Category: Homily/Spirituality

The Tenderness of God

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The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe, Sacred Heart-B, 08 June 2018
Hosea 11:1,3-4,8-9///Ephesians 3:8-12,14-9///John 19:31-37 

One of my all-time favorite love songs is Billy Joel’s “Leave a Tender Moment Alone.” (https://youtu.be/JHpIC4Kk0MU)  The poetry of its lyrics and its lovely melody introduced by a stirring harmonica always bring the “kilig moments” of every man’s love experience:

Even though I’m in love
Sometimes I get so afraid
I’ll say something so wrong
Just to have something to say

I know the moment isn’t right
To tell the girl a comical line
To keep the conversation light
I guess I’m just frightened out of my mind

But if that’s how I feel
Then it’s the best feeling I’ve even known
It’s undeniably real
Leave a tender moment alone

While praying over the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, I kept on hearing this song playing in my mind because our celebration today is actually about the tenderness of God.  See how He had spoken through the prophet Hosea in the first reading like a Father to us.  Let us personalize His words and be immersed in His tenderness: “As a child I loved you, I called you my son.  The more I called you, the farther you went away from me.”(Hos.11:1-2)

             Is it not this is how our love relationship is with our parents and family including God? When we were kids, we loved running to our dad, taking pride for being his son or daughter, always clinging to his big hands?  During the early years of marriage, couples seem to be so inseparable.  But as we mature and find new friends and new relationships, we drift apart from our parents or spouse, including God.  And worst, we drive them away, even feeling ashamed of them especially when they come near us with their gestures of love and concern.  But, when problems arise in our new relationships like betrayal and infidelity, we go back to them, most especially to God, rediscovering their genuine love that is so tender and very comforting:  “I took you in my arms, drew you with human cords with bands of love. I fostered you like one who raises an infant to his cheeks; yet, though I stooped to feed you my child, you did not know I am your healer.”(Hos.11:3-7)

             Unlike Billy Joel in his song “Leave A Tender Moment Alone,” God makes no mistakes in loving us.  He remains faithful to us with His love, even “allowing” us often to sin and commit mistakes so that eventually, when we hit rock bottom, we rediscover Him and His love that is so real and so personal.  This “stooping down” by God that He had spoken to Hosea hundreds of years earlier took its deepest plunge when He sent us Jesus Christ His Son as our Savior by dying on the Cross.  St. John tells us how on that Good Friday soldiers broke the legs of the other two thieves crucified with Jesus to hasten their death; but, when they saw Jesus “already dead, they did not break his legs, but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out.” (Jn.19:33-34)

According to St. John, this fulfilled the Old Testament that “Not a bone of it will be broken” and that “They will look upon him whom they have pierced”(Jn.19:36), thus identifying Jesus Christ as the new lamb offered once and for all to God for the forgiveness of our sins.  It verified the words of John the Baptist also found in the fourth gospel describing Jesus as “the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”, the perfect offering on the Cross and expression of God’s immense love for each of us.  His death on the Cross is the most tender moment of love in history when our God who personally loves us by becoming like us in everything except sin loved us until the last drop of His blood because we are His beloved brothers and sisters in His loving and faithful Father in heaven we have always deserted in our many sins.  Indeed, when blood and water flowed out from His pierced side on the Cross, the ocean of Divine Mercy flowed out for us, forgiving our most grievous sins, regardless of our many weaknesses.  In His Most Sacred heart, Jesus is inviting us to always leave some tender moments alone with Him so that “He may dwell also in our hearts through faith so that once we are rooted and grounded in His love, we may have the strength to comprehend the breadth and length and height and depth of His love that surpasses knowledge and be filled with the fullness of God.”(cf. Eph.3:17-19)

It is an imperative for us all to be “rooted and grounded in His love” because human love is always imperfect.  Only God can love us perfectly in Christ Jesus who offered Himself on the Cross to fulfill what we have failed since the beginning – that is, to love God and others. Oh what a loving God we have in Him as we pray, Jesus meek and humble heart make my heart like thine!  Amen. Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan.

Photo from Google.

The Eucharist, An Experience of Trinitarian Love and Unity

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The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe, Corpus Christi-B, 03 June 2018
Exodus 24:3-8///Hebrews 9:11-15///Mark 14:12-16, 22-26

When I was still assigned as teacher-administrator of the Immaculate Conception School for Boys (ICSB) of Malolos, I always reminded my students that in every first date they would have, always bring their girlfriend to a restaurant— the more expensive, the better! Because in every date, what matters most is not the food and drinks but the moment they share together to know each other. The same thing happens when we invite family and friends for a party or meal together at home when do much more than offer them food and drinks but friendship, fellowship, and intimacy or closeness. When we ask our guests to have more food and desserts as well as drinks of every kind plus “take-home” or “bitbit”, we actually offer them our very selves as food and drinks in the same manner they nourish us with their coming. This explains why we take time preparing everything, from the food down to the table-setting. It is not really the eating that matters but the togetherness, the growth of a spiritual bond as family and friends nourishing each other, becoming food and drinks for one another.

The same thing happens in a more complete and perfect manner whenever we celebrate the Holy Eucharist. By giving us His very self as Body and Blood, Jesus Christ our host in this sacred meal not only nourishes our spiritual and deepest longings but most of all offers us the most intimate communion possible with others and with God. He is the one who makes everything possible for us to be together, calling us to “come to Him with our burdens to find rest for He is humble and gentle of heart.”

On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus’ disciples said to him, “Where do you want us to go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?” He sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city and a man will meet you, carrying a jar of water. Follow him. Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, “The Teacher says, ‘Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready. Make the preparations for us there.” The disciples then went off, entered the city, and found it just as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover.(Mk.14:12-16)

See how Jesus prepared everything for their Passover meal: He had prepared everything most likely in secret to surprise His disciples for that important meal together. In His last supper, Jesus was like Jack Ryan or Jason Bourne when He arranged everything with coded messages like following “a man carrying a jar of water” because in ancient Israel, the woman is the one who fetches water. You cannot find a man carrying a jar of water unless there is something extraordinary like in our gospel today. And that is how much God loves us, always taking the initiative to meet us, to encounter us, to be closest with us. It is always Jesus Christ who takes the initiative to meet us and bless us like in the Holy Eucharist. Imagine at the start of the Mass, right away He welcomes us even if we are sinners, granting us pardon even before we have asked forgiveness. In the Eucharist, we are even far more better than the apostles who have lived and seen the Lord because we are more closer to Him than them when we receive His Body and Blood in Holy Communion. That is what really happens in the sacred meal of the Holy Eucharist, a divine communion! It is the most perfect moment to pray when Jesus is Body and Blood, truly Himself inside our body: tell Jesus whatever you want, complaint if you want to and after speaking to Him, listen. He always have something to tell us every day but we are so busy with so many things that we fail to even recognize His presence.

In celebrating the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ today, we experience the love and unity of God expressed in last week’s celebration of the Blessed Trinity, of how the three Persons in their mutual giving of self to each other outpoured upon us life and abundant blessings. Like the three Persons bonded in love, we too can achieve that unity with God and with others through the Holy Eucharist. As we get into the rhythm of Ordinary Time since after Pentecost Sunday, we have been celebrating in the past two consecutive Sundays the Solemnities of Trinity and Body and Blood to remind us of the great lessons of love and mercy we have realized and experienced in Easter must grow in us throughout this year. There is a beautiful descent of God’s mysteries into our very selves that culminates on Friday when we celebrate the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart. From the highest truth of our faith last Trinity Sunday, we now have this feast of Body and Blood of Christ as an experience in the Holy Eucharist of that Trinitarian love and unity that deepens into our very hearts on Friday’s Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. See how in every movement, in every step, there is always God taking the initiative to meet us, to be with us. A blessed week to you!

Fr.Nicanor F. Lalog II
Parokya Ng SanJuan Apostol At Ebanghelista
Gov.F.HaliliAve., Bagbaguin, Sta.Maria,
Bulacan3022

*Photo from Google, the famous icon of Trinity by Andrei Rublev (c. 1411) based on Gen. 18 when Abraham was visited by three angels at Mamre.  The icon now hangs at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.  It is one of the best portrayal of the Holy Trinity that is also very Eucharistic at the same time.