The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thursday, Memorial of St. Teresa of Avila, Virgin and Doctor of the Church, 15 October 2020
Ephesians 1:1-10 <*(((><< || + + + || >><)))*> Luke 11:47-54
Photo by Dr. Mai B. Dela Peña at a Carmelite Monastery in Israel, 2016.
You know so well, O God, how we must pray to you that you have taught St. Paul one of the most beautiful prayer – and greetings – we can all recite individually or communally when gathered in your name.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before him.
Ephesians 1:3-4
So beautiful are these words showing to us our blessedness in Jesus Christ! If we could all be aware of our blessedness in you that springs from your infinite love for us poured by Jesus Christ at the Cross, maybe there would be less chaos in the world today.
Forgive us in wasting your blessings, exchanging them for fleeting pleasures of fame and wealth that set us apart from one another. Worst, in misleading others away from you with our sinful ways of life like the enemies of Jesus in today’s gospel.
Help us restore all things in your Son, dear Father, like St. Teresa of Avila who taught us to be mindful always of Jesus Christ’s love for us.
Whenever we think of Christ we should recall the love that led him to bestow on us so many graces and favors, and also the great love God showed in giving us in Christ a pledge of his love; for love call for love in return.
St. Teresa of Avila, Office of Readings, October xv
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Tuesday, Week XXVIII, Year II in Ordinary Time, 13 October 2020
Galatians 5:1-6 >><)))*> + >><)))*> + >><)))*> Luke 11:37-41
Photo by author, Lovers’ Bridge, Tamsui in Taiwan, January 2019.
Thank you again, God our Father, for the gift of faith that enables us to do good, to do your works of charity and love. You have gifted us with freewill primarily because of faith itself when you believed in us and trusted us.
Yes, dear Father: like love, we are able to believe and trust you because you were the first to believe and trust us. Forgive us for those times we wrongly chose sin, when pride and selfishness, doubts and mistrust clouded our decision making. When despite our faith, we refused to love.
For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
Galatians 5:6
Indeed, it is because of faith that we are able to choose and do what is good. And the more faithful we become to you, O God, we become more loving like you!
Without faith, it is difficult for us to love because of the pains that come always in loving
Without faith, it is impossible to forgive and be merciful, to let go of others’ infidelity and lack of love and concern because these are virtues and values that come only from within, from a loving heart where faith dwells.
Photo by author, February 2020.
Sometimes, like the Pharisees, we become so focused with what is outside to cover what is missing inside us — faith!
And despite our confessions of our faith, we believe more on outside appearances and forget the more essential inside that is faith leading to love.
The Lord said to him, “Oh you Pharisees! Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, inside you are filled with plunder and evil. You fools! Did not the maker of the outside also make the inside? But as to what is within, give alms, and behold, everything will be clean for you.”
Luke 11:39-41
Teach us, Jesus, to trust in you, to grow in faith in you so we may be more loving like you! Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Week XXVII-A in Ordinary Time, 04 October 2020
Isaiah 5:1-7 ||+|| Philippians ||+|| Matthew 21:33-43
Photo by Mr. Jim Marpa, 2018.
To all the plantitos and plantitas: happy feast day this Sunday, the fourth of October which is also the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, patron of those in the green movements.
Part of the grace of this pandemic is the new awareness and interests of many among us for all kinds of plants borne out of the prolonged quarantine periods these past seven months. I remember growing up in our barrio where fences were all plants like santan, San Francisco and gumamelas whose flowers we used to mix with Tide to play bubbles. Who would have thought that after several decades those plants we used to take for granted like the gabi varieties and others along with cactus found almost everywhere would cost a fortune today?
But what I really miss and hope the plantitos and plantitas will be able to revive and bring back are the fruit trees every home used to have even in vacant lots like guava, santol, atis, aratiles, mabolo, achesa, duhat, kamias and of course, mango. Whenever me and my cousin would trek to the mini forest at the back of our compound called “duluhan” near a swampland to shoot birds and everything with our slingshots (tirador), we always had some fruits to munch in our little adventures.
And part of that adventure was to “shake” until we break branches of trees to get fruits and local beetles called salagubang (on mango trees).
Shaking of tree. Exactly the same thing that Jesus did today in his next parable addressed to the chief priests and elders of the people who would soon have him arrested, tried, and crucified: after telling them parable of the wicked tenants who killed the servants and the son of the owner, Jesus shook and shocked his listeners who later realized the parable was about them!
“What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants when he comes?” They answered him, “He will put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper times.” Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes?’ Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.”
Matthew 21:40-43
We are the vineyard of the Lord
From Google.
Jesus had already entered Jerusalem and was teaching at the temple area. Among his audience were the chief priests and elders of the people trying to gather evidences against him for his arrest and execution. Unknown to them, Jesus knew what was in their hearts.
Last Sunday the parable was directed to them so they may realize how wrong they have been in regarding them so highly above the publicans and prostitutes who repented for their sins and went to receive the baptism by John the Baptist.
Today, Jesus “shook them” with this second parable taken from a well known song and lament of a beloved to his vineyard by the Prophet Isaiah which we have heard at the first reading.
Vineyards are very common in Israel as in the rest of the Mediterranean and Europe where grapes and wine symbolize life. Hence, the vine is always considered as a highly prized plant that biblical authors have taken as the image of the people whom God cultivates and from whom he expects beautiful fruits.
In the first reading, we find God lamenting why after investing his vineyard with the best of everything, the grapes it produced were so bad that it had to be burned. It was a very strong warning against Israel who have gone wayward in its ways of living that aside from worshipping idols, they also killed the prophets sent by God.
Notice the transition by Jesus using the same imagery from the Old Testament of the vineyard as the people of God but this time bearing fruits at harvest time. By that time, the chief priests and the elders of the people felt they were better than their ancestors who had the prophets killed. In fact, they felt proud that they have been faithful to God, and therefore, fruitful — thinking they were a far cry from Isaiah’s lament. Unknown to them, Jesus could read their hearts, how they were all planning to kill him like the son in the parable so they can have the vineyard, the people and lord it over them!
Everything fell into right places at the end of the parable when Jesus asked them:
“What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants when he comes?” They answered him, “He will put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper times.”
Matthew 21:40-41
Try to imagine the scene with Jesus face-to-face with the chief priests and elders of the people – and with us – discussing the present time, not the past.
Here is Jesus Christ shaking us all to find whatever fruits we have, telling us that this parable is about me and you (see v. 45), asking us, why are you trying to remove me from the people? Why are you easing me out, creating all these cults around yourselves like celebrities, getting the people’s money and approval for your own sake?
Sometimes we need to be shaken – even shocked – to bring out our fruits
Photo by author at Silang, Cavite, 22 September 2020.
See again my dear Reader the beauty of the Lord’s parables wherein he invites us to be involved with it to see how we felt with certain situations like in the merciless debtor and early workers at the vineyard; today, Jesus is asking us our opinion on what the vineyard owner must do against the wicked tenants.
He knows what to do and wants us to realize that we could be those tenants too because like the chief priests and elders, we easily see the sins and shortcomings of others, the fruitlessness of others without realizing our own darkness within, even our sinister plans to dominate.
See how the chief priests and elders of the people called the tenants “wretched men” deserving “wretched death”, not realizing that the more we talk of other people, the more we actually talk of ourselves!
Every parable by Jesus is always set in the present moment with sights set to the future, to eternal life.
Sometimes, God has to shaken us, even shock us so we may bring out and give him his share of harvest of fruits like our faith, hope and love that will build the community in him, not take people away from him. Problem with us is like with those tenants and the chief priests and elders: “masyado tayong bumibilib sa ating sarili”, that is, we believe too much on ourselves that unconsciously we feel like God, forgetting we are mere stewards or tenants of his vineyard.
St. Paul reminds us in the second reading that we strive to imitate Jesus, be like Jesus so that people may find in us a model in following Jesus. Very clear with St. Paul: nobody is replacing Jesus Christ whom we must all imitate.
This time of the pandemic is a time of harvesting, of showing others our fruits like love and kindness so we may lead more people to God, not to ourselves or anyone else trying to lord over us.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 02 October 2020
Photo by author, resthouse in Silang, Cavite, 22 September 2020.
Methinks the saddest thing of this pandemic
is not in the restrictions it had imposed on us
from social distancing to other methods of quarantine
but more on the restrictions we have within
when we can be more loving and kind with others
then still choose to be harsh and brash.
We wash our hands to be clean
but the virus of sin clings deeper than skin
when forgiving or apologizing
can wash away that sting
of any guilty feeling within.
Even if we have to maintain social distancing
it does not mean we have to be apart;
it would be wonderful and most amazing
to everyone's part if we can let our hearts
sing the feelings deep inside like
"I love you, I miss you, I care for you"
than wring all the aching
and sufferings we are enduring.
Lastly, always put on your masks
for everyone's safety
but let us trust and bask
in the warmth of our humanity
to keep our sanity.
In this time of COVID-19
when death is no longer lurking
but closing into our very being,
let us be more of feeling than of thinking,
loving and caring, affirming each other
enjoying life together.
Photo by author, antique door of a resthouse in Silang, Cavite, 22 September 2020.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thursday, Memorial of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, 01 October 2020
Job 19:21-27 >><)))*> + >><)))*> + >><)))*> Luke 10:1-12
Photo by author, white roses at our altar, 2019.
On this Memorial of the most loved saints of today, St. Therese of the Child Jesus, I pray O God parents who have lost a child, those diagnosed with serious illness, and those heavily weighed on with simultaneous trials and problems in family.
It is so refreshing on this first day of October that we celebrate the life and holiness lived in total simplicity by St. Therese, a modern Job in our time after she had undergo many hardships and trials at a very young age as a contemplative nun.
I pray dear God for those feeling almost crushed by so much tribulations in life, those about to give up, losing hope and meaning or those who could no longer find their sense of mission amid the heavy or enormous weights on their shoulders.
But as for me, I know that my Vindicator lives, and that he will at last stand forth upon the dust; whom I myself shall see: my own eyes, not another’s, shall behold him, and from my flesh I shall see God; my inmost being is consumed with longing.
Job 19:25-27
Most of all, dear God, as we go through so many difficulties in life during this pandemic, may we be more loving not only in words but in deeds, even the most simplest deeds like St. Therese:
Photo by author, 01 October 2019.
Love appeared to me to be the hinge for my vocation… O Jesus, my love, at last I have found my calling: my call is love. In the heart of the Church, my mother, I will be love, and thus I will be all things, as my desire finds its direction.
St. Therese of the Child Jesus, Office of Readings, 01 October, Volume IV
May we break all walls that divide us as brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ your Son, almighty Father.
Most of all, heeding your Son’s call, we pray to you O God our harvest-master to send us with more laborers for your abundant harvest (Lk.10:1-2) of people hungry and thirsty for you and meaning in life. Send us workers in your field whose hearts are filled with love and fervor in doing the mission of evangelization wherever they may be like St. Therese, who, despite her being a cloistered in a monastery, had become patroness of the missions in prayers and in her little ways for God.
Indeed, when there is enough love in one’s heart, there is always so much to give and share with everyone hungry and thirsty for love. Amen.
Lawiswis ng Salita ni P. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Ika-01 ng Oktubre 2020
Huwebes, Paggunita kay Santa Teresita ng Sanggol Na Si Hesus
Job 19:21-27 >><)))*> + <*(((><< Lukas 10:1-12
Larawan kuha ng may-akda, 01 Oktubre 2019.
O Diyos Ama naming mapagmahal,
Ikaw ay pag-ibig
kaya kami ay umiibig
dahil ikaw ang sa amin ang unang umibig;
Parang ang hirap dasalin
at gayahin dalangin ni Santa Teresita
na maging pag ibig sa gitna nitong
Simbahang iniibig.
Nguni't kung susuriin
tunay ang kanyang hiling
na dapat din naming asamin
dahil itong pag-ibig ang nag-uugnay
sa lahat sa aming buhay
at kung hindi lahat ay mamamatay.
Katulad ni Job sa unang pagbasa,
tangi naming inaasam ikaw O Diyos
ay “mamasdan at mukhaang makikita
Ng sariling mga mata at di ng sinumang iba;
Ang puso ko’y nanabik na mamasdan kita” (Job 19:26-27)
upang Iyong pag-ibig maihatid
sa daigdig nasa gitna ng maraming pagkaligalig
nalilito, nagugulo kanino mananalig at sasandig;
Unawain nawa namin turo ni Jesus (Lk.10:2)
aming hilingin sa Iyo na magpadala ng manggagawa
sa maraming anihin: hindi pagkain, salapi o gamit
ang mahalaga naming kamtin
kungdi kapwa na makakapiling
at magmamahal sa amin.
AMEN.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music by Fr. Nick F. Lalog II, 27 September 2020
Photo by Dr. Mylene A. Santos, MD, at Katmon Harbor Nature Sanctuary in Infanta, Quezon, March 2020.
It’s Ms. Carly Simon again in the house four weeks after featuring her 1972 classic “You’re So Vain” in August. This time we pick her 1986 hit single “Coming Around Again” she had written for the movie Heartburn starring Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson.
Coming Around Again is an aptly titled work by Ms. Simon that kickstarted the resurgence of her career at that time with the song peaking at number 18 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number 5 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, not to mention the warm reception it had received from around the world.
We find this song suited well with our Sunday gospel on the parable by Jesus of a father who asked his two sons to work in his vineyard; the elder one refused but later changed mind and went to the vineyard while the younger son said yes without really going there. Jesus used the parable to drive his message that we shall all be judged by our actions, not by our words.
Most of all, Jesus narrated the parable to warn those who highly regard themselves as good and upright, looking down on others like sinners as less important. The Lord is asking us today to soften our hearts especially to those difficult to love, that we must constantly examine ourselves lest we fall into the trap that despite our being “clean” and upright, we could end up more evil than those we find as sinful (https://lordmychef.com/2020/09/26/soften-our-hearts-lord/).
Anyone who truly loves is always humble, willing to empty one’s self and go down for the sake of a loved one that is exactly opposite to the way of the world which is to be always on top as the most popular, the most powerful, the wealthiest.
I know nothing stays the same But if you’re willing to play the game It’s coming around again So don’t mind if I fall apart There’s more room in a broken heart
And I believe in love But what else can I do I’m so in love with you
To better appreciate this song is of course see Heartburn which is the semi-biographical account of its writer, the late Nora Ephron’s marriage to Watergate scandal investigative reporter Carl Bernstein.
Like Bernstein, Ephron was also a writer and a journalist before eventually becoming a filmmaker after Heartburn. She was nominated thrice for an Academy Award for Best Writing in three other films she wrote, Silkwood (1983), When Harry Met Sally (1989) and Sleepless in Seattle (1993).
Another lovely film to her credit is You’ve Got Mail that also starred Tom Hanks. Her last film was Julie & Julia (2009).
Looking back to the story of Heartburn and its soundtrack Coming Around Again, one finds in this woman’s path of self-emptying as perhaps the key to her success as a movie scriptwriter and a playwright.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday, Week XXV, Year II in Ordinary Time, 25 September 2020
Ecclesiastes 3:1-11 >><)))*> >><)))*> >><)))*> Luke 9:18-22
The wildfires created a natural Instagram filter across California. Photo from MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images; 10 September 2020.
There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. He (God) had made everything appropriate to its time, and has put the timeless into their hearts, without man’s discovering, from beginning to end, the work which God has done.
Ecclesiastes 3:1, 11
Thank you, dear God our Father in appointing time for everything, in creating the dimension of time and space so we can have a grasp of your vast reality in this universe. We are finite and you are not whom time and space cannot limit and hold.
Teach us to be open to your presence and grace in every moment of our lives, to make that constant effort to pray like your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Prayer is so difficult for us because in our limited time and space, we try to be one with you who is infinite and eternal. We find it boring and a waste of time not only because it is difficult, requiring discipline on our part but because it requires a lot on us to truly love you.
Only love can bridge the finite and infinite, the temporal and eternal. When we are with our beloved, time neither rushes nor slows but seems to stand still like eternity as if we are holding it – when time is not. It is the same experience we have when we are deeply absorbed in prayer, when we feel that intense love for you inside when time passed so easily that an hour seemed like an instant, exactly like what you have said in the Bible that a thousand years are just a day for you.
Because you love. And we also love.
How lovely it is to read in the gospel today that once when Jesus was praying in solitude and the disciples were with him, that is when he surveyed them about what people were saying who he is, later asking them the same question up and personal.
Help us to appreciate and value silence and stillness, to befriend time and eternity in prayer to express our love for you and for others. Amen.
Photo by Dr. Mylene A. Santos, MD at Katmon Harbor Nature Sanctuary, Infanta, Quezon, May 2020.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thursday, Week XXV, Year II in Ordinary Time, 24 September 2020
Ecclesiastes 1:2-11 >><)))*> + + + <*(((><< Luke 9:7-9
Photo by author, Shambala in Silang, Cavite, 22 September 2020.
Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth, vanity of vanities! All things are vanity! What has been, that will be; what has been done, that will be done. Nothing is new under the sun. Even the thing of which we say, “See, this is new!” has already existed in the ages that preceded us.
Ecclesiastes 1:2, 9-10
Praise and glory to you, O God our loving Father for this brand new day that offers us with fresh opportunities to become better and the best. Most of all, a call to be more loving, more gentle, and more kind like you.
Yes, it is true that “Nothing is new under the sun. Even the thing of which we say, ‘See, this is new!’ has already existed in the ages that preceded us.” Everything in life becomes a vanity if lived without you.
In the beginning at Genesis, you have made everything beautiful, entrusting it all to us with the sacred task of keeping that beauty making us your co-workers in the world. But, alas! We have turned away from you in sins that we have disfigured ourselves and destroyed nature in the process.
The temptation to be like you, O God, that tempted Adam and Eve continues to this day and the more we pretend to be all-knowing and all-powerful like you, the more everything becomes a vanity.
Like Herod in the gospel, the more we try to set the new order of things in life, the more we are disturbed of the past because it is only in you O God our Father through Jesus Christ your Son has everything been made new again. You were the one who have designed everything in this life and had ordered it all to one definite direction of ending in you because everything is yours after all.
Forgive us for playing gods, manipulating not only ourselves but even others and nature.
Teach us through Jesus to be humble, to welcome the good news of salvation into our lives for it is only in our hearts full of contrition for our sins where everything becomes new again in this world as we begin seeing everything and everyone in your light. Amen.
Photo by author, sunset at Shambala in Silang, Cavite, 22 September 2020.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 22 September 2020
Photo by Ms. Ria De Vera of our parish church, August 2020.
Lately I have been watching old movies that I wonder why I still cry even if I have seen them more than twice before at the cinema and cable TV. It seems that my being born with “mababa ang luha” (easy to cry) is getting more “mababa” as I get old.
Tears are a gift from God, the most beautiful prayer we can ever express courtesy of the Holy Spirit because when we run out of words for our pains and sadness or when we are overjoyed, he makes us cry to heal and comfort us or complete our joys, assuring us of his loving presence.
That is the reason why we call “home” in Tagalog as “tahanan”: home is where we “stop crying”, that is, “tahan na” because that is where we find all the support we need in times of crisis. Indeed, home is where the heart is.
True to its function, tears cleanse us physically, emotionally and spiritually. I have read two decades ago that researchers at a university in the US have found the chemical composition of our tears differ if we cry because of pain and sadness or due to joy and laughter.
Is it not wonderful and amazing how we take for granted crying and tears without realizing its chemical process within that can transform our very selves?
Photo from Reuters.com, July 2020.
Tears and crying mark our life's coming to full circle.
When I was five years old, I saw the picture of a newborn baby crying in the Book Section of the Reader’s Digest. I asked my mom why the baby was crying. In her usual motherly way of explaining things, she told me that if the baby cries upon birth, it means he/she is alive; if the baby does not cry, he/she is dead.
“Kapag umiyak, buhay; walang iyak, patay.“
My young mind easily absorbed her words that would remain to be one of the most profound lessons I had ever learned about life at a very young age. As I grew up watching TV and movies, I would always sigh with relief whenever I heard the sounds “uha-uha” because the story would surely be nice and not tragic.
Imagine the great inverse that happens with crying and tears to signal the coming to the outside world of life of another human, of how we have to cry to be alive from then on until we die when it becomes our family and friends’ turn to cry and shed tears for us when we are gone.
But there is something more deeper than this great inverse on crying in life and death I had learned only in 2013 through my best friend Gil, a classmate in our minor seminary.
It was late February of that year on the 40th day of the death of his youngest sister Claire when he was diagnosed with cancer. We could not believe the news because Gil was the most health conscious in our “band of brothers” from high school who never smoked, rarely ate meat, and was active in sports like golf and badminton. Unlike most of us, he was never overweight, looked so healthy in our mid-40’s.
Imagine the hurt within him that every time we would visit him, he would cry not really in pain but more on the why of getting cancer. We tried visiting him as often as we can to cheer him up and lift his spirits specially after his surgery when his chemotherapy sessions began.
By September on that same year, we all had to rush and visit him at Makati Med one Sunday afternoon when informed by his Ate Lily that doctors have given up on him. His cancer cells were “ferocious” and nothing could be done anymore except to wait for the inevitable.
That was when I noticed the greater inverse about crying when Gil had finally accepted his condition and life direction, that was when he was most joyous and peaceful too while we were the ones so sad and worried, crying. How our roles were reversed with Gil now telling us to stop crying – tahan na – which we used to tell him months earlier! (Gil died peacefully the following Sunday, 22 September 2013.)
“Mater Dolorosa” as “Blue Madonna” (1616) by Carlo Dolci. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.
I noticed it happening so many times with some friends and parishioners I have come to love in my ministry, those I have pastorally cared for some time after being diagnosed with serious conditions like cancer.
Yes, I have cried despite holding my tears for them while administering the Holy Viaticum and Anointing of Oil. The patients in turn would just glance at me, so dignified and calm like Mary our Lady of Sorrows as if trying to comfort me with their sweet thank you.
As I prayed on those experiences, I realized how life comes to full circle through our crying and tears.
I believe that patients cry when they start undergoing treatment of their sickness due to fears and uncertainty of what would happen next to them; later as they come to terms with their condition, they stop crying because they already knew where they were going, of what was coming next.
We who would be left behind cry and begin to shed tears at thoughts of their dying because admittedly, we are actually the ones more uncertain of where we are going to or how our lives would go through when our loved ones are gone.
That is the greatest pain we feel in the death of a beloved when we grapple with the realities of the many uncertainties of life without them.
And that is why we need to love as much as we can our family and friends while still alive. This quarantine period of the pandemic are grace-filled moments to shower them with our love and presence we have taken for granted for so long as we pursued many things in our lives.
Photo by Dr. Mylene A. Santos, MD at Infanta, Quezon, April 2020.
Tears and crying lead us to heaven.
Death and sickness, like life, become a blessing if we are filled with gratitude not regrets because we have truly loved. When a beloved is gone and we begin to cry, the tears wash away our pains of losing them, cleansing us within to leave us with all the beautiful memories and love we have shared. Then, every remembering becomes truly a re-membering, making a lost loved one a member of the present again.
When we cry, tears polish the love we have shared with everybody until later when our time comes, our visions are also cleared of what is going to happen next, of where we are going. Crying becomes wonderful and truly a grace after all not only in sharing and being one with the grief and pain of another in the present but sooner or later, in having a glimpse of the life after.
In the Gospel of John (11:1-44), we find the story of the raising of Lazarus whom Jesus loved so much that he wept – not just cried – at his death. Jesus raised him up back to life, his final miracle – or “seventh sign” according to John – to show he is the Christ before his own Resurrection at Easter after his “final hour” of Crucifixion on Good Friday.
From then on, Christ sanctified crying and tears to enable us to see beyond pains and hurts, even death especially if you have truly loved.
Sometimes in life, it is always good to let those tears flow, like love even if it is painful, to have a good cry and real cleansing inside. A blessed day to you!
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