Category: love

Married life is a prayer

The Lord Is My Chef Recipe for 40th Wedding Anniversary

Tony and Joyce Lopez, 20 October 2019

Presentation of Our Lord Parish, Filinvest 1, Batasan Hills, QC

Tony and Joyce on their 40th Wedding Anniversary, 20 October 2019 at the Presentation of the Lord Parish, Filinvest I, QC joined by their son Atty. JA and wife Kathleen with two kids, and youngest daughter Rosella.

Every Sunday I write a blog connecting the gospel with a secular song.

As I prepared my homily for your anniversary, Joyce and Tony… “the moment I woke up and before your Mommy Fely put on her make-up, I said a little prayer for you.”

Joyce mom Fely Pollard with late husband Charles’ cousin, Beth Javier.

Of course that is not the theme song of Joyce and Tony. They haven’t met yet in 1967 when Dione Warwick recorded I Say a Little Prayer. But they were already married when it became one of the tracks in the movie “My Best Friend’s Wedding” starring Julia Roberts.

And since this is my “best cousin’s wedding anniversary” in this part of the city, I have thought of reflecting on married life as a form of prayer.

In our gospel we have heard Jesus Christ narrating the parable of the unjust judge and persistent widow to underscore “the necessity to pray always without becoming weary” (Lk. 18:1).

Prayer is an expression of faith.

When there is faith, there is also love.

And when there is prayer, faith, and love, what we have is a relationship, a community of believers who love each other.

People who love and believe with each other always talk and communicate. They make time to be with one another. And most often, that is what really matters with people who love and believe – simply to be together.

Even in silence.

Like prayer.

Joyce: “During our first few years as couple, I was the one always embracing Tony; but, later until now, it is Tony who often hugs and embraces me! Nabaligtad ang scenario.”

Prayer is more than asking things from God but most of all, prayer is a relationship with God expressed with others. That is the beauty of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony: husband and wife are bound together in marriage to become signs of the saving presence of Jesus Christ.

Marriage as a sacrament means it is a prayer as well, a relationship of a man and woman with God as its source and foundation.

I am sure, Joyce and Tony along with all the other married couples here today will agree that married life requires a lot of prayers. In fact, married life is a prayer, a very difficult one that is much needed.

Like in that movie My Best Friend’s Wedding, there are real forces of evil that are trying to destroy couples. So many couples have already fallen, going their separate lives after several years of being together while on the other hand, more and more couples are refusing to get married at all due to this reality of breakups and separations.

And that is why we are celebrating today on this 40th anniversary of Joyce and Tony’s wedding! We are praying with them in expressing our faith and love for them in Christ Jesus. Prayers have kept them together, transforming them into better persons.

At the end of the parable of the persistent widow and unjust judge, Jesus posed a very crucial question for us, especially to every married couple here today: When the Son of Man comes again at the end of time, will he find faith on earth? (Lk.18:8)

Tony and Joyce at Villa San Miguel, Mandaluyong 1979.

And what shall be our response?

“Yes, Lord, you shall find faith when you come again in Joyce and Tony!”

Like Moses in the first reading, they both prayed hard with arms outstretched on many occasions as they battled life’s many challenges and struggles.

“Yes, Lord, you shall find faith when you come again in Joyce and Tony” because they have both proclaimed your word with persistence, whether it is convenient or inconvenient like St. Paul in his second letter to Timothy. They have weathered so many storms in the past 40 years and your words, O Lord, have kept them together, sharing these with their children and with everyone in their life of fidelity and love.

“Yes, Lord, you shall find faith when you come again in Joyce and Tony” now before your altar to renew their vows to love and cherish each other for the rest of their lives!

“Yes, Lord, you shall find faith when you come again” among the many couples gathered here who have remained faithful to each other despite their many sins and failures, weaknesses and shortcomings.

Joyce and Tony, you are not only a prayer of faith but also a homily of the Holy Matrimony, showing us the light and power of Jesus Christ to transform people in prayer and bring them to fulfillment.

Prayer does not change things like typhoons and earthquakes. We cannot ask God in prayer to spare us from getting sick or be exempted from life’s many trials and sufferings. Prayer cannot stop those from happening.

What prayer does is change us, change our attitude so we may hurdle life’s many blows and obstacles. Especially with couples who always find God in their lives, in good times and in bad.

Prayers transform us into better persons as children of God, especially couples who eventually look like brothers and sisters after living together in faith, hope and love.

Tony and Joyce, I am sure everyone in our family and among your friends here can attest to the many good things that have transformed you in the past 40 years.

You have changed to become the best for each other.

In the bible, the number 40 means perfect.

May God continue to perfect you, Tony and Joyce.

Keep us too in your prayers as we pray for you. Amen.

“I Say a Little Prayer” OST “My Best Friend’s Wedding” (1997)

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music, 20 October 2019

Photo by Emre Kuzu on Pexels.com

It’s a lovely Sunday especially for all married couples.

I am officiating the 40th Wedding Anniversary later today of a dear cousin when I remembered the 1997 movie “My Best Friend’s Wedding” with one of its most romantic scene with the singing of I Say a Little Prayer.

Composed by Burt Bacharach and Hal David in 1966 for Dionne Warwick, the song is meant to convey the woman’s sentiment for her man serving at the Vietnam War. It was finally released in 1967 and became an instant hit not only in the US but around the world. Since then, I Say a Little Prayer has been covered so many times even by male vocalists and went back to the charts again in 1997 as one of the tracks in the romantic comedy that starred Julia Roberts.

Prayer is the expression of our faith that always presupposes the presence of love. If there is love, there must be a community, a relationship.

Like people who love each other, believing in each other, they always speak and communicate even in silence. What matters most is their being together, their being one in faith and in love.

Exactly like in prayer.

If we love God, then we must always speak to him and most of all, be one with him, like most people who truly love.

We have chosen that lovely scene from “My Best Friend’s Wedding” singing I Say a Little Prayer because it evokes a lot about prayer: faith and love and relationships.

Most of all, in that movie, the prayer was heard loud and clear for Julia’s best friend.

See the movie again and have those kilig moments back with your loved one 22 years ago.

Remembering Mary and our own mother on this month of Rosary

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Friday, Feast of St. Luke the Evangelist, 18 October 2019

2 Timothy 4:10-17 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Luke 10:1-9

From Google.

Lord Jesus Christ, on this feast of your Evangelist and Apostle St. Luke that falls in the month of the Holy Rosary, we remember your Mother and our Mother too, the Blessed Virgin Mary.

It is so edifying to learn that St. Luke did not only write a two-part series of your gospel but is also considered as the first iconographer of the Blessed Mother Mary.

Mother of Perpetual Help. Photo from Aleteia/Google.

How wonderful that there are four popular icons of Mary attributed to him: the Our Mother of Perpetual Help, the Our Lady of Czestochowa, the Our Lady of Vladimir, and the Salus Populi Romani or Mother of the Savior of the Roman People.

These are considered as the earliest icons of Mary and although there are not enough historical proofs to ascertain these traditions of whether St. Luke could have painted these icons or not, one thing clearly remains: St. Luke had a particular trait of the Blessed Mother of being faithful in Jesus Christ.

Our Lady of Czestochowa. Photo from Aleteia/Google.

St. Paul tells us in our first reading this wonderful distinction of St. Luke that is so similar with the Virgin Mary for being faithful and true to Jesus most especially during his darkest moments in life while there on the Cross. See how St. Paul narrated in the first reading his sad plight with no one else left to accompany him but St. Luke.

Our Lady of Vladimir. Photo from Aleteia/Google.

Beloved: Demas, enamored of the present world, deserted me and went to Thessalonica, Crescens to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia. Luke is the only one with me.

2 Timothy 4:10-11

Mary stayed at the foot of the Cross of Jesus Christ, remaining faithful and true to her Son and Lord. Like Mary, St. Luke stayed behind with St. Paul in prison.

Too often, O Lord, we feel like St. Paul, of being so alone and abandoned with no one to turn to in times of trials and sufferings.

Like that famous tune by the Beatles, we find solace in the warmth and love of our own mother who has become like Mother Mary to us. Paul McCartney admitted that those lines of their last famous song was inspired by his own mother and the Blessed Mother herself.

When I find myself in times of troubles

Mother Mary comes to me.

Speaking words of wisdom: Let it be.

Paul McCartney, “Let It Be”

Maybe, St. Luke must have developed that devotion and love for the Blessed Mother Mary from the great love he had experienced from his own mother who must had been so loving and merciful, faithful and simple in her ways.

Salus Populi Romani. From Aleteia/Google.

Most of all, in both his gospel and Acts of the Apostles accounts, St. Luke never failed to mention the important role Mary played in giving birth to Jesus and taking care of his infant community, the Church, after he had Ascended into heaven.

Mary has always been there, her presence inspiring the Apostles and early Christians to strive further in the mission of evangelization.

And so, we pray for all mothers, especially our own mother who taught us our first prayers, narrated our first stories from the Bible, and taught us as well as made us feel the immense love of Jesus for each one of us.

Behind every evangelist and missionary is always a faithful and loving mother like Mary. In response to calls by Jesus Christ to pray that the Master of harvest may send out more workers for his harvest, bless all mothers to ensure that children continue to experience the love of the Father for everyone.

Always misunderstood in her ways and concern for us, we pray for all mothers may have the strength and patience to stand by their children even in their old age. And when their final hour comes to leave this earth, we pray Lord Jesus that you make it peaceful as you grant them eternal rest with your Mother Mary. Amen.

St. Luke, pray for us to genuinely love our mother and the Blessed Mother Mary too!

Let nothing disturb you…

Quiet Storm by Nick F. Lalog II, 15 October 2019

Photo by Mr. Jim Marpa at Panglao, Bohol, September 2019.

Which is more difficult to confront, the fact of dying or that of suffering through a serious sickness? I have been thinking these for the past couple of days following my recent visitations of sick parishioners.

Today I visited a parishioner sick for the past three months with a lung disease. She’s 76 years old.

Right upon seeing me, Lola Milagros cried, telling me to ask God to take her because she’s so tired of suffering and waiting for death.

I just let her cry, holding her hands, as I listened to her pouring out of her aches and pains.

After that, I whispered to her the words of St. Teresa de Avila whose feast we are also celebrating today:

Nada te turbe… Solo Dios basta! (Let nothing disturb you… only God suffices!)

St. Teresa De Avila

So beautiful to hear and yes, easier said than done.

Can anybody with a serious ailment be not disturbed?

Been asking myself the same questions too. It is difficult not to be disturbed when one is sick. Aside from the costs of treatment are the enormous pains and sufferings one has to go through with the medical procedures and its many effects to the patient, who eventually would die.

It is a reality getting closer to home with me and I must confess, I am disturbed. Worried. And afraid.

Photo by Essow Kedelina on Pexels.com

The other week I visited another sick parishioner named Charlie, a former cook paralysed waist down due to a spine injury. He is only in his early 50’s.

What struck me when I saw him were the ropes tied to his both feet. I could not figure out how he could be restless when he is paralysed that his feet have to be tied?

He explained, “Father, I pity my wife when I have to wake her up every night just to move my legs. So, I improvised these ropes tied to my feet so I can just pull them with my hands in case I have to change positions even at night.”

Oh God! What a great love of a man to his wife!

Charlie loves his wife so much that he does not want her to be disturbed with his ailment and condition.

When there is love, we are not disturbed. And the only true love that can make us undisturbed is the love of Jesus Christ, the only perfect love we can have and find.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

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 calls for love in return. Let us strive to keep this always before our eyes and to rouse ourselves to love him. For if at some time the Lord should grant us the grace of impressing his love on our hearts, all will become easy for us and we shall accomplish great things quickly and without effort.

St. Teresa de Avila

“Love calls for love in return.”

So beautiful words by St. Teresa de Avila.

We can only truly feel that personal love of Jesus if we are also personally in love with him.

We are disturbed with so many things in life when there is not enough love in our hearts, when we have not felt loved enough by others too.

Without love, we would always be disturbed.

I told Lola Milagros this morning to thank God for the gift of tears because they are prayers coming straight from her heart. That God knows very well all her pains and sufferings. Most of all, I told her tears are clear signs of love in her heart.

Later on my way home, Lola Milagros’ daughter was also teary-eyed as she told me she was so glad to see her mother cried. According to her, Lola Milagros is a very tough woman of the “old school” who tried to bear everything and even hide what’s inside her so as not to disturb them. She always wanted them to be assured all’s fine.

Lola Milagros and Charlie do not want to disturb their respective family because they love them. It is love that moves the sick not to disturb others and it is also love that enables us to assure them not to be disturbed.

The challenge therefore is not to reflect on whether to die instantly or slowly but to always love truly!

Sacred Heart Novitiate (Novaliches), 2017.

Human love is always imperfect. Only God can love us perfectly. This he did exactly to us when he sent us Jesus Christ who died on the Cross for us.

To love truly is be personally one in Jesus Christ. When we were still seminarians, Fr. Memeng used to tell us in our class “Priestly Spirituality” that “if we can really cultivate a deep prayer life, we can also experience Jesus Christ in the most personal way.” It is the experience of St. Teresa de Avila and all the other saints.

Nothing can disturb us in this life when our love is borne out of a personal relationship with Jesus in prayer.

Prayer life is more than reciting prayers by following a schedule. Prayer life is a relationship, a communing with God, of being our true selves before him, seeing ourselves as he sees us. And because of this assurance of his love despite our many sins and flaws, that is when we are not disturbed because God loves us no matter what.

When we are not disturbed, then we become silent. Presence is more than enough to share and experience God’s love. St. Paul said “love is not pompous” because true love is always silent, more on deeds than on words.

One thing amusing with death is that it always comes in silence, when we least expect it. Whether we die instantly or slowly, it always happens in silence. And that is also why many are disturbed of dying.

But, if we love patiently our self, others and God, nothing can ever disturb us because when we love, we are already in God. That is when we realize too the wisdom and truth of St. Teresa’s contemporary who claimed that

A soul that walks in love is neither tired nor gets tired.

San Juan dela Cruz
From Google.

Let us love, love, and love until the end onto eternity.

Only God suffices because God is love. Amen.

“Someday We’ll Know” by the New Radicals (1999)

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music, 06 October 2019

Photo by Essow Kedelina on Pexels.com

I was a newly ordained priest assigned to an all-boys’ high school in 1998.

People were looking up to me as a priest or a “man of the cloth” but my students and the younger generation counted me in as “one of them” when they learned my favorite bands at that time were the Eraserheads, Sugar Ray, and New Radicals. And like this blog, I would spice up my homilies in the Mass and reflections in class and recollections with modern music so our students could make “sakay” (ride) with God’s words and lessons from the Bible.

Just like our featured song on this lovely Sunday by the New Radicals released in 1999 from the only album they have released a year earlier called “Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too”, “Someday We’ll Know” is a song about love at the beginning was thought to be so perfect that later ended up in separation.

Two years after their split, the man was still wondering what happened to their seemingly perfect love, at why he was dumped for another guy by his beloved.

And the bittersweet part is the that the man in the song is wondering not out of desperation but because he still loved the woman, believing and hoping that…

Someday we’ll know
Why Sampson loved Delilah
One day I’ll go
Dancing on the moon
Someday you’ll know
That I was the one for you
I bought a ticket to the end of the rainbow
I watched the stars crash into the sea
If I could ask God just one question
Why aren’t you here with me

Faith and love always go together. People who truly love are the most faithful!

In the gospel today, the Apostles asked Jesus Chris to increase their faith upon learning from him the many trials they have to go through in fulfilling their mission from him.

Sometimes in life when things do not go according to our plans, when bad things happen to us despite our efforts to become better persons, we cry out to God in pain, even complain at all the destruction and disorder we go through in life.

And every time we pray to cry out to God in pain or complain, it is a sign of grace that he is within us. Prayer is an ability we can only do with grace from God; that is why, when we pray, our prayers are already half answered because prayer is definite sign of God being with us.

When things are not going well with you now, have faith in God.

Keep praying, keep believing, keep trusting God because someday we’ll know….

Love: the great little way!

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Tuesday, Memorial of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, 01 October 2019

Zechariah 8:20-23 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Luke 9:51-56

White roses for you, dearly beloved devotee of St. Therese of the Child Jesus. Christ heard your prayers and had asked St. Therese to send you these white roses as the sign you have been asking regarding what you have been praying for through our daily prayer blog, The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul. God bless you more today, my friend! (Photo by Ms. Jo Villafuerte at the Atok Blooms, Benguet, 01 September 2019.)

On behalf, O Lord, of the many people praying for a “little miracle” today through St. Therese of the Child Jesus, thank you very much for these beautiful white roses. And most especially for answering our prayers!

Thank you again for the gift of another saint today close to our modern time, a woman so young, and most of all, so simple in her faith and in her ways. Just like you, God, when she proclaimed…

“O Jesus, my love, at last I have found my calling: my call is love. Certainly I have found my proper place in the Church, and you gave me that very place, my God. 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, from the Liturgy of the Hours

It is this simple yet profound truth of being love, of doing everything in love that we always forget or take for granted that elevated St. Therese to be the youngest and one of the only five women Doctors of the Church.

In her life you have showed us the need to find the points of convergence of doctrine and experience, of teaching and practice in order to truly be holy and filled with God that fulfilled the Lord’s own words spoken among the crowds more than 2000 years ago:

“I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to babes.”

Matthew 11:25
Born Marie-Francoise-Therese Martin at Alencon, France in 1873, St. Therese entered the Carmelite monastery of Lisieux at the age of 15 following a special permission from Church officials. She claimed no visions or extraordinary moments except that she followed a simple path to faith, especially after contracting TB that caused her death in 1897 at the young age of 24. Photo from Google.

Open our minds and our hearts, our very selves, Lord, like St. Therese to humbly embrace this simple truth of love by intensely and passionately living in love, doing ordinary things in the most extraordinary way of love. May we follow your Son Jesus as “he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem”(Lk.9:51) to face his passion, death, and resurrection out of love for you and for us. Amen.

“Beautiful in My Eyes” by Joshua Kadison (1994)

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music, 29 September 2019

Our gospel today speaks a lot about our eyes, of what we see and recognize, of sights and vision. For the third straight consecutive Sunday, we hear again another parable by Jesus proper only to St. Luke called “the rich man and Lazarus”.

Jesus said to the Pharisees: “There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor named Lazarus, covered wit sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores. When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried, and from the netherworld, where he was in torment, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.”

Luke 16:19-23

The rich man went to hell because amid his affluent lifestyle, he did nothing to help the poor Lazarus. He was so blinded by his wealth that he was so oblivious of the plight of Lazarus. Sadly, the same scene continues in our days despite the social media around us.

The famous blind American Helen Keller wrote, “the only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.”

Very true!

Many people are like the rich man who only have sight that can only see what is material and temporary, failing to see the face of God especially among brothers and sisters in need. Only a few people are like Lazarus with a vision who dare to look at things beyond what can be seen, even beyond time. They are the visionaries who dream with eyes wide open, working hard to make their dreams a reality.

Having a vision, of seeing beyond what is material and physical is essential in being a Christian tasked with a mission to lovingly serve others especially those living at the margins of the society.

No one can truly love and serve without having a vision, of seeing beyond the ordinary and the present moment. This is the reason why I always tell young people in choosing a wife or a husband, choose someone with a vision who would always look beyond sights and time.

This is the message too of American singer-songwriter Joshua Kadison’s 1993 hit “Beautiful in My Eyes” that delighted the romantic side of us Filipinos in 2009 and 2007 when Christian Bautista and Jericho Rosales respectively covered the song.

The song speaks of the great vision of the lover in seeing in his beloved everything wonderful and lovely. Most of all, the man is also a dreamer and a visionary who could see their future as a couple still in love because she’s always “beautiful in his eyes”.

You’re my peace of mind,
in this crazy world.
Your’re everything I’ve tried to find,
your love is a pearl.
You’re my Mona Lisa, you’re my rainbow skies,
and my only prayer, is that you realize,
you’ll always be beautiful, in my eyes.
The world will turn,
and the seasons will change.
And all the lessons we will learn,
will be beautiful and strange.
We’ll have our fill of tears, our share of sighs.
My only prayer, is that you realize.
You’ll always be beautiful, in my eyes.
You will always be, beautiful in my eyes.
And the passing years will show,
that you will always grow,
evermore beautiful, in my eyes.

Relasyon, hindi emosyon – 2

Lawiswis ng Salita ni P. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Ika-17 ng Setyembre 2019
Relasyon at ugnayan
hindi emosyon at damdamin
ang sabi natin na pangunahin turo sa atin
ng talinhaga ng alibughang anak.
Kay gandang larawan ng Diyos
ang nakintal sa ating puso't isipan
nang ilahad ng mahabaging ama sa dalawang anak niya
na sila ay iisang pamilya, binibigkis ng buhay na mula sa kanya.
Ano mang kasalanan ay mapapatawad
maging kamatayan ay malalampasan
nitong habag at awa ng Diyos na ibinuhos 
kay Kristo Hesus para sa ating mga alibughang anak niya.
Ganyan ang habag at awa ng Diyos bilang Ama
na dumadaloy din mula sa kanyang pagiging ina
nang mawika niya, "hindi kita malilimutan kailanman
katulad ng isang ina sa kanyang anak na mula sa kanyang sinapupunan."
Para sa kanilang kaisipan, 
ang habag at awa ay "hesed" ---
damdaming napaka-lalim gaya ng pag-ibig
nagpapahiwatig ng maka-amang katapatan at pananalig.
Nagmumula ito sa sinapupunan o "raham" ---
yaong matris ng kababaihan na siyang kanlungan
ng simula ng buhay, lundo ng katuwaan pagsapit ng kagampan
kapag napawi mga agam-agam, pagsilang ng bagong buhay.
Kapag umiiral habag at awa sa ating buhay
doon tayo buong-buo sa pagkatao
nagiging ganap at banal tulad ng Diyos
puno ng buhay at pagmamahal.
Kaya't kapag mga patayan ay naglipana
at pagkitil sa buhay ang nakikitang paraan
upang lunasan maraming kasalanan at kasamaan
nasisira ating kapatiran, di maglalaon, tayo ang mababaon.

“Time After Time” cover by Tuck & Patti (1988)

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music, 15 September 2019
Photo by Vincenzo Malagoli on Pexels.com

Our gospel this Sunday of the parable of the prodigal son speaks so well of what we may describe as the “wildness and wideness” of God’s love and mercy for each one of us, especially the lost and rejected. It is a love that goes “time after time”….

Lying in my bed I hear the clock tick
And think of you
Caught up in circles
Confusion is nothing new
Flashback, warm nights
Almost left behind
Suitcase of memories
Time after
Sometimes you picture me
I’m walking too far ahead
You’re calling to me, I can’t hear
What you’ve said
Then you say, go slow
I fall behind
The second hand unwinds
If you’re lost, you can look and you will find me
Time after time
If you fall, I will catch you, I will be waiting
Time after time

Written and originally performed by Cyndi Lauper, “Time After Time” is her second single she co-wrote with Rob Hyman that was released in January 24, 1984. It was an instant hit and earned very positive reviews for Lauper.

It is a story of unconditional love despite its being over.

The lover promises to continue loving her beloved despite their separation.

It is a kind of love that is so divine like the merciful father in the parable of the prodigal son. A love so true as it recognises the other person as a “somebody”, a part of the lover. A love that persists time after time because we remain a family despite our separation of distance or even of feelings.

We have chosen the 1988 cover by the jazz duo of husband and wife Tuck and Patti because of its more solemn rendition. The guitar and voice ensemble of the duo for me is one of the music world’s great treasure we are so thankful not only in delighting our senses but most of all in making us experience some of the most beautiful songs of our time.

Enjoy!

True beauty is found only in love

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Friday, Wk. XX, Yr. I, Memorial of St. Rose of Lima, 23 August 2019

Ruth 1:1, 3-6, 14-16, 22 ><}}}*> ><}}}*> Matthew 22:34-40

Photo by Dra. Mai B. Dela Pena, Israel, 2016.

Thank you very much O God for the gift of women!

Today we celebrate two beautiful women who showed us that the true essence of beauty is in sharing your love with others.

There is the Moabite woman named Ruth who stayed with her mother-in-law Naomi who went back to Israel upon the death of her husband and two sons.

What a beautiful story of great love of a young widow for her widowed mother-in-law co-journeying with her to uncertain future guided only by faith and love in God.

But Ruth said, “Do not ask me to abandon or forsake you! For wherever you go I will go, wherever you lodge I will lodge, your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”

Ruth 1:16

Also today we celebrate the memorial of South America’s first canonized saint, Rose of Lima, Peru.

Said to be so lovely and beautiful, St. Rose offered her life at a very young age to the Lord in prayers and works of penance with a burning desire to evangelize the Indians despite the risks of being killed.

The patroness against vanities, St. Rose of Lima died at a young age of 31, praying, “Lord, increase my sufferings, and with them increase your love in my heart.”

Ruth and St. Rose of Lima, two great women of faith who proved with their lives that true beauty lies indeed in the greatest commandment of all, love of God and love of others.

We pray today for all the women, especially the victims of human trafficking.

Likewise, we pray for those men insisting to be “women” that they may come to discover their true beauty is in accepting their gift of humanity as a male amid the many confusions and turbulence within them. Amen.