Do we really have a choice with you? Of course, you are not forcing us to choose you because you gave us freedom, your most wonderful gift expressing your love for us. You never impose yourself on us and, we are always free to choose you or not!
But, how can we not choose you, O God? You are the only good, the ultimate good. And you never fail to give us the best, nothing less.
Joshua addressed all the people: “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I gave you a land which you had not tilled and cities which you had not built, to dwell in; you have eaten of vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.”
Joshua 24:2, 13
Problem with us, Lord, is our failure to accept and own your gifts. We keep on looking for something else when you are giving us the very best. We always insist on what we want, on our choices we think to be good but not really good. But, because we are free, you allow us to disregard your gifts and choose something else – and still bless us!
And so we pray today that you teach us to both accept and own your gifts to us, Lord.
It is not enough that we accept gifts but we must also own them to be truly a blessing that can be shared and given to others.
Material and spiritual blessings, life lessons and life-blows, and all the other good gifts from you Lord are easy to accept but unless we own them too as ours, they get wasted.
Anything received but not owned becomes useless because it does not prosper nor grow nor mature and bear fruits. Be it our very selves, our country, our jobs, our family and friends. Everything, especially you, Lord, whom we always receive but never shared because we never truly have you in us. Let us own you, Lord! Amen.
“Assumption of the Virgin” by Domenico Piola (1627-1703) at the Church of St. John the Baptist, Chiavari, Genoa, Italy. Photo from Google.
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. For he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed; the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.”
Luke 1:46-49
Glory and praise to you, O God our loving Father in giving us Jesus Christ through Mary – for without the Mother, there can be no Son.
On this Solemnity of her glorious Assumption into heaven body and soul, you remind us also of our blessedness like her, of her being your Divine Presence that she was able to sing the Magnificat.
Fill us with your Holy Spirit, Father. Let your Son Jesus reign in our hearts so we can boldly proclaim “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord”!
Let our lives proclaim your greatness, O God!
We were wrong, O Lord, we were so wrong when we thought that without you life could be greater and better for us. We were wrong when we thought in this age that disregarding you, O Lord, and your precepts like morality life can be better for us.
We were wrong, O Lord, to think, to believe, and to assert that we are the master of our own fate and destiny when we set you aside, assuming you are dead.
Why, despite all the affluence and comforts of modern world and all those liberal ideas that have swamped us, we are still lost and empty?
Because our body and soul are nothing without you!
On this Solemnity of her Assumption, teach us to empty ourselves of our pride and bloated ego, let us be humble before you and welcome you anew into our hearts, into our very selves.
Let us sing anew your greatness, O God with our body and soul in loving service with one another.
We pray also in a special way for our brothers and sisters who are sick, the elderly, and those with disabilities that they may realise their worth is not in being strong or complete or young, but in being alive, in being persons created in the image and likeness of God. May they persevere in their sufferings with eyes focused on that great gift that await us all like the Blessed Mother at the end of time with the “resurrection of body and life everlasting.” Amen.
Lawiswis ng Salita ni P. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Ika-13 ng Agosto 2019
Larawan mula sa GMA News.
Bata pa lamang ako hindi ko na gusto ang buwan ng Agosto bago pa mauso tawag nila dito na buwan ng mga multo.
Nasa grade two ako nagtataka na ako bakit tuwing Agosto mabagal takbo ang panahon?
Ito ang bumaon sa murang isipan ko noon kaya hanggang ngayon hirap ako na umahon na tila baga nilalamon at nilalason ng karanasan kahapon.
Nagkataon lang ba nitong ilang taon bakit nagkagayon takbo ng buhay ko sa ngayon tuwing Agosto nagkakapatong-patong mga hindi mabubuting sitwasyon, lihis sa mga nilalayon?
Parang katulad ng lagay ng panahon mapanglaw ang kalangitan bumubuhos malakas na ulan parang walang katapusan katulad ng aking mga luha sa mga tao na di ko malaman kung kaibigan.
Kung minsan maiisip ko hindi lang buwan ng multo ang Agosto kungdi pati ng impakto at demonyo dahil kung titingnan ko ano ba ito, matapos lunurin tayo ng ulan saka naman sisikat matinding init ng araw?!
Iyan daw ang dahilan kaya maraming sakit sa katawan hanggang kasu-kasuan lagay ng panahon hindi maintindihan sala sa init, sala sa lamig parang mga tao sa paligid walang paninindigan, kay daling mang-iwan.
Bawat araw ng ating buhay ay pagpapalang kaloob ng Diyos nating mabuting-loob ngunit kung minsa'y nakakasama ng loob kapag tila lahat ay nakataob at ika'y nakasubsob.
Aking lang inaasahan at pinanaligan pagkatapos ng tag-ulan, doon mga dahon ay luntian sa bawat unos na dumaraan, nasusubok katatagan ng halaman mabalian man ng sanga o malagasan ng bunga naiiiba na siya at lalong gumaganda sapagka't sa bawat pagkakataon at panahon, Diyos ay naroon.
Larawan ay kuha ni G. Howie Severino ng GMA News sa Taal, Batangas, Nobyembre 2018.
People told me that is the “age of enlightenment”.
And I believe so.
After living half a century, I have realised so many things in life that I had Bill LaBounty’s 1982 hit as my theme song, “Livin’ It Up.”
Like the gospel today when Jesus tells us to “gird your loins” or be on guard because death could come so sudden, LaBounty’s “Livin’ It Up” is the perfect Sunday music.
Girding up one’s loins, being on guard means living it up… taking a new persona when we learn to let go of our past to accept and appreciate every present moment, believing deep inside our hearts of more better and more meaningful things to come in our lives.
Girding up on’e loins, being on guard means living it up as matured men and women disposed to more things that are more profound and meaningful than mere existence because we are so aware of our mortality, of our coming to something more lasting that is eternal.
I finally got my life together Scraped my heart up off the floor My attitude is so much better And I hardly ever cry the way I did before
I’ve been livin’ it up Having my self in time Livin’ it up Right from the women to the wine Livin’ out all those fantasies I never did get to Those Crazy things I never got to do
I got my self a new persona Took the service off my phone These days I live the way I wanna And I’d do just fine as long as I’m not left alone
Saturday, Feast of St. Lawrence Deacon and Martyr, 10 August 2019
2 Corinthians 9:6-10 >< }}}*> <*{{{ >< John 12:24-26
“Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, with Two Benedictine Nuns” by Jacobello del Fiero (1425) who introduced “International Gothic” painting style in Venice using elegant and bright colors. The two Benedictine “witnesses” are nuns believed to belonged to the San Lorenzo convent in Venice who commissioned del Fiero to paint the scene. Photo from Rijksmuseum via useum.org.
Praise and glory to you, God our loving Father for the gift of humor.
Yes, Lord, thank you in giving us funny bones, for enabling us to laugh – and be holy!
Each must do as already determined, without sadness or compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
2 Corinthians 9:7
Keep us cheerful always, Lord, like St. Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr, patron saint of chefs and comedians.
It was pure grace of love for Jesus Christ and his Church that St. Lawrence suffered so much with a lot of sense of humor and joy.
When Emperor Valerian asked your deacon St. Lawrence to bring him all the treasures of the Church of Rome he was tasked to safeguard, he asked permission to leave jail to gather them.
And he was so witty and courageous that when he returned, he came with the poor as “treasures of the Church” that made the emperor so furious and ordered St. Lawrence be roasted to death on a giant gridiron.
Again, in the midst of intense pain while being roasted alive, St. Lawrence never lost that spark of wit and humor when he told his tormentors to “turn me over, I am done on this side…have a bite.”
As a deacon, teach us, O Lord, to serve like St. Lawrence with a deep sense of dedication and passion plus a lot of smiles and joy!
Everybody is so stressed out these days, Lord, for so many reasons like traffic and lousy services everywhere, including in our parishes.
Thanks be to you, O God, we do not have to suffer so much like St. Lawrence.
Give us the grace of wearing always a warm smile and cheerful face to serve those in pain and suffering.
Let us laugh a lot, Lord, to share with others the real fruits of our work in you. Amen.
Deacon’s dalmatic and stole. Photo by Lorenzo Atienza, 12 June 2019, Malolos City.
Thank you very much, O Lord, for this brand new day, for this breath of new hope at the middle of the week as I pray for those who make life difficult for me, for those who mess your plans like those spies Moses sent to reconnoiter the Promised Land.
Instead of building up the people to meet the challenges of settling in the Promised Land, “they spread discouraging reports among the children of Israel about the land they had scouted” (Num.13:32).
Forgive me Lord for doubting you, for thinking that you do not seem to care at all for me when I feel so alone with nobody on my side.
Increase my faith in you like that Canaanite woman who begged you to heal her daughter possessed by the devil. You did not say a word to her that prompted your disciples to intercede for her just to silence her, telling them you had come to search the lost sheep of Israel until….
He said to her in reply, “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.”
Matthew 15:26-27
You praised that Canaanite woman, Lord, for her great faith; but, those children of Israel who trusted more the lies of those sent to scout the Promised Land were eventually punished, paying the very dear price of wandering for 40 years in the desert because they chose to mess your plans.
Vanish all anger and bitterness in me against these people who would surely soon “realize what it means to oppose you, O Lord” (Num.14:34) while I await your further plans and instructions. Amen.
Friday, Feast of St. Joachim and St. Anne, 26 July 2019
Song of Songs 44:1, 10-15 >< }}}*><*{{{ >< Matthew 13:16-17
Photo by Jim Marpa. September 2018.
On this feast of the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joachim and St. Anne, we praise and thank you almighty Father for the gift of our dear parents as well as grandparents.
In your Ten Commandments, immediately after the first three laws pertaining to you, you commanded us to “honor our father and mother” to stress that “charity begins at home”, that before we can love anybody else in this world, it must first be our parents and grandparents.
Before we can love any other person, we must first love our parents and grandparents for they are the signs of your presence with us, O God. From them we receive our first religious instructions, and most of all, we experience first from them your love and mercy.
Bless us, O Lord, to respect and love them, especially when they are old.
Give us strong hands and arms always ready to reach out to them when they could no longer move well. Let us return that favor this time for us children to help them walk.
Give us more patience and understanding with a lot of kindness when our parents become forgetful and sometimes childish in their ways. Let us be loving to them in their old age and senior moments in the same way they were so fond of us when we were kids and knew nothing at all.
Give us also, O Lord, the eyes to see those white hair and wrinkles they have, including those sickness they now bear were all partly because of us when they have to suffer so much, work so hard to give us a brighter today.
Remind us always, Lord, that of your Ten Commandments, the fourth is the only one with a promise, “Honor your father and your mother and I shall bless you in your old age.”
Remind us, Lord, that even if we are older and wiser, or even if we are already parents too, we always remain children of our parents.
Likewise, we pray for those parents who refuse to take on their roles as mother or father to their children, for those who refuse to be responsible enough to be truly parents teaching their children what is true and good and right.
We pray for all parents that they may all bring you forth, Lord Jesus Christ, onto the world through their children and grandchildren. Amen.
Lawiswis ng Salita ni P. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 20 Hulyo 2019
Mula sa Google.
Noong ako'y bata pa Aking pinagtataka Bakit "mabait" ang tawag ni Ina Sa mga daga?
Ngayong ako'y matanda na Aking napagtanto ganyan din mga tao Tinuturing nating mababait Parang bubwit kahit maliit ay buwisit.
Mabait daw ang tahimik at walang imik Mga salitang sinasambit suwabe at walang sabit Ngunit kung makapanlait Malalasap pait ng kanilang pag-iisip.
Bulang-gugo kanilang mga kamay sa pagdamay Hindi nakikipag-away kaya ating palagay Sila'y makakasabay at laging aalalay Ngunit sa paninindigan sila'y sablay.
Iyan ang malaking kaibahan ng mabuting tao: May paninindigan kaya laging nakikipaglaban Para sa katotohanan, katarungan, at kabutihan Magalit ka man o sino pa man.
Sigurado sa sarili ang taong mabuti Hindi nagpapadala sa mga sabi-sabi May busilak kanyang puso at kalooban Kung saan nananahan katarungan at pagmamahal.
Ang bait ng tao naroon sa kanyang isipan Ngunit hindi sapat kung talino lamang ating sasandigan Sapagkat maraming katotohanan Na tanging puso lamang ang nakatatalos.
Si Hesus na tanging Mabuti ang nagsabi Mapapalad ang mayroong malinis na puso At makikita nila ang Diyos Dahil silang mabubuti ang handang mapako sa krus.
Exodus 11:10-12:14 >< }}}*> <*{{{ >< Matthew 12:1-8
Sunset from Bgy. Dapdap, Tagaytay City, 03 July 2019.
Another Friday, another week passing, another new week coming. Thank you so much, O Lord and we are able to move on, to pass over so many challenges and trials.
Every day indeed, O Lord, is an Exodus – a passing over with you leading us, saving us, delivering us from darkness into light, from ignorance into knowledge and wisdom, from sinfulness into grace.
“It is the Passover of the Lord. For on this same night I will go through Egypt, striking down every firstborn of the land, both man and beast, executing judgment on all the gods of Egypt – I, the Lord!”
Exodus 12:11-12
Keep us always ready to go with you, to follow you in every passing over from our Egypt of slavery into freedom of your Promised Land.
We pray, O God, for those among us who are like the Pharisees in the gospel today who see only your laws and rituals but not YOU.
Open our eyes that we may see the main distinction of your every pass over in us is mercy and love.
Come to us Jesus, the Lord of sabbath, and show us the true meaning of your sacrifice which is to find you more among our brothers and sisters.
Let us rediscover anew the beauty and value of life that comes only from you, especially the people around us regardless of their status, color, and creed.
We pray also for those who are struggling in life, those who find it so difficult to make ends meet, those who have to pass over great distances in life just to survive because we have refused to find you among them. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul, Wk. XV-C, 14 July 2019
Deuteronomy 30:10-14 >< )))*> Colossians 1:15-20 >< )))*> Luke 10:25-37
From America Magazine via Google.
After teaching us about discipleship these past two Sundays, Jesus shifts his lessons to things “we must do” following a series of questions he encountered from people when he “resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem” (Lk.9:51).
There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test Jesus and said, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” He said in reply, You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. He replied to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.” But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.”
Luke 10:25-30
And thus Jesus answered the scholar of the law with the beautiful parable of the Good Samaritan that can only be found in St. Luke’s gospel. It has so endeared the world that hospitals and charities including laws and awards everywhere use the “Good Samaritan” title in recognition of the parable’s conviction that we are all neighbors.
Problem is, we have become so familiar with this parable that sometimes we think it teaches us nothing new. Like the Laws or the Ten Commandments, it has degenerated into becoming letters like a code imposed from the outside we simply follow. Moses tells us in the first reading how the Laws are “something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you only have to carry it out” (Dt.30:14). Loving God and loving others is an interior and life principle innate within each of us.
This Sunday, Jesus is inviting us to set aside our thoughts about his parable of the Good Samaritan in order to see it in a deeper and personal perspective.
For most Christians especially Catholics, we always reach that stage in our lives when deep within us there is a longing for something deeper, for something more than what we have been used to. It is a very positive sign of spiritual growth. Like the scholar, we are no longer contented with the usual things we do like praying, Sunday Masses, and keeping the laws. At first we may not be able to verbalize or even identify what are the stirrings within us until we realize it is something more than this life we are having.
Like the scholar, we ask Jesus, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Lk.10:25). But, instead of probing deeper into our hearts, we tend to look outside for answers like the scholar asking, “who is my neighbor?”.
From Google.
Twenty years ago, the sci-fi series “The X-Files” was a hit worldwide with its tagline “the truth is out there” to refer to all kinds of conspiracy theories and paranormal activities by the US government. Of the same genre today is the Netflix series “Stranger Things” that also points us to something “out there” for answers to many mysteries happening to us.
The answer is never out there – it has always been inside us! Always.
From Google.
How strange that we keep on asking “who is my neighbor?”, searching for a theoretical definition of a neighbor we always think as somebody outside us. What we must be asking is, “am I a neighbor to others?”
Observe how Jesus narrated the parable where both the priest and the Levite “saw the victim and passed by the opposite side. But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him was moved with compassion at the sight. He approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them. Then he lifted him up on his own animal, took him to an inn, and cared for him” (Lk.10:32-34).
That’s the strangest thing of all! Two Temple officials simply “saw” the victim and passed by while a Samaritan “saw” also but was moved with compassion. To be moved with compassion in Latin is misericordia, a “stirring or disturbing of the heart” which translates into mercy.
Here we find the Samaritan looking deep inside him that he saw in him the plight of the victim that he was moved with mercy to help him. And that is to be a neighbor, to treat somebody with mercy that transcends any color or creed or nationality. See the question of Jesus at the end of his parable, “Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” The scholar answered, “The one who treated him with mercy” (Lk.10:36-37).
City of Jericho, the setting of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Photo by author, 06 May 2019.
My neighbor is the one with whom I identify with, with whom I am drawn near because of the mercy that moved me within to help in his or her sufferings. A neighbor is one who feels his or her own humanity that he or she is always moved with compassion with those who are in suffering and pain.
And the more we reflect on this parable, the more we see Jesus Christ is in fact the Good Samaritan himself. He is “the image of the invisible God, in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:15,17). It was Jesus who went down the road, becoming human like us in everything except sin, picking us up from our sinfulness and miseries, healing us of our wounds, and restoring us to life “through the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:20).
Let us heed his command this Sunday to “Go and do likewise” (Lk.10:37) as the Good Samaritan. Be a blessed neighbor to everyone! Amen.
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