Life is a mystery

Lord My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Solemnity of the Holy Trinity-A, 31 May 2026
Exodus34:4-6, 8-9  ><}}}*>  2Corinthians13:11-13  ><}}}*>  John 3:16-18

*Photo by author, Dolmabahce Palace, Istanbul, Turkiye, November 2026.*

“Life is a mystery.” It is the favorite expression of my Jesuit retreat master during our 30-day retreat in Cebu 1995, the late Fr. Arthur Shea. He would always tell me “life is a mystery” while touching his long, white beard whenever he could not answer my many questions about life and God.

After that retreat and 28 years later as a priest, it had become my favorite expression too not only when I could not find answers to my own questions but when people come to consult and ask me on almost everything.

And thank God for life’s many mysteries, especially his very own mystery of being one God in Three Persons as we celebrate this Sunday the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity.

The word mystery is from the Greek mysterion, something hidden but now revealed by God.

While it is true that a mystery is beyond human reason because it is divine, it may still be explained and understood though not fully. That is why it is described as non-logical or beyond reason but not illogical which lacks reason.

Most of all, a mystery is not a problem to be solved because it simply cannot be solved at all. In fact, we need to keep mysteries like secrets because mysteries give meaning and depth to our very existence, to our lives. In this age of social media when everyone thinks that everything needs to be shown to the point of being overexposed, life has become so artificial and hence, for many, empty of meaning. Unknown to many of us, the most wonderful things in life are those hidden and not seen by everyone like the mystery of God within us!

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life (John 3:16).

Our gospel this Sunday is very amusing like a mystery in itself; it is the shortest one we have in the entire year yet the most popular verse in the whole bible. But, how can it explain or enlighten us of God’s oneness in three persons?

As we have expressed at the very start, a mystery is not meant to be solved and explained but experienced. Our gospel is not even trying to prove to us about the existence of God because in our very being, it is already a given there is God. God does not prove himself but always shows himself.

Recall that it was taken from the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, a Pharisee who felt drawn to the Lord but was so ashamed to be seen by his fellow Jews that he came to visit him at night. We are all like Nicodemus “feeling” God so true deep within us but often afraid to accept it or even show it for fears of being called as old-fashioned and conservative or someone less scientific, less reasonable and less modern.

In that gospel scene, Jesus was inviting Nicodemus to enter into a relationship with him to fully experience God’s mystery because at that time, they tried explaining God like a concept to be learned and even memorized through their many laws and instructions. Unlike the Pharisees, Jesus simply taught Nicodemus that basic truth of God who “so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.“

Nicodemus eventually became a disciple of Jesus along with another Pharisee named Joseph of Arimathea who gave Christ’s burial site on Good Friday.

A mystery is a mystery because it is shared. It is nothing if it is merely in itself.

We are intrigued with stories and reports because they create relationships in us and with us. That is why God in himself as a mystery is a community of persons. Person implies relationship, taken from the Latin word persona which is the mask worn by stage actors/actresses to indicate their roles in a play or drama; hence, the term dramatis personae or list of actors in a play and their roles.

To a certain sense, there are three persons or personae, that is, “roles” in our God as we profess in our Creed: the Father as Creator of everything, the Son as the Savior, and the Holy Spirit as the Sanctifier. With God, his persona is eternal while ours like in drama or play, it is temporary.

The more we enter into relationships, the more we relate with other persons, the more we discover the many mysteries of this life and of God while realizing too in the process that we can only relate with persons and not with things nor even plants and animals. This is the gist of the similarly brief second reading from St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, telling us to be close with one another as the Father’s children in Christ through the Holy Spirit. In sending us Jesus Christ his Son, God took the initiative to be closest to us as our breath in the Holy Spirit.

Every time we think of God, when we marvel at him and his creations, the more we find ourselves so different, even too distant from him while at the same time we also feel and experience in the most unique manner how closest we are to him.

Imagine this another great mystery of God that despite our sinfulness and worthlessness, he still so loved us and always caring for us. Like Moses in the first reading, we have experienced many times in life when God seemed to have actually walked beside us, even carried us during our lowest moments that in an instance we realized quickly the many “whys” he deals with us in life. We learn that God is so true and so close with us yet, remains the “All-Other” and the “Unknowable” whose mystery we cannot totally penetrate.

*Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 20 March 2026.*

As we move on in life, we realize it is not about covering distances but going deeper within ourselves, of being transformed into better selves and persons like God, loving and merciful. Eventually we realize too that each one of us is in fact an indwelling of the Holy Trinity, an image and likeness of God himself. This we can easily learn through our most basic and simple prayer of all, the Sign of the Cross that many of us take for granted.

Every time we make the sign of the Cross properly, that is when we let God embrace us and wrap us with his mysteries.

In the sign of the Cross, God comes closest to us in our very selves, relating to us in our head being the Father who is over and above us always, the creator of everything; as the Son who became human like us born by the Virgin Mary passing through her womb, experiencing everything we went through except sin; and as the Holy Spirit on our shoulders giving us balance in this life. Next Sunday, we shall deepen this mystery of God in three Persons in ourselves with the solemnity of Christ’s Body and Blood we receive in the Holy Eucharist. Amen. Have a blessed week filled with God’s wonderful mysteries!

Our daily Pentecost

Lord My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Pentecost Sunday-A, 24 May 2026
Acts 2:1-11  ><}}}}*>  1 Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13  ><}}}}*>  John 20:19-23

One of the reels I love watching in Instagram is Yuji Belleza, a young Japanese who speaks different languages, going around Europe talking to all kinds of people by speaking their native tongues.

What I like most with him is his openness to learn many things not just words and languages from those he interviews in his popular Instagram reels. It is precisely what Luke is telling us this Solemnity of the Pentecost: more than language facility, the most important in the spread and growth of the Church then and now is “openness” of Christ’s disciples.

When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues of fire, which parted and came to rest on each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as te Spirit enabled them to proclaim. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem. At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd, but they were confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language. They were astounded, and in amazement they asked, “Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans?” (Acts 2:1-7)

From the Greek word pente for 50, Pentecost is a Jewish feast celebrated fifty days after the ratification of their covenant with God by Moses in Sinai; eventually, it became a feast of their first harvests upon entering the Promised Land that it was like a new beginning in life for them.

And rightly so for us Christians too. The Church started to spread from Jerusalem on that Pentecost Sunday to become the largest in the world today. More than a feast we remember today fifty days after Easter, Pentecost is an event we recognize and affirm to be happening daily in our lives as disciples of Jesus Christ.

Like the popular Japanese linguist Yuji on Instagram, we too experience “being at home” abroad when we find countrymen, people who speak our native tongue. Thank God for the millions of Filipinos spread around the world that you can surely meet anywhere, anytime you go abroad.

*Photo by author, Istanbul, Turkiye, 31 October 2025.*

Last year we went to Turkiye and found a Catholic church run by Franciscans near our hotel in Istanbul. We went early to introduce ourselves to the pastor, hoping we could concelebrate the Mass with him. The Irish pastor gladly welcomed us, telling us that the choir and lectors in charge that Sunday were Filipinos. Sure enough after the Mass, they all followed us to the sacristy to make mano and of course, picture picture!

You know that feeling of being “home” – safe and secured, peaceful and joyful upon finding someone who speaks your own language in a foreign land with different culture and language. And weather!

Many times God comes to us in a similar way – speaking and feeling exactly like us but, unfortunately, we disregard his words and instructions because we have our own agenda and plans until finally we realize in the end after losing everything how we should have listened and obeyed him.

On the other hand, there is also that feeling of being home even abroad when you are able to communicate and understand foreigners using only sign languages while uttering some words like you are in a charades game. Despite our many differences, there are those feelings of safety and peace, of forging on in our journey because understanding is always possible by simply being open. We can even communicate with deaf mutes for as long as we are open and creative. And patient too.

Many times, God communicates with us in the same manner – through signs but problem is we do not have the interest to engage with him because we have other plans in life so that when things go wrong, there is always that sigh of missed opportunities in disregarding God.

Pentecost asks us how open are we to God and others as disciples of Christ?

From last Sunday’s upward shift for us to rise in our relationships with God and one another, Pentecost shows us its downward movement to open ourselves to the leading of Holy Spirit to become one in our relationships despite our many differences.

Matthew told us last Sunday that when Jesus ascended into heaven, some of his disciples were still doubting him. Today, Luke tells us how all those doubts were finally cleared at the descent of the Holy Spirit who emboldened the disciples with wisdom and knowledge, courage and perseverance to proclaim Christ’s gospel to all nations despite the persecutions and other difficulties that followed.

*Painting by El Greco, “Pentecostes” (1597) from commons.wikimedia.org.*

Pentecost continues in our present time when we shatter those walls and locked doors of pride, selfishness and conceit, opening ourselves to the daily coming of the Holy Spirit. Luke used a simple word in his story that can help us have that attitude of openness to the Holy Spirit.

The word is devout – in Filipino it is “deboto” connoting a person so closed with his religious beliefs like “Catolico cerrado.”

But, devout as used by Luke means a person with a “good heart, ready to believe, and then act openly and with courage” (Timothy Clayton, Exploring Advent with Luke; page 125).

Only Luke used the word devout in the Sacred Scriptures when in his gospel he described Simeon as “righteous and devout” (Lk.2:25) who sang the Nunc Dimittis during the presentation of Jesus at the temple. He then used it thrice in the Acts as we have heard today of the “devout Jews” staying in Jerusalem on that Pentecost day when the Holy Spirit came (2:5); then “the devout men who buried” the first martyr Stephen (8:2), and finally calling Ananias a “devout observer of the law” whom God instructed to pray over and heal Saul of his blindness after meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus (22:12).

More than being faithful to God and the Catholic faith, a devout person is one who is always open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit like Simeon and Anna awaiting the coming of the Messiah at the temple. Moreover, a devout person is one who makes happen the plans of God like Ananias who at first hesitated with Jesus in taking in Saul.

Our Filipino Missal used an interesting translation of Luke’s devout as palasamba sa Diyos that literally means one who worships God often. Or, someone who prays always.

Openness happens in prayers because that is when we become rooted in God, when we allow him to form us like the clay in the potter’s hand. More than the recitation and expression of ourselves in words, prayer is entering a relationship with God whom we call “Abba” as St. Paul explained in the second reading. That explains too why the Holy Spirit came on that Pentecost while the disciples with Mary were at prayer.

When we have prayer life, we grow in our sensitivity of God in others that we learn to become respectful, fair and just, and kind. Thus, we promote peace and goodwill with others too.

This Pentecost Sunday, let us allow the Holy Spirit to work in us by focusing more on Jesus than in ourselves in our many devotions and practices filled with pomp and pageantry that only divide us disciples of Christ

Let us open ourselves to Jesus by being devout in the truest sense wherein we are more open with persons especially the poor and disadvantaged than with things and numbers in measuring development as a nation like the GDP/GNP and infrastructures.

Yes, Jesus is now seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven but he remains with us here in this life, in this world in the Holy Spirit, day in, day out through us making Pentecost a reality daily. Amen. Have a blessed week ahead.

Easter is “moving” in Christ

Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Tuesday in the Fourth Week of Easter, 28 April 2026
Acts 11:19-26     ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'>     John 10:22-30

*Photo by author, Fatih Square, Istanbul, Turkiye, November 2025.*

Easter is about movements:
of moving in Jesus,
moving with Jesus,
moving to Jesus.

Those who had been scattered by the persecution that arose because of Stephen went as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but Jews. There were some Cypriots and Cyrenians among them, however, who came to Antioch and began to speak to the Greeks as well, proclaiming the Lord Jesus. The hand of the Lord was with them and great number who believed turned to the Lord (Acts 11:19-21).

How lovely,
dear Jesus to hear
that despite the fears
due to the martyrdom
 of Stephen in Jerusalem,
your disciples moved north
to Antioch now part of Turkiye
not to hide but to proclaim
your good news!

Strengthen my faith
in you, Jesus that when
things get tough,
when the Gospel is
challenged and dismissed,
let me move boldly in upholding
your message of truth
of a loving God we call Father
calling us to a life of
holiness and freedom
from sin and evil.

*Photo by author, St. Anthony de Padua Church, Taksim Square, Istanbul, Turkiye, November 2025.*

Let me move
in your Spirit, dear Jesus
like Barnabas
filled with joy
not suspicion,
encouraging others
to remain faithful
 in your teachings;
most of all,
let me move in compassion
and brotherly love
like Barnabas to search
for those shy and ashamed
of their sinful past like
Saul who later came to be known
as Paul;
may our movements be
more of gathering
than scattering
to unite and bring together
other believers
as one body,
one community
witnessing your gospel
that others may know us
your disciples,
Christians
like in Antioch.

In this world
with so many voices
shouting and screaming
 for our attention
to be famous,
to be rich,
to be powerful,
teach us to be silent
to distinguish your
voice and call,
Lord Jesus,
our Good Shepherd
whom we must follow
in poverty,
simplicity,
and humility.
Amen.

*Photo by author, Bosphorus River cruise, Istanbul, Turkiye, November 2025.*

He is not here

Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 05 April 2026

*Photo by author, La Mesa Dam seen from Seventh floor of Our Lady of Fatima University in Lagro, QC, 12 March 2026.*

Every year on my birthday, I go on a personal silent retreat. A vacation with the Lord. As I turned 62 last March that is said to be truly when one is considered “old”, I felt like those women not finding Jesus in the tomb at Easter when an angel told them, “He is not here, for he has been raised just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay” (Mt.28:6).

From then on, March 16-21, I have opted not to blog daily, preferring to rest and pray more until I find Jesus anew in my blogging

It was only on this Easter evening after returning from another retreat during the Holy Tridum that I have started to write anew, feeling like Cleopas and his companion sadly walking home to Emmaus, feeling Jesus is not here.

I have been writing my homilies for 28 years since my ordination as a deacon. As an “old school” plus the fact of my being a former journalist, I have always been writing in preparing homilies and talkds for the people. That is why I always wear polo with a small pocket to put my small notebook and pen.

After discovering the internet in 2000, I began sending weekly homilies as emails to family, relatives, friends every Sunday to help them prepare for Sunday Mass.

Then in 2018 while head of the diocesan commission on social communications, I started this blog, Lord My Chef, to evangelize more people faster. It has always been clear with me that writing is a gift from God that I must use for his greater glory so that more people may experience even in the net his joy and mercy, healing and forgiveness, and loving presence.

Moreover, I have intended Lord My Chef to be “Spiritual recipes for the soul to gladden your heart” with daily recipes that are homilies expressed in prayer with straight homilies on Sundays and special feasts.

But lately, there was no more gladness in me.

Blogging has become tiring, even stressful.

No more joy as demands replaced the love I used to have in writing.

Because I have been self-centered.

During my recent retreat, I also felt like Judas Iscariot betraying Jesus in exchange of the statistics of my posts, foolishly competing with myself comparing the daily, weekly, monthly and yearly metrics of my posts.

And yes, many times I felt sad why so few “like” my posts unlike other bloggers I follow and visit.

As I prayed before the Blessed Sacrament on the first day of my retreat last March, I felt being hit so hard in my heart by the Holy Spirit, of how I have been like Simon Peter denying Jesus so many times in my blogs supposed to be about him but have become more about myself.

Noble intentions are never enough because no matter how great and good are our plans even our efforts but when God is nowhere, then it is nothing.

It is a farce because despite the statistics and tangible results we have on whatever we do but if our hearts remain empty and far from God, it is nothing.

St. Paul said it so clearly in the 13th chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians, “If I have not loved, then I am nothing.”

That night, I wrote on my journal what I told Jesus in my colloquy, “I pray to blog, not for God.”

There was shame but also peace and freedom in my heart that night.

*Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 20 March 202*5.

Finally, I have found what – or who – was missing in my blogs and life itself that I have become so tired, confused, even many times lost.

God.

Some times, we can feel so well in life, obeying and doing God’s will but still feel something missing deep inside.

Or something isn’t right at all.

We may feel so happy but never fulfilled. Even successful as seen by others but not fruitful personally deep inside.

Because we lack Jesus in us and in our work and mission or ministry.

It happens when we consciously or unconsciously shift focus and attention into ourselves and other factors aside from God who is the very essence and reason of our mission and undertaking.

Worst, we may be acting or living already as if we are God.

No more Jesus who is our voice, our word, our point of view.

Most of all, our Message.

That’s the good news of Easter with Mary Magdalene and the other Mary: though they have seen the death and burial of Jesus, they still came to the tomb to anoint him with perfumes and oil. Why when he was already dead and buried in the tomb?

Because they missed him a lot, and must have mostly believed he would rise again

Is it not what we also feel with our departed loved ones, asking God even for a short glimpse or fleeting feeling to see them again for us to be assured they are here.

When the angel told Mary Magdalene and the other Mary that Jesus is not here, he was telling them too he is out there, so alive somewhere we have to find and follow.

And that is how I now feel about my blogging: Jesus is not here.

Because Jesus is risen, calling me to find him first in my blogs.

And inviting me to follow him in new directions in my ministry so that perhaps, I may write new things, new experiences, and new life in him. Amen.

*So grateful to fellow bloggers I follow and admire who have helped me find God in their writings especially Rainer, Nicola, Daryl Madden, Sr. Rene, and Pinoy Transplant in Iowa.

*Empty tomb concept from iStockphoto.com, April 2022.*

When prayer & everything seem beyond us

Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul, 29 October 2025
Wednesday in the Thirtieth Week of Ordinary Time, Year I
Romans 8:26-30     <*[[[[><  +  ><]]]]*>     Luke 13:22-30

*Photo by author, St. Paul Renewal Center, Alfonso, Cavite, August 2019.*

Brothers and sisters: The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings (Romans 8:26).

Just like now,
dear Jesus,
so many things are
in my heart,
in my mind;
there are times
I like to pray on things
I feel too difficult to express
as if too deep for words;
even my writing
could not work except
to feel assuredly of your
loving presence,
of your warm company;
there are people
and situations too
I just hold in my hands
before you because
I can't find words to tell you
about them...
there are times lately 
I not only forget things
and persons but sometimes
can't even figure out what's
going on in my life
that has become like a vast 
expanse of ocean or field
with dark clouds overlapping 
with lights of the setting sun;
O Jesus, you know
what's in my heart:
just let me feel you,
your joy and fullness and life!

“We know all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

If there is one thing
I pray now,
let me know you more,
Jesus so I can love you more
and follow you more
closely; you know everything,
Lord Jesus while I know nothing
at all!

Keep searching my heart
so I may find you
among those I take
for granted,
find you in simple persons
and things that do not
interest me,
most especially
find you in 
everyone
in order to find my way
to you!
Amen.

Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Our Lady of Fatima University
Valenzuela City

*Photo by author, Cabo de Roca, Pundaquit, Zambales, 17 May 2025.*

Prayer is a relationship

Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul, 09 October 2025
Thursday, Memorial of St. Denis, Bishop & Companion Martyrs
Malachi 3:13-20     <*[[[[><  +  ><]]]]*>     Luke 11:5-13

*Photo by Dra. Mai B. Dela Peña in Athens, Greece 2017.*

"For lo,
the day is coming,
blazing like an oven,
when all the proud and
all evildoers 
will be stubble, 
and the day that is coming
will set them on fire,
leaving them neither
root nor branch, 
says the Lord of hosts.
But for you who fear my name,
there will arise
the sun of justice
with its healing rays"
(Malachi 3:19-20).

Thank you,
dearest Lord Jesus
for having come
and for coming again,
bringing healing and
wholeness to us but,
still, as the Prophet Malachi
had noted in his time,
even today there are still many
among us so tempted with 
pleasures and comfort,
so carried away by materialism
and consumerism;
many of us pay lip service
to the call of our faith
with corrupt officials habitually
invoking your name, Lord
while most of us merely go through
our many religious observances
and devotions but empty in
practice of mercy and charity.

Grant us the gift
of your Holy Spirit, Jesus,
in our prayers:
"If you then,
who are wicked,
know how to give good gifts
to your children,
how much more 
will the Father in heaven
give the Holy Spirit
to those who ask him?"
(Luke 11:13)

Draw us deeper,
Lord Jesus Christ,
into the mystery of prayer
not as a ritual
but as a relationship;
therefore, to persist in prayer
is not about wearing God down
but allowing our hearts
to clarify our desires
until we silently surrender
to what God knows 
as best for us;
let us persist in prayers
to align our will
to God's Holy Will 
so that eventually,
we knock with trust, 
not fear;
we ask with boldness,
not with bargaining;
most of all, 
let us receive 
not just answers 
but your gift of your very
SELF, Jesus!
Amen.

Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Our Lady of Fatima University
Valenzuela City
(lordmychef@gmail.com)

*Photo by Dra. Mai B. Dela Peña in Santorini, Greece 2017.*

Shine in Jesus

Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul, 02 September 2025
Tuesday in the Twenty-Second Week of Ordinary Time, Year I
1 Thessalonians 5:1-6, 9-11 <*((((>< + ><))))*> Luke 4:31-37

*Photo by author, sunrise at the Lake of Galilee, Israel, May 2017.*

Let your light shine on me,
Jesus, 
keep me "alert and sober
so that I may continue
to encourage one another
and build one another up"
(1 Thessalonians 5:6, 11);
let your light shine in me,
Jesus, 
fill me with your authority
and power to disclose truth
and expose evil as people 
nowadays are so used to sin
as very ordinary, tolerable
and acceptable;
let your light shine in me,
Jesus,
fill me with your Spirit
to always proclaim 
in words and in deeds
your gospel of salvation
from self-centeredness,
materialism,
and relativism
that have all tried 
deleting God 
and prayer 
in life; 
despite my sinfulness
and weaknesses,
help me bring you Jesus
to those burdened and lost,
sick and confused
after being so misled
by the world's many lies
and broken promises.
Amen.

Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Our Lady of Fatima University
Valenzuela City
(lordmychef@gmail.com)

Life, death, and resurrection.

Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul, 01 September 2025
Monday, Twenty-Second Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18     <*((((><  +  ><))))*>     Luke 4:16-30

*Photo by author, Betania Tagaytay City, August 2018.*

Hello, September!
Praise and glory to you,
God our loving Father 
for this new month:
30 days of life filled with surprises,
30 days to rejoice in you,
30 days to be better,
30 days to be one in you
in Christ your Son our Lord; 
help us Jesus to imitate
St. Paul in helping Christians
how your death and resurrection
shape our identity and future.

Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore, console one another with these words (1 Thessalonians 4:17-18).

"we shall always be
with the Lord."

Help me, Jesus
to imitate Paul 
in encouraging
one another that 
"we shall always be with you, Lord"
especially when material
things and worldly concerns shape
my thoughts about the future;
lately, I have been so concerned
with the moral degradation
that has worsened in the country
that lately have been shaping my
thoughts about the future too;
Lord Jesus,
help me,
forgive me
when things of the world
shape my thoughts of the future
even my identity as your disciple
that in the process 
I fail to recognize your coming
your presence in me and 
among us like your folks
in Nazareth;
let me feel anew 
your Spirit in me,
Jesus, 
to let that same Spirit 
animate me like Paul
so I could bring 
"glad tidings to the poor,
proclaim liberty to captives,
recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year 
acceptable to the Lord"
(Luke 4:18-19).

Let me share 
in your paschal mystery,
Jesus,
to never lose sight of
your Cross
to find your Resurrection
nearby,
not the ways of the world
that many times
worsen our people's plight.
Amen.

The God we delightfully await

Lord My Chef Sunday Recipe by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Solemnity of the the Holy Trinity, Cycle C, 15 June 2025
Proverbs 8:22-31 ><}}}}*> Romans 5:1-5 ><}}}}*> John 16:12-15

*Photo by author, Hidden Spring Resort, Calauan, Laguna, 20 February 2025.*

We resume the Sundays in Ordinary Time with the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity today that is the highest truth in our Church teachings often referred to as a “mystery” or something so difficult to explain and understand.

We find this context of “mystery” right in our gospel this Sunday that takes us back again to the Last Supper scene as in the final Sundays of Eastertide.

Jesus said to his disciples: “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming” (John 16:12-13).

What is the “more” Jesus has to tell his disciples that include us today which we cannot bear, that we need to be guided by the Holy Spirit?

“I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.”

As we have learned in the scriptures especially during the Holy Week and Easter, Jesus was speaking at that time of his life and death prefigured by his Last Supper. He was preparing his disciples to do the same as he expressly said after washing their feet.

It is the same lesson Jesus teaches us every Sunday in the Holy Eucharist, of how we his modern disciples must learn to offer our lives with others which is what the Holy Trinity is all about – a sharing and giving of life of the Three Persons in One God. Unity happens only in the total union of one’s self-giving.

This is the mystery of our personal or relating God revealed to us slowly through time, from the Old Testament that reached its highest point in Jesus Christ in the New Testament that continues to these days because each one of us is a reality of the Holy Trinity.

This Holy Trinity sharing and mutuality of Persons in One God is an ongoing lesson we undergo as disciples of Jesus because like the Apostles, we too continue to cling to life, finding it so hard to let go and let God.

*Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, 20 March 2025.*

As we move on with life, we realize that life is not in clinging but in dying and letting go, in giving and sharing than having or taking or keeping. We realize as we age and mature that more than the wealth and recognition we all aspired for when younger were nothing but a waste in life because what really matters most is our relationships – with God and with others.

It is a lesson that unfolds to us every day, getting better as we age, when we look back to our past especially to our very roots like our parents with whom we find not only proximity and intimacy but most of all, delight and pride in being one with them. This is exactly what the first reading is telling us about Wisdom said to be the personification of Jesus Christ as the Second Person of the Trinity who is one with the Father:

Thus says the wisdom of God: “The Lord possessed me, the beginning of his ways, the forerunner of his prodigies long ago; from of all I was poured forth, at the first, before the earth… When the Lord established the heavens I was there, when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep… then was I beside him as his craftsman, and I was his delight day by day, playing before him all the while, playing on the surface of his earth; and I found delight in the human race” (Proverbs 8:22-23, 27, 30-31).

*Photo by Mr. Boy Cabrido, EDSA 1986 People Power Revolution.*

Life and man are all a mystery. Many times there are no easy answers to our many questions in life. There are times when our questions in life are actually answered in deaths like in the passing of our loved ones. Most of all, many questions in life can never be answered at all.

But, the joy of living is in still asking more questions. Man is known more in the questions he asks because the answers he gives are often wrong or off-tangent. When we ask the right questions, even if we do not arrive at the right answers, somehow we get a grasp or glimpse of the bigger realities and mysteries of life, of the things to come that Jesus tells us today.

I have always been curious as a child, always asking my father on the various things I heard from him and my mother or from the television and later from books I have read. After explaining things to me or passages I have read that I still could not understand, daddy would assure me that “pag-tanda mo maiintindihan mo rin yan.”

Those are my fondest memories of childhood with my father – the delight of learning, of discovering, of understanding. Now that I am a priest and a senior, there is still that deep joy and delight in searching and asking because like what Jesus said, there is so much more to learn in this life and in our very selves. There is that desire and attraction within that leads us outside our very selves to search for more meaning – like resulting from faith and hope in God as reflected by St. Paul speaks in the second reading wherein the Holy Spirit leads us to the glory of God.

*Photo by Ms. Ria De Vera in Delia, Alberta, Canada, 03 June 2025.*

A senator recently made a mockery of the Holy Spirit, claiming his move to dismiss the impeachment complaint as a leading of the Holy Spirit. Making things worst and most unbelievable is the fact that another senator, son of a founder of a local church and preacher played a real devil in quashing efforts to find the truth about the charges of corruption against the Vice President of the Republic.

Clearly, it was not of the Holy Spirit but more of the devil that is divisive and most untruthful, totally unmindful of our relationships as a nation.

The “more” that Jesus speaks of in sending us the Holy Spirit is for each of us to realize our being a Trinity in our very selves, our connectedness as one in God. It is sad that for many, the Blessed Trinity does not really matter that much for them to appreciate or even understand. For many, it is enough to believe in God just like the others in various religions and sects or worst, like those who do not care at all about God except that they “believe” in a Supreme Being.

As we resume the Sundays of Ordinary Time, this Solemnity of the Holy Trinity evokes the most concrete reality of God, that he is a Person like a Father who is the giver of life because he is life himself with whom alone we owe our lives. This we realize and experience in the Son Jesus Christ who became like us humans so we may become like him again as divine, with honor and dignity. It is the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity who guides us to more realities and truth of this loving God so immense, delighting us in awaiting our union in him. Let us pray:

Come, Holy Spirit!
Fill our hearts with that
desire to continuously await
God's coming in Jesus Christ,
as we delight in a life of
giving and sharing,
of caring and kindness,
of mercy and forgiving
until that day we shall be one
in the Father in heaven
in his love.
Amen.

Happy Father’s Day too!

That “Simeon Moment”

Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 03 February 2025

*Photo from the Presentation Chapel of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC.*

Every night before going to bed, we priests and religious along with some laypeople pray the Compline or Night Prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours. From the Latin completus, the Compline completes the daily prayers of the Church.

It is also my most favorite since our seminary days when we chanted Simeon’s Canticle which we heard proclaimed in yesterday’s gospel in the celebration of the Feast of the Lord’s Presentation.

He (Simeon) came in the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform the custom of the law in regard to him, he took him in his arms and blessed God, saying: “Now, Master you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in sight of all the peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel” (Luke 2:27-32).

*A painting of Simeon with the Child Jesus from the dailyprayerblog.blogspot.com*

The Simeon Moment 
is befriending death
as we find Jesus Christ.

The “Simeon Moment” is when we are like Simeon in realizing that nothing matters most in this life except God found within us and those closest to us like family and friends whom we would never trade for anybody and anything. It is finding true joy in Christ alone that we are able to befriend death like St. Francis of Assisi who called death a “cousin”.

According to Luke, God had promised Simeon that he would not die until he had seen the promised Messiah (Christ). All his life, Simeon prayed and offered sacrifices at the temple in Jerusalem awaiting the coming of Christ – and he was not disappointed even if it took so long! That is why, he burst into a song which we now pray every night because that is when we experience in the stillness of the darkness within and outside us that only Jesus and always Jesus who fulfills us.

Those who have cared and lost a loved one to cancer or any terminal illness have experienced that “Simeon Moment”. Remember when our loved ones have finally accepted their fate, when they suddenly become more emotionally stable and even joyful in their dispositions? Unlike before when they were first diagnosed with their illness, they were so afraid, always crying but as they came to embrace the reality, they cried less with a strong sense of courage while we are the ones crying more and most stressed out?

That is because the dying must have seen their their final destination in life, Jesus Christ. Like Simeon during the presentation at the temple after seeing and holding in his hands so close to himself the Holy Infant, we find the dying so calm and peaceful during their final hours because they have seen or were already in the presence of the Lord.

Like Simeon, they were silently joyful in Christ’s presence while we who were left behind cried not only due to the pain and sadness of separation but because we do not know where we are going, where we are heading unlike our departed loved ones.

Feel the courage and confidence of Simeon boldly telling God to “take him” at that instance because he had found Jesus Christ. Its Filipino translation says it so well, “Kunin mo na, Panginoon, ang iyong abang alipin, ayon sa iyong pangako, yamang nakita na ng aking mga mata ang iyong pagliligtas (Lk.2:29-30).”

We Filipinos often take it as a joke, always laughing to dismiss the topic or cope with the reality that to see God literally means to die like when we say “gusto nang makita si Lord”. But, that was how Simeon really felt because he had literally seen the Son of God, as if telling him to take him “now na!” because the Simeon Moment is therefore we have that realization within us that coming to terms with death is coming to terms with life, and vice versa.

The Simeon Moment
is living in the Holy Spirit

Wherever is Jesus Christ, there is always the Holy Spirit. We will never find Christ and have the Simeon Moment unless we are attuned first with Holy Spirit who animates us and opens us to Christ’s coming.

Imagine the great crowds of people at the temple on that day, of couples trying to fulfill the law of Moses of purification and presenting their first-born son to God. How did Simeon know Joseph and Mary were the parents of the Christ? How was he able to accurately spot and find Jesus is the Messiah amid the many male children being offered on that day at the temple?

“To come in the Spirit” like Simeon is more than being faithful to God; it is having a good and pure heart that is ready to believe and act openly with courage, always looking forward at the fulfillment of what we believe. Coming in the Spirit is being at the right place at the right time when we make things happen than wait, exactly how Luke portrayed Simeon and Anna who both lived in the presence of God! Coming in the Spirit is living in the present moment in God.

*“Simeon’s Moment” by American illustrator Ron DiCianni. From* http://www.tapestryproductions.com

The Simeon Moment
is being rooted in God

We cannot see Christ nor live in the Spirit unless we humbly submit ourselves to God, our Lord and Master. Seeing Christ and living in the Spirit presuppose humility before God – we His creatures, He our Lord and Master.

Most of all, our origin and our end too!

It is the principle and foundation of life as St. Ignatius of Loyola stressed in his Spiritual Exercises, “El hombre es criado para alabar, hacer reverencia y servir a Dios nuestro Señor, y mediante esto, salvar su anima”, that is, “Man is created to praise and serve God his Lord and Master and by doing this save his soul”.

There is something so beautiful and lovely, so touching in the opening verse of Simeon’s canticle that underscores firmly this basic truth we have always forgotten since the fall of Adam and Eve when he asked God to take him after seeing the Christ. Every time we sin, we act like Adam and Eve, playing gods, desiring to be like God.

Also known as Nunc Dimittis, Simeon’s canticle echoes the fiat of Mary to God during the Annunciation, expressing his fidelity and humility, his total submission to God. Most of all, it summarizes both the Magnificat of the Blessed Mother and the Benedictus of Zechariah, making Simeon’s Nunc Dimittis the finale in Luke’s Christmas “concert” on the birth of the Messiah.

This is the reason why we chant Nunc dimittis at the end of our Night Prayer. It is the perfect prayer to close each day as we prepare for the coming new day to meet Jesus again, hoping we may be enlightened in our life’s mission expressed by the antiphon we recite before and after chanting it, “Protect us Lord as we stay awake; watch over us as we sleep that awake we may keep watch with Christ and asleep rest in his peace”.

Or, if ever we ever do not wake up the following day, we still thank God all the more in making us meet Jesus the past day, eager to finally sing to him our praises in eternity with Night Prayer’s final blessing, “May the Lord grant us a restful night and a peaceful death”.

The Simeon Moment is a grace and gift Jesus gives us daily not only for the dying but to everyone of us seeking Him, awaiting Him like Simeon. And like Simeon, we are assured that anyone who seeks and awaits God is never disappointed. Have a blessed day in Christ Jesus! Amen.