Lord My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Tuesday in the Third Week of Easter, 06 May 2025 Acts 7:51-8:1 ><))))*> + ><))))*> + ><))))*> John 6:30-35
Painting by Frenchman James Jacques Tissot (1836-1902), “Jesus Appears to His Disciples At the Shore of Tiberias” from http://www.dominicanajournal.org.
Dearest Lord Jesus Christ: What's happening in the world? What's happening in our lives? Do we know where we are going? We are so lost: road rage everywhere even in the dirt road; innocent lives have been lost - two children in fact - were killed in accidents that have been easily prevented; and a lot more of our many waywardness everywhere! We are like the elders of Israel addressed by St. Stephen in Jerusalem: "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always oppose the Holy Spirit; you are just like your ancestors" (Acts 7:51).
Let us come to you, Jesus; Let us return to you, Jesus; Let us stop seeking signs that you are the Christ whom we must follow and receive; to come to you Jesus is to bond ourselves to you and to your gospel values of life and truth, of justice and love that means we do not cheat in our jobs and responsibilities where others rely on us; to come to you Jesus is immersing ourselves in your words, in your teachings to assimilate your Way into our ways wherein we follow our conscience not our whims or words of media especially of politicians who rob most the poor and helpless among us; to come to you Jesus is accept our Cross and sufferings like St. Stephen to be able to see a glimpse of heaven. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Monday, Memorial of St. Peter Claver, Priest, 09 September 2024 1 Corinthians 5:1-8 <*((((>< + ><))))*> Luke 6:6-11
God our loving Father, make me a yeast, a leaven for your people, bringing them into a community, a communion.
Do you not know that a little yeast leavens all the dough? Clear out the old yeast, so that you may become a fresh batch of dough, inasmuch as you are unleavened. For our Paschal Lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebrate the feast, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavend bread of sincerity and truth (1 Corinthians 5:6-8).
Many times, we in the Church fail to recognize the importance of corporate witness to the Gospel as one body; many times, we pretend to be blind and deaf and mute in the evil pervading among us, afraid of hurting others feelings, worst, afraid of being unmasked in living a double standard life; straighten our lives, Lord Jesus like that man with a withered hand in the synagogue; straighten our paths to your righteousness as we discern justice and mercy and love whenever there are some of us on the wrong side of the road. Like St. Peter Claver who called himself a "slave of the slaves forever" in his pioneering work among the African slaves in in Colombia, grant us the grace of courage and strength to dare start the impossible of being a yeast, a leaven to the people transforming them into witnesses of your Gospel. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B, 18 August 2024 Proverbs 9:1-6 ><}}}}*> Ephesians 5:15-20 ><}}}}*> John 6:51-58
Photo by author, James Alberione Center, QC, 15 August 2024.
It is our fourth consecutive Sunday listening to the sixth chapter of John’s gospel that opened with the miraculous feeding by Jesus of more than five thousand people in a deserted place; Jesus fled from there, went back in Capernaum where people caught with Him and disciples as He began three Sundays ago His “Bread of Life” discourse now getting deeper while the drama among the crowd is heating up.
From murmuring last Sunday about Jesus who said “I am the bread that came down from heaven” (Jn.6:41), the people today quarreled among themselves after Jesus said “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world” (Jn. 6:51).
Photo by author, James Alberione Center, QC, 15 August 2024.
Notice the beautiful contrast of reactions by people to Jesus: from murmuring last Sunday, they sank deep into quarreling while Jesus leveled up to “the living bread from heaven” from merely “the bread from heaven” last week. For us to live well, we have to eat well by having Jesus Himself as our food and drink.
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me” (John 6:52-57).
Photo by Ms. Ria De Vera in Banff, Alberta, Canada, 07 August 2024.
Eating is the most common human activity anywhere, any time. Human life basically revolves around eating as we have seen since time immemorial how we have progressed following our search for food. We work to feed ourselves and loved ones. Without food, we die. Food is so essential that there is always food to share in our gatherings.
That is why Jesus chose the bread and wine as the signs of His living presence among us in the Holy Eucharist He established during the Last Supper on Holy Thursday. In the Eucharist, Jesus elevated the most ordinary human activity of eating as most sublime and Divine. In the Holy Mass, we share in Christ’s Body and Blood so we too may share our very selves with one another.
When Jesus said in Capernaum that the bread He is giving is His own flesh with His blood as drink, He was already preparing the people for the Eucharist while at the same time teaching them that eating is not everything. We have to eat well to live well. When tempted by the devil in the wilderness, Jesus right away taught us to remember that man does not live by bread alone but with every word from God. At the start of this discourse last August 04, Jesus challenged the people, “Do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you” (Jn.6:27).
Photo by Ms. Ria De Vera in Banff, Alberta, Canada, 07 August 2024.
Many times, we get so used in our many activities that unconsciously, we miss life itself as we punish ourselves with exhaustion and sickness as well as emptiness.
Food is not just something that fills our stomach but must also lead into our heart and soul. Observe any cuisine and you get a taste of the culture and people it represents, even with strong hints of its geographical origin. In the first reading we find how the Book of Proverbs personified Wisdom as God to remind us that though He is transcendent and so above us, God is easily accessed even in the most ordinary instances like eating.
Wisdom has built her house, she has set up her seven columns; she has dressed her meat, mixed her wine, yes, she has spread her table. She has sent out her maidens; she calls from the heights out over the city: “Let whoever is simple turn in here; to him who lacks understanding, I say, Come, eat of my food, drink of the wine I have mixed! Forsake foolishness that you may live; advance in the way of understanding” (Proverbs 9:1-6).
How lovely is that part of God calling us to come like Jesus in the gospel when He said “come to me all who are burdened” or when He ordered to “let the children come to me”. Is it not the same thing we say when we are about to eat, to come and get it?
Sadly these days, we seem to have retrogressed in our manner of eating. Social media rightly labeled it as “food porn” when we are flooded with everything about food and drinks minus its deeper meanings. Food is sadly seen in its material aspect that eating is more on filling the stomach, forgetting the soul because we have totally forgotten God and the people around us. No wonder that despite the growing food production and plethora of food we have these days, many still starve while the rest of us remain lost in life, more sick.
Photo by Ms. Ria De Vera in Banff, Alberta, Canada, 07 August 2024.
See, my dear friends, the great coincidence on the very Sunday Jesus began his bread of life discourse, it was also the opening of the Paris Olympics with a mockery of the Last Supper that led us into a kind of “quarrel” as organizers and their supporters insisted it wasn’t the Last Supper at all despite the clear indications and proofs.
“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Suddenly, we heard anew that same question by the people in Capernaum to Jesus reechoed in the Olympics at the capital city of the Church’s so-called “eldest daughter”, France. Of course, we know this bread of life discourse by Jesus refers to the Holy Eucharist and surely, the many defenders of the Paris Olympics are aware for many of them are Catholics. But, Jesus must have willed this gospel be proclaimed at this time coinciding with the Olympics for us to evaluate anew our faith in Him because at the very core of this bread of life discourse is the mystery of faith.
“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” In the gospel of Luke, we find a similar question by Mary at the Annunciation that is filled with faith, “How can this be?” (Lk.1:34); but today, like in Capernaum as exemplified by the Paris Olympics, that question is a renewed refusal to believe in the words of Jesus Christ. Worst of all as we noted earlier in our perceptions of food and eating these days, that question shows modern man’s insistence on everything material, totally disregarding our spiritual nature.
Photo by Ms. Ria De Vera in Banff, Alberta, Canada, 07 August 2024.
Like in Capernaum, many people today who refuse to believe Christ’s words resort to malicious and insidious arguments that it becomes useless to really converse with them as they would rather insist on their grossly material understanding and perception of life these days. Many prefer to quarrel these days than accept life’s many mysteries not merely seen nor tasted by the senses but experienced and realized through faith in God.
Life for them has become merely material which in Greek is bios as in biology. There is another Greek word for life which is zoe that refers to the eternal, divine life of God that Jesus repeatedly used in our gospel today.
Like last Sunday, Jesus did not engage Himself into debating with the crowd in Capernaum by simply repeating the words living and life to emphasize the total acceptance of Him – Body and Blood – in faith: “I am the living bread… my flesh for the life of the world. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.” These are the very same words too, life and living that Jesus would mention before His Passion and Death as well as after His Resurrection because eating His flesh and drinking His blood is to share in His life that is also the fullness of life. It is only in Christ Jesus can we find fulfillment in life. Let us pray:
Lord Jesus Christ, help me watch carefully how I live, not as a fool but as wise as St. Paul taught us today in his letter to the Ephesians; let us not be intoxicated with life's pleasures and worldly pursuits but let us be filled with the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I had published my Sunday homily that Saturday morning when I decided to unwind by watching any movie on Netflix which I do only on weekends. So glad it was the first movie I saw, very related with the story of Prophet Elijah and Jesus Christ’s “Bread of Life Discourse” that Sunday.
First think I liked with Lolo and the Kid is its fast-paced story that revolved around the two characters played by veteran Joel Torre and GMA7’s famed Firefly star Euwenn Mikael Aleta.
Second thing so interesting with me is how Lolo and Kid have no proper names at all (I just learned Lolo’s name was Mario after reading the various write ups) maybe because they stand for all of us who are caught in this great race for money and material things but deep inside longing for the more essential and truly lasting in life like love. And people who love us too, who care for us, and would stand by us.
We are Lolo and Kid who many times have traded our principles for momentary satisfaction but despite our seemingly strong facades of pragmatism and “resourcefulness” or madiskarte as Lolo taught Kid in the movie, deep inside us is still our conscience where God dwells, telling us to pursue good and shun evil. Joel Torre perfectly portrayed this beautiful side in each one of us (with his Ilonggo accent) of keeping a conscience despite our sinfulness, like a soft shell we delicately keep whole and intact inside lest we lose everything in life.
Photo from de.flixable.com
Recall our first reading last Sunday about Elijah fleeing to the mountain from an army pursuing to kill him. Elijah felt a total failure like Lolo and us many times in life when after all our goodwill and love, we are dumped by the very people we care for.
Elijah went a day’s journey into the desert, until he came to a broom tree and sat beneath it. He prayed for death, saying: “This is enough, O Lord! Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers” (1 Kings 19:4).
In one of the scenes of Lolo and the Kid, we find Lolo crying, cursing everyone and murmuring just like in last Sunday’s gospel. As he tried to end his life with a knife, Lolo suddenly heard the cry of an infant from the heap of garbage around him. What a beautiful portrayal of that infant left in the trash like Jesus Christ born on a manger becoming the savior of Lolo, a definitive message of mercy and love from God after his apparent cry of “This is enough, Lord!”
How many times have we found ourselves in the same situation, often in less momentous ones than Elijah or any prophet and saint, crying out to God in the heavens “this is enough”?
But, what is also most true behind every cry of “this is enough” that we make, we continue to believe and to hope in God that there is still a way out of our plight. And very often like in the story of Elijah last Sunday and in that scene in Lolo and the Kid, God comes at the nick of time like that infant crying in the garbage heap, a reminder of life and beauty found within us despite all the dirt we may have around us.
From netflixlovers.it
Here we find the Kid, perfectly played by Euwenn like in Firefly, as the saving grace, the Christ-figure in the movie bringing salvation to Lolo. Kid was “the bread of life from heaven” who “fed” Lolo with life with its meaning and direction. And joy found in Kid, the image of Christ Jesus.
Now, joy according to Jesus at the Last Supper is like a woman at the pangs of childbirth (Jn.16:21-22); it is deeper than happiness. True joy is borne out of self-sacrifice, a fruit of self-denial, of loving somebody more than one’s self. This we find at the end of this moving film.
Now all grown up, Kid finally met again Lolo in the hospital a day after his college graduation. Kid brought Lolo while seated on a wheelchair to visit Taba (another character without a name), their suki in fencing. From there, they went to their usual stop, a videoke bar to eat and drink, singing repeatedly Kenny Roger’s Through the Years.
Then, Lolo died, singing the only tune he knew that summed their beautiful relationship.
Photo from list23.com.
After Lolo’s body was taken out of the videoke bar, Kid opened Lolo’s bag that had a tin can of biscuit filled with old photographs taken with their stolen Polaroid camera. The photos did not merely remind Kid of their happy times together but most especially when they were already apart!
Unknown to Kid, Lolo hid to take photos when he moved to his adoptive parents, from his first ever birthday party to his college graduation! Through the years, Lolo, like God, was always there, present in all of Kid’s milestones in life because he is truly loved.
I have never liked that song Through the Years even when it was a hit during our high school days in 1981 but since Saturday, I have been humming it silently, hearing it inside me as an LSS until now. We hear the song playing throughout the end of the movie with scenes of how Lolo secretly took Kid’s photos filled with love and joy amid the strong current of pain within he had to endure to be far and away yet so near to his beloved apo.
If the Kid is the Christ figure in this film, Lolo is the God-the-Father figure, the One who seems so far from us as if He does not care at all. In Lolo and the Kid, there is that message of God never leaving us wherever we may be, whether we are in the squalor of poverty and sin or in the purity and cleanliness of affluence and grace maybe. God like Lolo to Kid is always with us but never interferes, silently doing many things to ensure that despite our many faults and failures in life, we end up in Him and His love.
We go back to Elijah’s cry of “This is enough, Lord!”, our very same cry like Lolo in the movie.
It is a cry that is also a prayer coming from our innermost being when we feel so saddled with no one to unload our woes except to God – who after all is the very reason why we cry! Watch for Lolo’s soliloquy on this reality we often do.
Photo by author, James Alberione Center, QC, 08 August 2024.
It is a cry of faith so akin with love because to believe and to love go hand in hand. It is during that moment when we feel like giving up to God, crying “this is enough” when in reality we surrender everything to God because we have been caught up by Him that we cannot resist His attraction.
It is that moment when we feel so “fed up with life” but deep inside, we hear God telling us like Lolo with the cries of an infant or like Elijah with an angel instructing him, “Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!” (1 Kings 19:7).
Yes, our life journey is still long but we have a companion in Jesus, our bread of life from heaven, nourishing us, strengthening us, teaching us that essential beauty of love found only in sharing one’s life for the other. As we have said in last Sunday’s homily, it is when we cry “it is enough, Lord” when God gives us more than enough to sustain us sometimes in the form of a good movie like this one. May we have more “bread” like Lolo and the Kid that feeds our soul and gladdens our heart.
*BTW, we are not paid to endorse this movie; simply sharing with you its good news.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Eighteenth Sunday in the Ordinary Time, Cycle B, 04 August 2024 Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15 ><}}}}*> Ephesians 4:17, 20-24 ><}}}}*> John 6:24-35
Photo by author, Lake of Galilee, the Holy Land, May 2017.
We are now back in Capernaum where Jesus used to frequently teach in its synagogue during His ministry.
Remember last Sunday how Jesus fled from the crowd when He felt them wanting to take and make Him a king upon seeing His miraculous feeding of over five thousand people from five loaves of bread and two pieces of fish with a lot of leftovers. The people looked for Him and found Him in Capernaum, the setting of all of our gospel scenes these four Sundays of August.
There at Capernaum was a beautiful exchange in the conversation between Jesus and the people that eventually led to the Bread of Life discourse of the Lord in this sixth chapter of John’s gospel. Remember too that for John, the miracles Jesus performed were signs that pointed to Him as the Christ. Hence, this important reminder to the crowd who have sought Him that day as well as to us living in these interesting times today:
“Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternalnlife, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him the Father, God, has set his seal.” So they said to him, “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent” (John 6:27-29).
Photo by author, tourists and pilgrims alike at the ruins of the Capernaum synagogue, May 2017.
“Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”
Jesus knows very well the importance of work for us humans, of how hard we have to work to earn our daily bread, to buy and pay for things so needed in life. But, these earthly food we are all busy working for can sustain us only for a life timeas we very well know that we surely die one day.
There is another food that is more essential that “endures for eternal life” we can only receive from Jesus Himself – His words and His Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist which is the “summit of Christian life.”
Of course, we have to work for this food because it does not come on its own. We must receive and welcome this food as a gift of Jesus Christ whom the Father has sent. We have to work and exert efforts to pray and listen to God’s words, to wake up early and prepare ourselves for the Sunday Mass and other devotions we have. Hence, the second question of the crowd to Jesus:
“What can we do to accomplish to the works of God?”
Photo by Mr. Boy Cabrido, Quiapo Fiesta 2024.
Very striking here is their eagerness to know what they can do to have that food that “endures for eternal life.”
Are we not the same with our desire to really know things about religion and spirituality or just anything we heard to be so good?
It sounded so much like that same zeal displayed by a young man who approached Jesus and asked, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mk.10:17). Nothing is wrong with this attitude of openness to God but, the problem is when we expect the work to be given to us is something like a shortcut or easy access in having that “food that endures for eternal life” like that young man. Sometimes, we ask self-serving questions about faith and religion not only for the benefits we can have but also for fame like that young man who proudly declared to Jesus he had followed all commandments since childhood; but, when the Lord told him to go and sell his properties to give it to the poor and come follow him, his face fell and left sad. This eventually would become the scene in Capernaum as we shall see in the coming Sundays.
For now, let us reflect on Christ’s answer to the crowd’s question.
“This is the work of God of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”
Photo by author, Mass in Capernaum, May 2017.
This will be the start of the revelation of the true motives of the crowd who have come looking for Jesus. Last Sunday, we reflected how they have followed Jesus because of the many signs they have seen from Him like healing of the sick and raising to life the dead daughter of Jairus.
Slowly we see this Sunday the conceit and pride in their hearts, and perhaps within us too! Jesus is neither proposing new works to accomplish and fulfill in God’s name nor alter or change the commandments given through Moses. As the Christ or Anointed of God, Jesus is demanding complete faith in Him!
It was a most unique and unprecedented demand by Christ from the people then and now, asking us all to have total commitment in Him whom we believe. Whatever we want to do or do not want to do depends entirely in our imitation of Jesus Christ.
Like last Sunday, it is the very person of Jesus Christ that is being stressed here that unfortunately, even the closest disciples Philip and Andrew failed to “see” when they saw more of the problem with the crowd and the scarcity of bread and fish they have. They did not see Jesus despite their having witnessed and experienced His many miracles like us today.
Instead of being humble, the crowd asked Jesus for signs He can do so they would believe Him, even challenged Him with the works by Moses in the desert in feeding their ancestors with manna in their wandering. Like in resisting the temptations of the devil in the wilderness, Jesus declared the basic truth people often forget: the manna fed to the people was not the work by Moses alone but entirely and truly by God the Father in heaven!
This is something we must always remember: the work we have in this life is not ours but God’s so that in everything we do and say, it is God who is proclaimed and made known for He alone can fulfill us in Jesus who said today in closing our gospel scene, “I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst” (Jn.6:34).
Jesus is the bread from heaven sent down to us by God, prefigured by the manna in the first reading we have heard, the food who brings us to fulfillment in God expressed during the Last Supper that was confirmed the following Good Friday at His Crucifixion.
Life is a call from God for us to do our part in His work through Jesus Christ. We need to collaborate with Him, in Him and through Him as He had declared at the Last Supper to “do this in memory of me.” That is why it is so sad and deplorable how the people behind the opening show of the Paris Olympics made a mockery of the Lord’s Supper. (Even if we shall accept their explanations it wasn’t about the Last Supper, it was still a show so ugly and tasteless, an affront to any person.)
What is most undeniable is the pride of the people behind the Paris Olympics including their defenders who insist until now how everything is clearly about “what can we do” like the proud crowd with Jesus in Capernaum.
What was supposed to show the wonderful contributions and achievements of France to the world in terms of culture and intellectual advancements have all crumbled into a disgraceful display of what is now wrong in France and even the Western world. They have exaggerated the relative truths they hold on to exaggerate themselves. In their claims of being inclusive, they have become exclusive and divisive, so far from the “sign” of the Olympics. Very sad but still, may you all have a blessed week ahead. It is a Sunday, go celebrate Mass with your family and loved ones. Let us pray:
God our loving Father, thank you in giving us Jesus Christ your Son as our bread from heaven; remind us always not about what we can do or must do for we just do your work here on earth but to simply remember and keep in mind we are your children in Christ, to "stop living in the futility of our minds by putting away our old self of corrupted and deceitful desires renewed in the spirit of our minds, to put on our new self in Christ", created male and female "in your way in righteousness and holiness of truth" (Ephesians 4:17, 22-24) Amen.
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