Judges 6:11-24 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Matthew 19:23-30
Tam-Awan Village, Baguio City, February 2019.
The Lord answered Gideon, “Be calm, do not fear. You shall not die.” So Gideon built there an altar to the Lord and called it Yahweh-shalom.
Judges 6:23-24
In our beautiful story today on how you have called Gideon as a judge of your people, O Lord, you have also taught us a very important lesson about discipleship – our first task is to love you!
So many times in my life, Lord, I remember how I would always refuse to follow you because of the fact that I am not really afraid of the task ahead but more of my fear for myself: of how people would measure me, of how they would laugh at me, or how I might not be able to deliver results.
Like in the story of your call to Gideon, I often look at myself rather than see you as the Almighty God, calling me, trusting me, sending me.
How funny it seems that when you send us to a mission, O Lord, it is not because of our limitations but because of our excesses: of our too much pride, too much knowledge, too much comfort, and too much self hiding in false humility.
Just when we think we have given up so much for you, God, that’s when we find it difficult to give up the little things we enjoy like recognition, “likes”, applauds, or even simple pleasures like food and drinks.
Teach us to be like your servant St. Bernard of Clairvaux who despite his wealth and greatness chose to exhaust himself in praising you in his many works of charity and praises to you and the Blessed Mother (The Memorare) in the liturgy.
Like Gideon and St. Bernard, keep us calm, always trusting you, loving you in words and in deeds.
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.
It is Father’s Day and I cannot help being nostalgic because I lost my father 19 years ago at around this time of the year. It was June 17, 2000, the eve of Father’s day when my dad died of a heart attack before dawn. It was also the birthday of my mother.
And that is why I have always loved Luther Vandross Jr.’s “Dancing With My Father” he had co-written with Richard Marx released May 30, 2003.
It is the perfect song on this Father’s Day as it speaks of the tenderness and love of a father to his wife and children. No wonder, when Jesus taught us how to pray, he told us to call God “Dad” or “Daddy” which is the more literal translation of “Abba”.
What I like most in “Dancing With My Father” is at the end of the song:
Sometimes I’d listen outside her door And I’d hear how mama would cry for him I’d pray for her even more than me I’d pray for her even more than meI know I’m praying for much to much But could you send her The only man she loved I know you don’t do it usually But Dear Lord She’s dying to dance with my father againEvery night I fall asleep And this is all I ever dream
My father loved my mother so much. Since childhood until I became a priest, he never ate without my mother with him at the table. He does her coffee and he is our chef. It was doubly hard losing him because he died on her birthday. Every time I would visit my dad’s grave, I asked him only one question: why did you die on mom’s birthday? After two years, I felt his answer that he died on my mom’s birthday so I would also love her as he had loved her. And that is what I have always tried to fulfill.
My father never asked me to become a priest but it was him who unconsciously planted the seeds of my vocation when I would always see him praying before our altar before leaving for work and upon arriving home in the evening. It was from him I have learned and realized what true love is and most of all, that indeed, God is love. He loved us so much and even though it has been 19 years since he died, I can still feel his love.
For all the faithful and loving dads especially those with God our Father in heaven, here’s one for you….
Our second song is another tribute to a late father, Bread’s 1970 hit “Make It with You”.
According to its composer David Gates, he got the inspiration for “Make It With You” not from his girlfriend but from his late father. Gates claimed that during an interview, a reporter asked him with whom would he want to share his success in music with? Right away, he answered it would be his late father, of how he would want to “make it with him” so his dad would see his successful career in music.
Perhaps, that’s what we all miss with our late dads who worked so hard to give us good future, a good career: we all want them to see the fruits of their labors in us, to share with them whatever good things we now have is because of them. It is from these experiences with our loving dads that we have had glimpses of our personal God who became human like us in Jesus Christ, joining us in our pains and sufferings to be one with him in his triumphs and glory.
As we celebrate today the Solemnity of the Blessed Trinity, may we get into the very selves of our dad in Spirit to realize how immense that love God has for everyone meant to be shared with others too. Cheers to all dads!
After the last Mass tonight in every parish, the Paschal Candle is extinguished and from the ambo where it had stayed since the Easter Vigil, it is brought back to the baptistry to signal the start of Ordinary Time tomorrow.
As we have been reflecting these past days, life is a series of coming than of leaving. This is very true in today’s celebration of the Solemnity of the Pentecost: when Jesus ascended into heaven last Sunday, the Holy Spirit now comes to fire up the disciples to continue God’s presence in the world. Last Sunday we said the Ascension does not mean Jesus going to a particular place “up there” but his entry into a higher level of relating with us. Today is the fulfillment of that promise he made, that he would remain with us until the end of time in the power of the Holy Spirit sent by the Father.
Pentecost means fifty. After God handed to Moses the Ten Commandments at Sinai, the Israelites ratified that covenant 50 days after. Eventually when they entered the Promised Land, Pentecost became an agricultural celebration of their harvests that eventually extended into a celebration of weeks. When the Holy Spirit came on that Pentecost day in Jerusalem, it became the “coming out party” of the Church when the Apostles were emboldened to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to everyone.
In this evolution of the Pentecost from Sinai to Promised Land to the early Church, it has remained true to its essence as life in God. As such, we must keep in mind it is not an isolated event in the past but a reality we must allow to happen every day in our lives. If there is one thing very much missing in the Church these days, it is the Holy Spirit. We need a “perennial Pentecost” to fill us with life and zest in living the Gospel, from the bishops to the priests to every baptized Catholic. See the vibrancy among other Christian denominations. They are so alive while we Catholics as so rigid and lethargic. We need to be “fired up” by the burning fire of the Holy Spirit everyday. It is Pentecost or nothing!
Chair of St. Peter at the High altar of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. From Google.
Above the Chair of St. Peter at the Vatican is a stained glass depicting the coming of the Holy Spirit like a dove. According to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, that is in essence the Church which is like a window where God and man get in contact. At the middle of that meeting point or contact of God and man is the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit, we can never be in touch with God and with others. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of love that binds us all with each other and with God in the same manner it unites the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity to remain as One God. This explains why we heard again today the Gospel three Sundays ago of Jesus teaching about love at the Last Supper.
Jesus said to his disciples: “If you love me, you will keep the commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to be with you always. Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.”
John 14:15-16, 23
These words are repeated today to present to us the new and definite context of the Pentecost flowing from that Last Supper discourse of Jesus about love, keeping his commandments, and coming of the Holy Spirit.
During his Last Supper, Jesus clearly showed that in the new covenant sealed by his blood, the Law is more than the personification of God: obedience to his commandments and to the Father is first of all an expression of love. Jesus is the new Torah, the new law of love found in his oneness with the Father. On this Pentecost Sunday, we hear again the Last Supper discourse of Jesus to remind us that being Christian is becoming united as one in him as “indwelling of the Father and the Son.”
That can only happen when we allow ourselves to be small. See that at the Ascension, we were presented with an upward movement that called for the need to be light and powerless in order to rise above. Now, Pentecost’s downward movement shows us the need to be small in order to be mixed or fused with God and with others. Every downward push leads to spreading out, of thinning out, of getting small.
As limited beings, our greatness can only be found in our ability to share, to be small to participate and become a part of a larger whole. In our very selves, we cannot do anything. I am so amused to realize this basic truth while watching those crime shows in Netflix like Narcos and Bad Blood where even the most evil men need to be small, to band together to be powerful. We all need conversion which is very essential to be truly great!
For true conversion to happen, there has to be love, even at least, an openness to love. It is no wonder that love is always presented in the fiery shades of red and orange because almost everything is purified and broken into little particles by fire. When love is intense, expect fire to be hotter with its hues of red and orange more aglow. Only when we are willing to be subjected to love’s purifying fire can we be truly filled with the Holy Spirit and its gifts, particularly joy.
Conversion and love demand constant dying into one’s self, of living in the spirit and not in flesh that St. Paul explained in the second reading. We can never be one in Christ without conversion, without getting off our ivory tower of pride and arrogance. We need to go down, if we have to lie face down, so be it. Most of all, oneness with others is impossible without conversion because we cannot insist on ourselves on others. We need to be broken, we need to smash our high walls that keep us away from others. That is what the Holy Spirit’s fire did on that Pentecost Sunday in Jerusalem, the very same thing needed to happen these days in our Church.
Every Sunday when we gather like the Apostles at the Upper Room during the Lord’s supper, we are invited to keep his commandments in love. This can only happen when we pray for conversion through the fire of the Holy Spirit. Let us be open to receive this fire of the Holy Spirit again every Eucharistic celebration so that after our gathering, we may set the world anew in fire with Jesus Christ’s loving presence. Amen.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 07 June 2019
Statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus at the Jesuits’ Sacred Heart Retreat House and Seminar Center, Novaliches, Quezon City. Photo by author, July 2018.
It is perhaps the most disarming question of all.
And too often, before answering the question, we try to brush it aside or even belittle it because we always feel the answer is very obvious and yet, it hits us so hard deep within that we could not answer it right away because it demands honesty and sincerity.
Do you love me?
Whether you are a priest or a religious or a layperson, much of the difficulty in answering this question lies on the fact that too often, it comes to us in those moments we have sinned to a loved one. When we were unfaithful and have not loved much as expected.
It was the context when Jesus asked Simon Peter three times “Do you love me?” after their breakfast at the shore of Lake Tiberias three weeks after Easter. Simon knew it so well that he felt sad after the third question of the Lord because it referred to his three denials of Jesus on Holy Thursday evening outside the residence of the chief priest. He must have heard the cock crowing again at that instance.
Church of Gallicantu (Rooster), the site where St. Peter denied the Lord thrice. Photo by author, April 2017.
I realized only last year as a guest spiritual director to our seminarians at the Theologate that our main problem as priests is when we get so focused with our vocation which is the priesthood, forgetting its very essence, Jesus Christ.
It is the Caller, not the call!
When we priests forget Jesus, even if we are so centered even obsessed with priesthood, problems arise. It is a misplaced priority. The call gets into our bloated egos that eventually deteriorate into careerism among us priests that we compete and complain a lot in our assignments. No more ministry because everything comes with a fee. Pains and sufferings have become costs of discipleship and not life.
Eventually, we end up being gods and kings, even larger than the Lord himself in our parishes or particular assignment. We become the standard of everything because we are all-knowing, so great at building churches and other structures, establishing every organization while consciously or unconsciously building cults around our very selves that in the process, we have evicted Jesus Christ completely from our hearts and the parish itself!
The same is true with couples. The husband and wife forget each other, getting focused more with married life and children until eventually, they just drifted apart, becoming strangers to each other and lose all love. This is most evident when couples enter into a sort of spiritual divorce, when they are “so far away” from each other though they still live together “for the sake of the children” or, as we always hear, “alang-alang sa mga bata.”
Love makes us see Jesus in himself and in others too.
In St. John’s account of the third appearance of the risen Lord to the seven apostles who have gone fishing at Lake Tiberias that Sunday morning, no one among them recognized him except the beloved disciple because he was the only one who remained loving Jesus.
When it was already dawn, Jesus was standing on the shore; but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus… who said to them, “Cast the net over the right side of the boat and you will find something.” So they cast it, and were not able to pull it in because of the number of fish. So the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord.”
John 21:4,6-7
Appearance of the Risen Lord at Lake Tiberias. From Google.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI recently answered some questions given to him for an interview before the Holy Week. When asked about the festering problem of sex scandal in the Church, he said that is a sign of how we priests have entirely forgotten Jesus Christ, especially to pray to him at the Blessed Sacrament.
That is very true. Jesus could no longer be seen among us, in our person, in our actions, in our way of living, and most especially in our churches that have become so empty of God and so filled of our selves.
We have forgotten the fact that before we were ordained priests, there was Jesus Christ first. We converse with him less in prayer because priesthood demands so much of our time and energy like a profession or a job. Slowly, Jesus is nowhere to be found in us and in our parishes. And that is when we also start to get lost as priests, eaten up by materialism and fame.
The same is true with couples who forget after several years of living together that before they were married, there was also Jesus Christ first in each other. When children start coming, more concerns are shifted on the couple’s career in order to earn more and live comfortably. Couples then forget each other, even their very selves who end up married with their jobs or profession. Eventually, they part ways because they could no longer see each other.
The difficulty in answering the question “do you love me?” is found in the way we do our work, when we just see tasks. No love, no person.
Whatever we do in life, we have to do it with more love because when we love, we remain attached with persons not with things. When we do thing with more love, we have direction because we think of persons, not just goals. When we do things with more love, we see persons because only another person can love, not things. See how Jesus told the crowd who have come with him to the wilderness to pray to the Master to send more laborers to work on the great harvest (Mt.9:38). He did not instruct them and us to pray for more money, more food and clothing because what we really need is love. Only people can love.
Jesus Christ did everything in love, filled with love. That is why he is so gentle and merciful with us sinners. In his love, he sees more the person being defaced by sins and evil, pains and sufferings. And that is why he died on the Cross, the ultimate expression of doing everything in love.
The next time you want to prove your love to anyone, do your work with love, no matter how imperfect your love is. Jesus will fill in the rest because you are so loved.
Live in the love of Christ.
If you have love in your heart, you have been blessed by God;
if you have been loved, you have been touched by God.
The Lord Is My Chef Recipe for Wedding of Bryan and Catherine, 24 May 2019
St. Francis of Assisi Chapel, Fernwood Gardens, Quezon City
Ephesians 5:2a,25-32 >< }}}*> <*{{{ >< John 15:11-17
The Tamsui Lover’s Bridge, New Taipei, Taiwan. Photo by author, 29 January 2019.
Congratulations, Bryan and Catherine!
Our gospel is very clear today with Jesus telling you, “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you” (Jn.15:16). In his infinite wisdom, God had planned this day to happen today, not last year or last month nor tomorrow or next month.
Today the Lord had chosen you Bryan and Catherine to tie the knot as husband and wife in this lovely chapel so you would be his witnesses of his immense love for us. You went through a lot of challenges in your love that is a certified “LDR” – you got me thinking for sometime what those letters mean.
As classmates in elementary until you were separated in high school when Catherine and her family moved to Marilao, you remained friends. When you pursued your dreams in college, the great distance between UP Los Banos and UST in Espana did not keep you away from each other as friends until you realized you love each other that you became sweethearts.
After graduation, Catherine had to move again with her family and this time, thousands of miles away from you Bryan when there were no free messaging apps yet like Messenger and Viber. Bryan had to make those expensive overseas calls while Catherine had to be patient with the unreliable, cheap call cards bought in Asian and Filipino stores in New Jersey.
Thanks very much to Mark Zuckerberg and you had more time seeing each other in social media that your love deepened through time and distance. But, Facebook did not resolve your main issue at that time.
It was Jesus who moved you both to realize that “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn.15:13).
Both of you Bryan and Cath sacrificed so much to be finally together, today and forever. Married life is not a competition in love, in seeing who loves most. Husband and wife simply love, love, and love. St. Paul said it so well in our first reading, “live in love as Christ loved us” (Eph.5:2a).
To live in love like Christ is to respect one another.
In our gospel, Jesus said “You are my friends if you do what I command you” (Jn.15:11) which is to love like him, giving up one’s self to your friend.
Bryan and Cath, you are now the bestest of friends. In the word “friend” you find a letter “r” that if you remove it, you get the new word “fiend” or enemy, the exact opposite of friend. That letter “r” in “friend” stands for respect which means in Latin “to see or look again”.
Without respect, any love will not grow. Without respect, love withers and dies. Respect deepens our love because in seeing again, in looking back to our loved ones, we remember our vows to always love.
From Google.
Three things I wish to share with you Bryan and Catherine about respect so you may live in love as the bestest of friends.
First, always look at your very selves, see yourself as the beloved of God.
God makes no mistakes. You are God’s perfect creation as he intended when he created you, Bryan and Catherine. Be proud of who you are even you have lost your hair or have had wrinkles, or gained weight to have so much “love handles” around your waist.
Bryan… Catherine… you are not only one in a million… you are a once in a lifetime.
Catherine, stay true to who you are as a woman. St. Paul never meant in our first reading that the wife must lose her identity in a relationship. Everything and everyone changes for sure, but a healthy marriage will always grow with you and never against you.
When you are apart and not together due to work, always look at each other. Always try to see the other looking at you. That is respect because in that way, you remain faithful to each other and avoid sin.
Second, always look back to your dreams, to your plans and vision in life.
The ideal man finds himself first before he finds his ideal woman, and vice versa. What do I mean? Many people have sights but not all have visions. A visionary is someone who dreams with eyes wide opened. Vision makes us see where we are going and what it will take to get us there. Like the “Mission-Vision” thing you have Bryan in Maynilad.
The moment a man/woman starts to have a vision of himself/herself with a partner in achieving that dream in the future, then he/she has become the ideal husband/wife. When you have a purpose in life and included in that is someone special, even if you have not met him/her yet, then you are the man, you are the woman.
When trials come in your lives Bryan and Catherine, look again into your vision and dreams in life. Start to work for it again with each other, together as one. If you have to start all over again, do so. Together. Pursue your dream and make it come true!
Third, every day, Bryan and Catherine, look again to God. Always see God in your life. Remember the Holy Family how every year they would go to Jerusalem to worship God. When the child Jesus was lost and they could not find him, they went back to Jerusalem and found him in the Temple. Mary and Joseph looked to God to find Jesus and they found him!
When you always look to God Bryan and Catherine, you will also find yourselves and your dreams. In that, you live in love, respecting each other always as gifts from God.
May today be the least happiest day of you life as husband and wife, Bryan and Catherine! Amen.
Clouds over the vast desert of Egypt going to Cairo, 07 May 2019.
Thank you for following our LordMyChef Sunday Music.
It is nice to be back again this Sunday with a music from the Bee Gees with their second international hit single called “To Love Somebody” released in 1967.
According to Barry Gibb, the only surviving member of one of the world’s most successful musical group composed of his late brothers Robin and Maurice (and Andy), To Love Somebody is his most loved composition because of its “clear, emotional message” (Piers Morgan’s Life Stories interview in 2017). In another interview earlier in 2001, Barry said the song was meant for their long-time producer Robert Stigwood’s gift and brilliance, as a sort of a tribute. He explained that Stigwood asked him to compose a soul for Otis Redding in 1967; they presented To Love Somebody to Redding in New York who liked it very much. Unfortunately, Redding never had the chance to record the song when he died in a plane crash that year. To Love Somebody was then offered to other artists but despite their good reviews of the song, nobody wanted to record it. Hence, the Bee Gees included it in their first international debut album Bee Gees 1st, releasing it as a single that reached the 17th spot in the US charts and 41 in UK. The brothers reissued it in 1980 and the song has been covered by so many other artists worldwide that included Michael Bolton, Rod Stewart, Janis Joplin and Nina Simone.
To Love Somebody sounds so close to our gospel today when Jesus gave his disciples a new commandment to love one another as he has loved us, which is, “to love somebody the way I love you”!
Of course, the song is romantic in nature but it gives us also a hint of the newness of Christ’s new commandment to love like him that is always unitive, creating a communion and bond of unity with the lover and the beloved. That unity for Jesus is rooted in God our Father who is love himself.
Human love is always imperfect. There will always be people so difficult to love or deal with or simply accept. Even more difficult to forgive. But when we love in Christ Jesus, in him and with him, our love becomes more truer and doable and possible. After all, as the Bee Gees sing in this song, it is Jesus Christ who first loved us too and desired so much that unity in him. We are able to love because of Christ’s gift of love for us. Let us not waste that gift of love. Love somebody, the way Jesus loves you! Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul, Easter Wk. V, Yr.C, 19 May 2019
Acts 14:21-27 ><)))> Revelations 21:1-5 ><)))> John 13:31-33, 34-35
Sunrise at Lake Tiberias, the Holy Land. Photo by author, 04 May 2019.
I was sleeping soundly along with other customers at our barbershop last Thursday noon when we were jolted by a boy about four years old who shrieked and threw on tantrums as he vehemently refused to have a haircut. It was a big scene and the poor young mother was at a loss how to pacify her son who kept yelling at her “I do not want to have a haircut!”
After a couple of minutes, everybody sighed with relief – except me – when the boy finally finally cooled off to sit on the barber’s chair for his haircut. I felt no relief first because the more I pitied the young mother who had to bribe her spoiled son with a cellphone to play computer games just to behave. And secondly, I was never able to get back to my siesta due to the sounds of the boy’s computer games.
As I looked in horror with the scene, I wondered if this is the new kind of love today when gadgets and things replace persons.
When Judas had left them, Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 13:31, 34-35
Boat ride at the Lake of Tiberias, 04 May 2019.
It is very true that love of neighbor is not a Christian innovation. Other great religions also have love as a fundamental principle.
The newness in Jesus’ new commandment to love lies deeply in his following sentence, “As I have loved you, so you should love one another.”
To love like Jesus Christ is more than doing a higher order kind of love or a more loving way of loving by following a stricter moral standard.
To love like Jesus is to love in union with the Father who is love himself!
This newness of his commandment to love is found deep in the preceding scene of the gospel when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. In the fourth gospel, the washing of the feet is the meaning of love expressed in the Holy Eucharist that prefigured Good Friday’s crucifixion. In relating that scene, St. John used the word “clean” three times as Jesus declared to his disciples “you are clean” (Jn.13:10).
It was in the washing the feet when Jesus first clearly showed the most unique and loving way of God coming down to us to cleanse us of our sins. Purity is always a gift from God because we cannot make ourselves clean. And like in that washing of feet of his disciples, Jesus continues to purify us in every Mass we celebrate today. The more we are “purified” by Jesus in the Eucharist, the more we learn to be like him, to love like him unconditionally and most of all, to love in union with the Father who is love himself.
And there lies the newness of Christ’s new commandment of love, for us to love like Jesus in him and with him.
We will always be imperfect and sinful, always needing to be cleansed and purified to be fitting to God. In the same manner, human love is always imperfect like us. Most often, we love for reasons that are always wrong or sometimes love in seasons that soon go off season. There will always be people and situations when our arguments and reasons not to love are not only right and proper but also justified. But when we come to realize this gift of love from Jesus, of loving like him in union with the Father, we become his extension and channel of love. Love, then, becomes pure and doable, even easier and acceptable because first of all, we experience it in us.
Franciscan Monastery, Mt. Nebo, Jordan where God let Moses view the Promised Land to be given to the Israelites. The cross with serpent prefigured the salvation to come from Christ’s death: the Israelites complained against God who punished them by sending poisonous snakes that bit and killed them. The Israelites repented and God ordered Moses to make a copper snake image to mount it on a stick that whoever looked at it was healed of the snake bite and lived (Numbers 21:6). Photo by author 03 May 2019.
To love like Jesus is totally new because it is not really us who does the loving but Jesus himself in us and with us. It is a totally new kind of love because it is a love not based on norms or rules but on God himself. It is a totally new kind of love because we allow Jesus to act in us, making God truly present among us. Thus, we all become an Emmanuel like Jesus, God-is-with-us. What a great honor for us to be a presence of God in Jesus! That despite our sins and weaknesses, Jesus continues to cleanse us so he may dwell in us and work through us. When we obey his new commandment to love like him, then his words at the end of today’s gospel are indeed fulfilled, “This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (Jn.13: 35). It is a love so different from the world that sets us apart from others, enabling us to make a big difference in this world marred with sin and imperfections.
This remains the great challenge among us now in our time when Jesus said “My children, I will be with you only a little while longer” (Jn.13:33) when he gave this new commandment. It is the present time where we always have that tension of the here and the not yet oriented toward Jesus who has come, is coming now and will come in the end of time. This is why until now like during the time of the apostles, we have priests or presbyters appointed to care for the flock by leading them in a life of charity and unity in the Church. Every priest as well as every Christian is supposed to be a presence of Christ, loving like Jesus in union with the Father. How sad when we, priests and lay people alike, deny this kind of love of Jesus, destroying our unity in the Father as one family of believers and followers.
Let us not waste Christ’s gift of love so unique that unites us with the Father and with everyone. Let us strive harder that despite our sinfulness and many differences of beliefs and affiliations, through Christ’s gift of purity and love, we may little by little realize “a new heaven and a new earth” as John saw in his vision at Patmos. A blessed Sunday to everyone! Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul, Friday, 03 May 2019 Feast of Sts. Philip and James, Apostles
Praise and glory to you O Lord Jesus Christ for this first Friday in your Holy Land!
Yesterday we visited and prayed at the various sites of your ministry around the shores of the beautiful Lake of Galilee.
Here you called your first Apostles and later nearby the others who followed you like Philip and James whose feast we celebrate today.
Like us, they were seeking direction in life. That, they found in you alone, Lord Jesus – something we are rediscovering in a wonderful way these days during our pilgrimage.
So many times due to many concerns in life, we forget you are the Gospel – the Good News – who saved us all (1Cor.15:1).
So many times we forget like Philip that you and the Father are one, that whoever had seen you has seen the Father too (Jn.14:9).
Lord Jesus Christ, visiting “mensaChristi“, your table where you had breakfast with your apostles after Easter, we realized the most important thing of all of being a Christian – to be in love with your first and above all Lord!
Let us love you more deeply Lord Jesus as you well know how weak we are. Amen.
Photos by the author: above is the shore at the back of Capernaum where Jesus preached and last photo is back of church near shore where the Lord asked Simon thrice, “Do you love me?”.
Lawiswis ng Salita ni P. Nicanor F. Lalog II, ika-16 ng Abril 2019
Ngayong Semana Santa aking naalala Aking nabasa isang tunay na istorya Tungkol kay Santa Mother Teresa Noong nabubuhay pa siya sa Calcutta.
Minsan daw isang alaga nilang kulang-kulang Sinidlang bigla ng galit na di maintindihan Krusipihiyo sa dingding nabalingan ng pansin Ibinato sa Santa nating taimtim nananalangin.
Walang nakapansin nang ito'y kanyang gawin At nang ito'y pulutin ng butihing Mother natin Nakita niyang bali-bali ngunit nakapako pa rin Si Kristong Panginoon natin.
Larawan mula sa Google.
Kanyang pinagdikit-dikit bali-baling katawan Na parang nabendahan tulad ng isang sugatan Saka inutusan ng madreng maalam kanyang mga kasamahan Kanyang tinuran sa kanila, mahigpit na tagubilin:
Isabit muli sa ating dingding nabaling Krusipihiyo natin At inyo ring idikit kalapit yaring panalangin, "Hayaan po ninyo Panginoon na paghilumin Nitong aking mga kamay nawasak mong katawan."
Larawan ng mosaic sa kripta ng Katedral ng Maynila. Kuha ni Arch. Philip Santiago, Oktubre 2016.
Ito ang aral na lagi nating pakantandaan Kaya minsan-minsan dapat nating pagnilayan Paano nasugatan at patuloy nating sinasaktan Ng ating mga kasalanan yaring Mahal na Katawan.
Sa naturang kuwento ng ating banal Kanyang dasal sana'y di lamang natin mausal Katulad niya'y ating maisabuhay Paano ating mga kamay makakaramay.
Mula sa Google.
Mga kamay ni Hesus sa krus katulad ay tulay Nag-uugnay, nagbibigay-buhay Sa mga handang abutin Diyos at kapwa natin Sa pag-ibig na walang kapalit na hinihiling.
lordmychef.com 