Sacred Heart of Jesus for a heartless world

The Lord Is My Chef Recipe for the Soul

Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, 28 June 2019

Ezekiel 34:11-16 >< }}}> Romans 5:5-11 >< }}}> Luke 15:3-7

Sacred Heart of Jesus at the Jesuits’ Sacred Heart Retreat House and Seminar Center in Novaliches, Quezon City. Photo by author July 2018.

At a glance, the powers of darkness seem to rule the world.

Pains and sufferings are all around us as we see them in the news and, worst, experience them right in our homes and community!

The other Sunday evening, one of our parish lectors was hit by two riders driving under the influence of alcohol that severely damaged her face, particularly her right eye and front teeth. She did not see the motorcycle coming because the drunk riders were going so fast opposite the one way street.

The two riders have no driver’s license and both claim to have no money to pay for the medical expenses of our parish volunteer who comes from a very poor family.

I told her story to our Sunday congregation. Right after the Mass, two ladies came to me, handing me Php 25,000.00 in cash, pledging with more money for the medical and dental bills of our lector. Tears were rolling in my eyes as I thanked the two kind ladies who refused any recognition at all.

Yes, too often we are shocked at the evil going on in the world.

But, more surprising is the fact that it is always God who has the last laugh and final say in all these pain and sufferings around us.

There is always the more powerful Sacred Heart of Jesus offsetting our seemingly heartless world today.

Jesus the Good Shepherd with a lost sheep on his shoulder. A wood carving atop the cathedra of the Minor Basilica Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Malolos City. Photo by Lorenzo Atienza, 12 June 2019.

Jesus addressed this parable to the Pharisees and scribes: “What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it? And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy.”
Luke 15:3-5

I love that imagery of Jesus the Good Shepherd carrying on his shoulders the lost sheep. It is so powerful and evocative of God’s immense love for us sinners.

God fulfilled his promise to Ezekiel in the first reading that he would personally come to tend and look after us his sheep by sending us his Son Jesus Christ.

For his part, Jesus showed us in teaching this parable the solicitude of the Father in going beyond his words to the prophet of not just affectionately gathering and leading his sheep to green pastures but by communing with sinners of his time. What a wonderful way by Jesus showing us the pains God is willing to go to find one lost sheep.

Jesus knows it so well how difficult and painful to get lost that he spent time with sinners, dining with them in many occasions. He knows the fearful thoughts running through us when we were wandering in darkness and sin that he never judges us nor condemns us like the woman caught committing adultery. Most of all, Jesus knows how difficult it would be for us who were lost to find our way back home, to go back to normal life of grace that he is willing to wait like with St. Paul and with St. Augustine.

Hence, when Jesus the Good shepherd finds the lost sheep, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy. Imagine also the spontaneous reflex to clutch to oneself whatever or whomever was lost and is found. That is how intense is the love of God through Jesus for every lost sheep when finally found. He is filled with joy that he carries the lost sheep on his shoulder to hurriedly bring it to safety and comfort, never to get lost again.

Moreover, here we find the great love of God for us who have gone stray in sin: he would patiently look for the lost sheep and likewise willing to patiently carry it on his shoulders so as not to make it suffer further in going back to the fold. Absolutely, no trace at all of any disgust in God in our going stray in sins!

Eventually, Jesus proved this intense love of the Father to us in his dying on the Cross. He showed us how true love that comes from God and rooted in God is a love that is always meek and humble. A love that is unconditional, embracing both friends and foes. Yes, it is easier said than done but doable if we love in Christ Jesus.

To love in Christ Jesus is to trust in God’s love. Without this trust in God’s love, we will always rely on our own self, prioritizing on our love of self than love of God and others. That is when darkness comes to rule over us, making us heartless too. Then, indeed, the world becomes evil because we have become its slave.

On this Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus when our nation is in so much darkness, Jesus is inviting us to make his love visible by trusting in his unfailing care as our Good Shepherd. When there is a major paradigm shift in the parable of Jesus wherein there are more lost sheep who are also self-righteous in knowing everything, calling those not on their side as stupid, we are more challenged today to witness Christ’s values of dignity of persons and peace. Let us pray for more patience with the appalling governance we now have courtesy of the majority of our people whom we have denied with God’s love and care for the longest time.

Easter: Faith from “a basta!” experience

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul

Easter Week II, Year C, 28 April 2019

Acts 5:12-16///Revelation 1:9-11, 12-13, 17-19///John 20:19-31

We Filipinos have an expression that best captures the faith of Easter experience, something very close with the universal expression “aha!”. It is what I call as the “a basta!” experience.

From the Spanish word “basta” which means “enough” like what St. Teresa of Avila said in her poem, “Solo Dios basta” (Only God is enough/suffices), our “a basta!” expression is often used to insist on something to be accepted as true. Its closest English equivalent is “that’s it” to show that the issue at hand is settled because I have confessed it so.

On this octave of Easter which means eternity (because there are only seven days in a week but if you count the days since Easter, this Sunday is the eighth, an octave), the beloved disciple reminds us that Jesus said other things not recorded in his book; and most likely, he had had other appearances too not recorded simply because they are impossible to do. According to John, these were all written so we may all believe Jesus is the Christ and have eternal life in him. Moreover, there is no need for him to go into so many details about the appearances of Jesus after his Resurrection because what really matters most is the intensity of his presence. It is from that intensity of his presence we derive that “a basta!” experience of him. To be open to accept such intense moments of Christ’s presence leads us to deeper faith in him and eventually, to a relationship with him and in a community.

*Thomas meets the Risen Jesus. From Google.*

Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
John 20:26-

“Do not be unbelieving, but believe.”

Last Sunday we have reflected how the Easter stories are always set in darkness like in the early morning, at sunset, and in the evening: the joy of Easter always comes bursting in the darkness of our lives, when we are down and suffering, sick or feeling lost, and fearful. It is during those dark moments of our lives when Jesus silently comes to us even in locked doors and windows. Problem is the moment Jesus comes to us, that is when we doubt him like Thomas! We could not believe Jesus is really alive though deep inside us, we do believe if only there could be be something within us that could give that final big push for us to say “a basta!”.

A week after his first appearance to his disciples at night, Jesus appeared anew today despite locked doors, darkness, and shadows of doubts within Thomas. When Jesus told him to “do not be unbelieving, but believe” , the Lord was not reproaching him but actually exhorting him to believe. And that is likewise addressed to us today: believe!

To believe is first to accept the gift of faith from God who opens himself to us, inviting us to a relationship with him. To believe in God is to meet him who always comes to meet us, to be with us. To believe in God is most of all to enter into a relationship with him so that that more we believe, the more we “see” him, the more we experience him. Most of the time we learn and get so many proofs of the existence of Jesus Christ in our prayers, studies, and experiences. Through time, we also grow in our personal conviction and acknowledgment of the Risen Lord, surpassing all proofs and logic until eventually even if we can enumerate our many reasons for believing, in the end, we admit that not even one of them is the very reason for our faith in Jesus Christ. And that is when we give that burst of “a basta!” – – – Jesus is alive! Then we learn to confess like Thomas, “My Lord and my God.”

The Resurrection of Jesus is both historical and beyond history that made so much impact in human life, affecting us in the most personal manner. Sometimes we really wonder like the Apostle Jude Thaddeus who asked the Lord during the Last Supper why he would only manifest to them and not to everyone (Jn.14:22) so as to cast out all doubts and set the record straight that there is God indeed. When we examine our life journey, we find there is really no need for Jesus to appear at all for everyone to believe his existence, that he had risen from the dead, that there is God.

The Easter stories show us how God works silently in our midst, always slowly and surely, gradually through history and in our personal life. It is not really his appearances that matter but the intensity of his presence felt only in silence when we learn to trust more and believe more. How wonderful that on this eight day of Easter we also celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday that invites us to trust more than ever Jesus Christ our salvation. May we entrust ourselves to Jesus anew like Thomas, touching his wounds, confessing “My Lord and my God” or “Jesus, King of Mercy, I trust in You.” Amen.

Slow of heart

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe, Wednesday, Easter Octave, 24 April 2019

Acts 3:1-10///Luke 24:13-35

How interesting is Easter becoming, O Lord! Yesterday, Peter’s listeners were “cut to the heart” upon hearing your good news of salvation. Today, as you walked along with two disciples going to Emmaus feeling so sad with your death and news of missing body, you expressed great surprise at their being “slow of heart to believe”.

And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the Scriptures.
Luke 24:25-27

So many times Lord, we are slow of heart to believe because we refuse to see the bigger picture in life when setbacks and failures can be staging points for greater growth and maturity. We choose to be mediocre and be contented with whatever is before us, refusing to strive and rise.

So many times Lord, we feel like that man crippled from birth at the Beautiful Gate of the temple contented in begging alms without realizing that negative things in our lives can enable us to receive the gift of life.

Like that crippled man from birth at the Beautiful Gate, let us seize every moment of meeting you, having you in our lives. Amen.

*Healing of a Lame by Peter and John on a tapestry by Raphael at the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. Photo from Google.*

Forgiving from the heart

40 Shades of Lent, Tuesday, Week III, 26 March 2019

Daniel 3:25, 34-43///Matthew 18:21-35

Praise and glory to you, O Lord Jesus Christ!

Here we are now O Lord being confronted by this topic of sin and forgiveness. Every day we pray the “Our Father” and you know very well how mechanical it had become for us asking God “to forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sinned against us.”

Like Peter, we often feel at a loss at how to forgive those who have hurt us. No… not just hurt or wronged us but, hurt or wronged us so deeply.

The pain is so deep in our hearts, Jesus. And that is why you want us all to forgive from our hearts, not from our lips or from our minds but from our hearts where the pains hurt us most.

We really do not know how. Your parable seems inadequate though you make an absolutely valid point of forgiving others because we have been forgiven too.

Like Daniel your prophet in the Old Testament, we beg you to “Deliver us by your wonders” – surprise us O Lord with your gentle mercy, with your kindness that like you we may be moved to forgiving those who have terribly wronged us. Amen.

From Google.

Lent is for repairing the heart

40 Shades of Lent, Thursday, Week II, 21 March 2019
Jeremiah 17:5-10///Luke 16:19-31

“More tortuous than all else is the human heart, beyond remedy; who can understand it? I, the Lord, alone probe the mind and test the heart, to reward everyone according to his ways, according to the merit of his deeds.”
Jeremiah 17:9-10

Thank you very much, O Lord, for this season of Lent, giving us time to examine and repair our hearts that have turned away from you in sin and indifference.

Forgive us in trusting more our selves, our strength, our powers, our intelligence. We have turned away from you, believing only in our selves and fellowmen.

How ironic that while we trust more with human, our hearts are too far away from most people who are poor and suffering! We have not only turned away our hearts from them like Lazarus in the gospel today. We have become indifferent to their plight.

Help us, dear God, through your Son Jesus Christ, to regain our natural hearts that know how to suffer with the poor and dying, hearts that cry with those in pain, and hearts inclined to your Holy Will. Amen.

God’s Word, God’s Sign

40 Shades of Lent, Wednesday of Week 1, 13 March 2019
Jonah 3:1-10///Luke 11:29-32

Open “the ears of our hearts”, O Lord, to always heed your words especially in this holy season of Lent when your readings are so rich and meaningful. So many times we are like your contemporaries, “an evil generation always seeking signs.” (Lk. 11:29)

Or, like your reluctant prophet Jonah: we cannot believe your words, always trying to escape responsibilities and mission from you to proclaim your word.

The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: “Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and announce to it the message that I will tell you.” So Jonah made ready and went to Nineveh, according to the Lord’s bidding.
Jonah 3:1-3

How funny and even insane, Lord, for us to run away from you, hide from you like Jonah because we find your words so simple, doubting its powers to move and change people.

But when like Jonah we proclaim your words, we are amazed and surprised at its efficacy not only with the people they are directed to but most of all with us. Your words indeed are alive and so powerful especially if our whole heart is humbled and contrite from our sins.

Help us to always recognize your presence in your words for you are the Word who became flesh. Take away our stony hearts and give us a natural heart that beats with firm faith, fervent hope and unceasing charity and love. Amen.

“The Keys to Your Heart” by Orup (1991)

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music, 03 March 2019

It’s a very beautiful Sunday, the first in this month of March.

I have been thinking of so many other songs that best capture our reflection for the Sunday gospel which is about education of the heart when Jesus said, “A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks” (Lk.6:45).

Our heart is the core of our person and that is why it is called “corazon” in Spanish from the Latin “cor”. And the best way to understand it is to simply feel what is inside.

Can we really look inside one’s heart as David Benoit said?

The French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote that “the heart has its own reasons that the mind can never understand.”

Another Frenchman, the aviator and writer Antoine de St. Exupery expressed in his book “The Little Prince” that “what is essential is invisible to the eye; it is only with the heart one can truly see.”

And so, I have decided this Sunday to share with you the music of the Swedish pop singer Orup (Thomas Eriksson) called “The Keys to Your Heart” released in 1991. I can’t find its lyrics but that’s the key to our heart – just feel the music and enjoy!

https://youtu.be/ONmJrQsqHe0

Education of the Heart

A view from the inside of the Church of the Beatitudes overlooking the Lake of Galilee in the Holy Land. Photo by the author, April 2017.

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe, 03 March 2019, Week VIII, Year-C 1Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23///1Corinthians 15:45-49///Luke 6:27-38

For the past two Sundays we have been listening to some of Christ’s most sublime teachings filled with paradoxes that may sound like a folly for us humans because they all run contrary to the ways of the world. Beginning with His Beatitudes, Jesus taught that true blessedness comes from being poor and hungry, when we are weeping and being maligned. More difficult yet most sublime of all were His teachings last Sunday when He told us to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us, and pray for those who mistreat us.

They are very, very difficult but doable in Christ Jesus who have taken all these lessons directly from life. He knows very well how capable is our hearts in truly loving like Him.

And so today, Jesus turns His attention to us His disciples who shall act as guides in putting into practice all His teachings through the education of our hearts. It is in our hearts where all the good and evils around us originate from. All the problems and sufferings we have in the world today like wars and various forms of violence, hunger and sexual exploitation, human trafficking and all kinds of injustice first happen right in our hearts. Not in Syria or Jolo or the slums of Tondo or any other city in the world. Jesus perfectly hit it right when He said, “A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks” (Lk.6:45).

In the first reading we find the same line of thinking during the Old Testament when Ben Sirach wrote, “When a sieve is shaken, the husks appear; so do one’s faults when he speaks. As the test of what the potter molds is in the furnace, so in tribulation is the test of the just. The fruit of a tree shows the care it has had; so too does one’s speech disclose the bent of one’s mind. Praise no one before he speaks, for it is then that people are tested” (Sir.27:4-7). Remember that in the Bible, speech and being always go together like when God created everything by simply speaking.

And that is the whole point of Ben Sirach: people reveal who they really are in the manner they speak as well as in the words they use to express their thoughts and feelings that all come from the heart. Of all the creation by God, it is only the human person whom He had gifted with the ability to communicate intelligibly with speech. Our ability to speak is in fact a sharing in the power of God who created everything by simply speaking. But how do we use this great power of speech and communication? Are we like the Spiderman convinced in our hearts that with great power comes great responsibility?

It is elections again in the country and sadly, it is more like a circus than a democratic process. And the great tragedy we keep on repeating again and again is how most people put into office candidates without any qualifications at all and worst, deeply mired in every form of immorality and scandals. Where is our heart that we allow blind people to lead us? Or, have we become heartless that we have no regard anymore for our country, for our future and the next generation?

Jesus is challenging us today to educate our hearts, to learn from Him, to come to Him and be like Him to have our hearts transformed like unto Him. Though we are all weak and have all the defects as a person, our readings today lead us to the Christ who revealed to us that ultimately, “communication is more than the expression of one’s thoughts and feelings but at its most profound level is the giving of self in love” (Communio et Progression, 11). It is the Lord Jesus Christ who had revealed in His very person and life of self-giving the paradoxical joy of discipleship, the transforming power of love gained in His own pasch that removed the sting of sin and of death in our weak humanity. May we persevere in our education of our hearts in Jesus, “firm, steadfast, always fully devoted to the work of the Lord, knowing that in Him our labor is not in vain” (1Cor.15:58). Amen. Have a blessed week!

Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan.

Here is the link to one of my favorite songs, “One More Gift” by Jesuit Fr. Manoling Francisco that speaks eloquently of the need to educate our hearts. Sing it prayerfully.

Listening With Our Hearts

openheart — *Image from Google: Open ears, Open hearts, Open minds.*

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Friday, 15 February 2019, Week V, Year I

Genesis 3:1-8///Mark 7:31-37

Our dearest God and loving Father, thank you very much for this month of February when we celebrate Valentine’s, the day of hearts.

It must had been your Holy Spirit guiding us these days when we prayed the other day that we may look inside our hearts to see you and follow your holy will; yesterday as we celebrated Valentine’s, we prayed for the grace to see with our hearts.

Today we pray for the grace to listen with our hearts so we may not repeat the sin of Adam and Eve when they listened to the voice of the serpent who misled them into believing that the moment they eat the fruit of the tree of in the middle of the garden, “their eyes would be opened and they would be like gods who know what is good and what is evil” (Gen.3:5).

Give us the grace to separate ourselves from the crowd, from all the noise and different voices of the world, to listen with our hearts in silence with Jesus Christ like that deaf man brought to Him in Decapolis.

“Ephphatha!” (Mk.7:34)

Let our ears and our hearts be opened to you O Lord.

Let us be “deaf” sometimes to the cacophony of sounds in the world, competing for our attention, listening intently with our hearts to your tiny voice deep within us, telling us to love freely and truly by avoiding sins and doing only what is good. Amen. Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan.

heart-reason

Seeing With Our Hearts

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Thursday, 14 February 2019, Week V, Year I

Genesis 2:18-25///Mark 7:24-30

A blessed day of the hearts to you O God our loving Father!

Everybody is greeting happy Valentine’s in honor of your saint who found ways of bringing together in holy matrimony lovers forbidden by so many circumstances. On the other hand, our liturgy reminds us on this day the holiness of two brothers, St. Cyril and St. Methodius who preached the gospel among the Slavs.

All three saints showed what true love is, a love that is rooted in you expressed in their love for others. This is the love that your Son Jesus Christ had concretely showed us, to make us experience anew that we are all one, brothers and sisters in you our Father despite our different colors and beliefs.

On this day of hearts, remind us O Lord to always see with our hearts so we can be filled with awe and joy in seeing one another like the first man, saying “This one at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen.2:23). Give us also the courage of that Syrophoenician woman who came to beg Jesus to heal her daughter possessed by the devil by admitting her being a foreigner and different in race yet the same in stature as a child of God (Mk.7:28).

Like the first man and the Syrophoenician woman who saw with their hearts the other persons and Jesus, then we can destroy the walls that separate us from one another and build bridges of love that bring us together in kindness and respect.

May we always look with our hearts, O Lord Jesus, because it is only with the heart that we can truly see. Amen. Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan.