they pledge their love for each other before God and His people. Let me stress on those words of Jesus saying how we are all “called and chosen to bear fruit.”
God calling and choosing us to bear fruit. The all-knowing God making a choice for us and should we be glad and grateful for that!?
When God calls and chooses us, He does not remove our freedom which is the ability to choose what is good, not simply whatever you want. What happens is that when God calls and chooses us, this gift of freedom is actually enhanced because the Ultimate Good shows us what’s best for us.
That God choosing us rather than us choosing Him is evidently true in friendships and marriage. Chona is from this city of Manila, thousands of kilometers from Wichita, Kansas where Stephen comes from.
How they have met and be in love is a long story; what matters is the choice made by God for them and how they cooperated in that choice.
Most often, whenever we make a choice, it is oriented towards success and triumph. We always make it a point that it would be advantageous for us and most of all, easy and convenient because as much as possible, we want lesser problems and lesser risks.
Being successful, whether in life or in marriage or in business is characterized and based on strength and powers, of how we are able to control situations and bend them to our own advantage. It is about power.
On the other hand, when God makes a choice for us, it is different.
When God makes a choice for us, it is always difficult and never convenient, slow and time-consuming. Most of all, God’s choice always entails sacrifices from our part because, it is so good that we have to be emptied first in order to receive such a beautiful gift like marriage.
When God makes a choice for us, it is always based on our weakness and vulnerabilities. God is not concerned with our being “successful” but more with being fruitful because in this life, especially in marriage, it does not really matter what or how much we have achieved but what have we become.
We may have all the wealth and power in the world, all the success but, what have we become?
Have we been more loving, more forgiving, more understanding, more generous, more honest, more faithful?
Bearing fruit is different from being successful in the sense that when God makes the choices for us, He makes us into better persons, becoming the best husband or best wife or the best person in the world. This He does by letting us come to terms with our own weaknesses and vulnerabilities, emptying ourselves of these impurities and being filled by God’s goodness and holiness.
Being fruitful in marriage means being able to understand and accept, even own because of love the shortcomings of a spouse or of those around us. Being fruitful in life or in marriage is being able to bear all the pains and hardships of life because like in gardening, it is the constant pruning of trees and plants that lead to more blossoms and fruits. It is being like Jesus Christ who willingly accepted His Cross because of His great love for us. He did not remove the Cross but made it holy instead.
Chona and Stephen, this wedding is already a fruit of that call and choosing by Jesus on you. After so many pains and hurts as well as sacrifices from both of you, this day had finally come for both of you to stand before the altar of God and offer yourselves to His plans and choices. This is not the end but the beginning of more pains and hurts and sacrifices.
I am not scaring you, Chona and Stephen; however, may this wedding be an assurance for for both of you that, although there would be more problems and difficulties and trials waiting for you along the way of your married life, be assured of the great glory and fruitful life ahead for both of you.
Continue to cooperate with God’s choices for you by leading a life of faith, hope and love rooted in prayers. Jesus had called and chosen you, Chona and Stephen; Jesus would always be with you because He knows what’s best for you. Amen.
Stephen died a few years ago before the COVID pandemic but our friend Chona had remained firm in her faith in God, raising their daughter into a lovely young lady she is now. Last week, Chona told me how proud and happy she is her daughter is going to take her college abroad, away from her!
So glad that despite her fears as a mother, she had allowed her daughter to study abroad, believing, of course, it is God’s choice for her to eventually become a better woman someday. May we be faithful not only in our duties and responsibilities but especially with the people entrusted to us by God whom He had chosen to become parts of our lives.
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.
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.
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.
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 Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Monday, Memorial of St. Charles Lwanga & Companion Martyrs, 03 June 2024 2 Peter 1:2-7 ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> Mark 12:1-12
Photo by author, Petra in Jordan, May 2019.
Praise and glory to You, God our loving Father! What a grace from You to let us make halfway through 2024 that seemed to have only began a few months ago!
For some of us, the past five months have been so difficult and this sixth month is a much needed welcome for rest and hoping for better things ahead; for others, may June be the start of finally fulfilling those promises we have not kept all these years or projects we have not finished or have neglected; please, Father, grant us the grace and peace we have always sought in life.
Beloved: May grace and peace be yours in abundance through knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
2 Peter 1:2
Help me realize in Jesus Christ that great truth I always forget, that abundant grace and peace come only from knowledge of God which is first of all a personal relationship with You, O Lord; so often like most people, we pursue so much knowledge of the world to make life better but not necessarily meaningful and fulfilling; like those tenants at the vineyard, in our too much knowledge, we have taken for ourselves ownership of the world - deciding on who is to live, who is to die, choosing or creating our own gender, and worst, destroying the family with measures like divorce; forgive us, God our Father, in deleting You from the world, insisting we decide on our fate and future like those tenants who said to one another, "This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours" (Mark 12:7).
Make us realize like St. Charles Lwanga and his over 100 companion martyrs in Uganda that knowledge of God is more of the heart than of the head or the emotions; that knowledge of God is doing what is true and good; that knowledge of God is having personal relationship with You in Jesus Christ which leads to following His Way to the Cross of loving service to others. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Friday, Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 31 May 2024 Romans 12:9-16 ><]]]]'> + >>]]]]'> + >>>]]]]'> Luke 1:39-56
Photo by author, statues of Mary and Elizabeth at the Church of the Visitation in ein-Karem, the Holy Land, May 2017.
What a lovely way to end the month with this feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s Visitation of her cousin Elizabeth after starting off May on its very first day with another feast, St. Joseph the Worker that remind us of God’s coming to us in Jesus Christ.
Visit and visitation may seem to be one and the same, sharing the common Latin root word of the verb vide, videre “to see” from which came the word video.
But, a visit is more casual and informal without intimacy at all. We say it so well in Filipino, napadaan lang or just passing by which is more concerned with the place or location and site, not the person there. Napadaan lang ako kaya dinalaw na rin kita (I was just passing by and decided to see you). There was really no intention in seeing the other person there.
Photo by author, Church of the Visitation, Ein-Karem, Holy land, May 2017.
Visitation is more intentional. Mr. Webster described it as a more formal visit commonly used in church language like when bishop and priests come to see their parishioners. This explains why we refer to a chapel as a visita which is actually a small church in remote places that missionaries used to visit for the sacraments. Likewise, visitas became venues too for catechism classes and other religious even social gatherings in places far from the town itself where the parish is usually situated too.
Thus, visitation connotes a deeper meaning because there is an expression or implication at least of care and concern among the people, a kind of love shared by the visitor like Mary to the one visited, Elizabeth.
Visitation is more of entering into someone’s life and personhood as reported by Luke in Mary’s visitation of Elizabeth when “Mary entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth” (Lk.1:40). There was a communion and sharing of their common experience of being blessed with the presence of God in their wombs.
Visitation is a sharing, a oneness in the joys and pains of those dear to us. The word becomes more meaningful when we examine its Filipino equivalent pagdalaw from the root word dala or something you bring like food or any gift when visiting relatives and friends. What you bring or dala is called pasalubong from the root salubong that literally means “meeting” or “encounter”. When the visitor and ones visited meet, they salubong.
Here it becomes more colorful and meaningful because more than the gifts we bring or dala in our visitations, we bring our very selves as a gift of presence. In every visitation, it is our very selves we gift, we share with those we visit, offering them our time and talent, joys and sadness and ears and heart to listen to their stories and absorb their woes and whatever they may have to unload upon us.
Photo by author, 2019.
That was what Mary did exactly in her visitation of Elizabeth with an extra gift, the most precious pasalubong to share with everyone, Jesus Christ in her womb, right in her very self and body!
We too are invited every day to be like Mary, a bringer or taga-dala of Jesus Christ to everyone we meet, the best pasalubong we can share with everyone. If we can only be like Mary in our dealings with others, trying to make every encounter a visitation that is a willful bringing and sharing of Christ with others, then we also bring with us God’s tenderness and mercy for this dark world that admires toughness and roughness.
How sad are those news of daily road rages happening almost everywhere, many times resulting in the loss of lives like the recent fatal shooting of a family driver in Makati.
Through the Blessed Mother’s humility and obedience before God, Christ came into the world to make us experience the Father’s tenderness in the many healings and miracles He performed. This tenderness of God in Jesus we saw too in Mary His Mother in the Visitation: Mary visited Elizabeth because she knew and felt her many wounds who for a long time bore no child, living in “disgrace before others” as she had claimed (Lk.1:25). A tender person like Jesus and Mary is one who comes to comfort and heal the wounds of those hurt in life, trying to lullaby the restless and sleepless, never adding insult to injuries.
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 20 March 2024.
One last thing about the Visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth. One of the best things we can experience from visitations and visits of family and friends like during wakes and funerals is that quality of sweetness.
Sweetness always goes with tenderness. It is the essence of God who is love. Anyone who loves is always sweet that always comes naturally from within, bringing out good vibes. It is never artificial like Splenda, always flowing freely and naturally that leaves a good taste and feeling to anyone.
In the Hail Holy Queen, Mary is portrayed as “O clement, O sweet Virgin Mary” to show her sweetness as a Mother. Recently I have seen some posts making a meme (?) of the Hail Holy Queen’s part that says “to you do we cry poor banished children of Eve”. I have not really dealt it with much attention because too often, there are a lot of generation gaps in many posts in social media; I really cannot relate much to the young perhaps due to my age. I just hope that post on the Hail Holy Queen is not derogatory. Back to our reflection…
Tenderness and sweetness are the most God-like qualities we all have but have unconsciously buried deep in our innermost selves, refusing them to surface because of our refusal to love for fears of getting hurt and left behind or lost. When Mary heard Elizabeth’s pregnancy, she simply followed her human and motherly instincts that in fact so Godly that she went in haste to hill country of Judah. How lovely!
Tomorrow it is already June, reminding us all we are halfway through the year. And it would be surprisingly quick that soon, it is already Christmas again! This feast of the Visitation reminds us of Mary’s great role in making Christmas a reality when God almighty became human, little and vulnerable like us to experience His sweetness and tenderness in Jesus Christ. Through Mary.
Let us pray:
God our loving Father, thank for coming to us, for staying with us, not just visiting us; help us imitate Your Son Jesus Christ's Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary whose "love is so sincere", loving one another like Elizabeth with "mutual affection, showing honor, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; help us imitate Mary to always rejoice in hope, endure afflictions and most of all, persevere in prayer" (cf. Romans 12:9-12) so we may always bring Jesus Christ with everyone we meet. Amen.
From cbcpnews.net, 13 May 2022, at the Parish of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, Valenzuela City.
The Lord Is My Chef Easter Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Fourth Sunday in the Easter Season, Cycle B, 21 April 2024 Acts 4:8-12 ><}}}}*> 1 John 3:1-2 ><}}}}*> John 10:1-10
Photo by author, dusk at Anvaya Cove in Bataan, 15 April 2024.
My kinakapatid is turning 60 this week with a dinner to be prepared by an Italian chef. His sister texted me for my main course and I chose lamb chops. And immediately she replied, “Pareho tayo. Mary’s little pet… the one who takes away the sins of the world.” Her wit floored me that I had to agree with a text, “Right. The most biblical and holiest food.”
Sorry for some little bragging as we celebrate this fourth Sunday in Easter as “Good Shepherd Sunday”…
We Filipinos have a hard time getting the “feel” of the shepherd because we have never had that image in our culture. Hence, it is a most welcomed development that there is now a growing popularity in tending sheep in the country while the Filipino palate had finally discovered a taste for lamb.
Come to think of this: the sheep exists only for two reasons, for food and clothing. They are meant to be slaughtered unlike dogs or cats or birds kept as pets. Another notable thing with sheep is the fact it is the only land animal that go against the flow when crossing a river like the salmon!
Photo by Dra. Mylene A. Santos, MD, at Katmon Nature Sanctuary & Beach Resort in Infanta, Quezon, 03 April 2024.
I love those characteristics of the sheep, for slaughtering which is almost like offering and always going against the tide. Exactly just like our Lord Jesus Christ who identified Himself as the good shepherd.
Jesus said: “I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep… This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and power to raise it up again. This command I have received from my Father (John 10:11, 17-18).
First we notice here His use of the “I AM” which for the Jews refers to God when He told Moses “I AM WHO AM.” Clearly, Jesus was declaring to the people at that time that He is the Son of God, the awaited Messiah or Christ.
This scene was shortly before the feast of the dedication of the Jews after Jesus had healed a man born blind, a miracle never heard of at that time. It was a big issue then as authorities refused to accept that Jesus did indeed healed the man born blind.
Secondly, Jesus mentioned four times in just three verses the act of “laying down his life for the sheep” (vv. 11, 17, and 18). It sounded so good to hear how Jesus loves us so much that He would lay down His life for us his sheep; but, those were not just mere words Jesus expressed but a reality that happened at the Cross on Good Friday that He actually explained after this discourse at their Last Supper!
Keep in mind that we are now going back to the earlier discourses and teachings of Jesus that only became clear to the disciples including us today after Easter. We shall be having a lot of these “flashbacks” to understand and love Jesus more and His teachings.
According to Pope Benedict XVI in his first book of the Jesus of Nazareth series, “The Cross is at the center of the shepherd discourse” (page 280). When Jesus said “This is my Body… This is my Blood”, He meant really Himself being given for us; Jesus did not merely give something for us but His very self as seen on the Cross on Good Friday.
That is how Jesus gives life – by giving up His life for us so that when He arose, we then share in His being a good shepherd through our little dying to ourselves because of love, giving life to those around us.
As the good shepherd, Jesus was the first to enter death, to be slaughtered but this time minus the violence and gore of the Cross that was the worst punishment of all time when He said “I lay down my life in order to take it up again”. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own.”
Yes, there was victimhood but more than that was His being an offering never forced nor imposed by anyone or by circumstances. Jesus did it all for love!
Though He was handed over (paradidomi) and betrayed by Judas, Jesus was totally free, actively passive went to his Passion and Death because He was very certain of His Resurrection.
We experience the same thing many times in life when we have to make great sacrifices like when we have to allow a loved one to die after a long illness. Death is a grace and a blessing when freely given too by those around the dying, freeing the dying person of any guilt when he/she finally goes.
The same thing is true when friends and lovers separate either because they have found other loves to pursue or worst, have fallen out of love with us despite all our love for them. It is the most unkindest cut of all breakups and separations, excruciatingly painful as we blindly give up our relationships ironically for love. More than the persons and circumstances involved, we freely choose to let go – magparaya in Filipino – because deep in our wounded and hollowed heart is the hope they may grow in their new love.
Here we are like Jesus the Good Shepherd because even in the death of our relationships is still found our love. Like Jesus Christ, we do not simply give something but our very selves. The Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner beautifully expressed this when he described Jesus is both “the Gift and the Giver.”
Photo by Dra. Mylene A. Santos, MD of the sheep’s wool, 03 April 2024.
Love is better shown than said. Love cannot be defined but only be described for it is so wide and vast in its nature and scope. Love simply shows itself. That is why when we speak of love, we use comparisons and analogies and yet, they are not enough. How much more when we speak of the love of God?!
This Sunday, Jesus spoke of His love like every human being using the language of parable and allegories. But truly Divine, we find so much more when He claimed “I AM the good shepherd.” It is His total person and self, His being both the Gift and the Giver.
The good news is, because of His giving of self, we too have become like Him able to give ourselves wholly in love. Like Peter in the first reading, we experienced great powers within us not innately ours but God working in us, enabling us to empower others by healing them not literally but figuratively speaking.
When Jesus declared “I AM the good shepherd”, He reminds us of being the children of God, His indwelling, our being an “I AM” of God Himself. Like Him, we are good shepherds able to love in Christ to the point of being foolish as St. Paul experienced.
Like the sheep, let us continue to forge on with life’s many difficulties, even if many times we have to go against the flow of the world that is always selfish and misleading. Let us pray:
Dearest Jesus, help me to give more of myself not just of something from me; help me to lay down my life for my friends even if it means not just losing myself but losing them in order to gain You; help me to remain in You, my Good Shepherd, to never go astray because life and love are found only in You, the Gift and Giver. Amen. Have a blessed week ahead!
The Lord Is My Chef Easter Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Thursday in the Second Week of Easter, 11 April 2024 Acts 5:27-33 ><))))*> + <*(((((>< John 3:31-36
Photo by author, Bolinao, Pangasinan, April 2022.
Once again, O Lord, Your words are very amusing today: "For the one whom God sent speaks the words of God. He does not ration his gift of the Spirit" (John 3:34).
It sounds so funny yet so true, dear Jesus! We not only ration the Holy Spirit but we also ration every good gift You give us as if it would run out, as if You would stop blessing us, as if You are not God.
Forgive us, Lord, when we ration especially Your love to others, when we do not realize that love and life and every blessing You give are meant to be given and shared fully with others.
“We gave you strict orders did we not, to stop teaching in that name. Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and want to bring this man’s blood upon us.”
Acts 5:28
Dearest Jesus, fill us with courage like Your Apostles after Pentecost that we too may give all to fill the world with Your Good News of salvation in You, with You, and through You! Amen.
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