Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 28 December 2019
Italian artist Giorgione’s “Adoration of the Shepherds” (1510) showing an intimate scene set up against a distant landscape. The shepherds’ gently kneeling and bowing their heads down show their humility and fascination with the Infant Jesus while the long road behind them shows the long and tiring journey they have taken before reaching their destination.
We continue with our enumeration of the best gifts of Christmas which is above all the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And because of his coming as human like us, we have come to share in his dignity and glory, thus, making us also the best gifts to share and receive every Christmas!
We await Christmas every year because we await Jesus Christ, the most beloved person of all we can know and have as friend.
We wait only for persons, not things.
Waiting is beautiful because we never wait alone. There is always another person waiting with us, waiting for us. And when we finally come and meet with the other person also awaiting us, then we become present, a gift for one another.
In our presence with each other comes the wonderful gift of intimacy.
“God became a human being so that in one person you could both have something to see and something to believe.”
St. Augustine, Sermon 126, 5
The spot where Jesus Christ is believed to have been born now covered and protected by this hole under the main altar of the Church of the Nativity of the Lord in Bethlehem. May 2019
Christmas is a story about persons called by God to bring us his Son Jesus Christ. It is a living story that continues to our own time. Here are some of the best gifts of Christmas coming from the gift of our personhood.
The gift of family. Christmas happens in a family of husband and wife and children. Very much like Joseph, Mary, and Jesus. Remove one and the Nativity scene becomes incomplete. Let us be thankful for our family, let us pray for the unity of our family. When Jesus was lost at the age of 12, Joseph and Mary decided to return to Jerusalem – symbolizing God – and eventually found him there in the temple. Let us always turn to God, ask for his guidance and protection of every family, for the healing of our family, for the mending of our broken relationships. Let us pray for all broken families whose members from the husband and wife to their children are all aching deep inside for the pains of separation.
The gift of women and of motherhood. When God created man, he found “it is not good for man to be alone” that is why he created the woman as man’s “suitable partner” (Gen.2:18). What a beautiful term for woman, part-ner, a part of man who is never complete by himself alone. How sad that until now, it is right inside the home where every woman first experience physical, verbal and emotional pains. Women are the best signs of fidelity and faith: Elizabeth called Mary “blessed” because she believed the words spoken to her by the angel from God will be fulfilled. Let us pray for the women in our lives especially own own mother and sisters, lola and aunties, cousins and nieces. Remember, the way we relate with women reflect to a great extent the way we relate with God. Love and bless the women!
The gift of men and fatherhood. When Jesus taught us how to pray, he taught us that God is like a “Father” whom we shall call “Our Father”. There is a crisis in fatherhood and manhood these days because many men have forgotten to be truly man enough like God our Father: a giver of life and protector of life as well. Most of all, when children lose this gift of life, it is the father who restores the life lost like the merciful father of the prodigal son in Luke’s gospel chapter 15.
Aleteia, December 2019.
This Christmas break, spend time with your family, hug your mommy and your daddy tightly and feel their presence again.
Thank your family, your mom and dad.
Pray for your departed loved ones, visit the cemetery and say a prayer for them, talk to them. Most of all, listen to them and feel them again.
The Lord Is My Chef Simbang Gabi Recipe, 21 December 2019
Zephaniah 3:14-18 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Luke 1:39-45
Bronze statues of Mary and Elizabeth fronting the Church of the Visitation in Judah; inscriptions on the wall are Mary’s “Magnificat” in different languages including Filipino. Photo by author May 2017.
For most Filipinos, being “blessed” (mapalad) and “lucky” (suwerte) are often used interchangeably because they both mean the same which is being fortunate. And most of the time, we mean blessedness as being endowed with wealth and material things.
Anyone with a stable job or a flourishing career or a growing business with at least a car and a house and lot is always considered as blessed. If you go big time or have made it to the top, then you are most blessed!
Parents who have put all their children through college, especially in expensive and exclusive Catholic schools and universities are also considered blessed in our culture that puts a high premium on education.
For most of us Filipinos, being blessed means to be financially stable and secured with some degrees of fame and accomplishments.
But our gospel today says nothing about these things as being blessed. Fact is, nowhere do we find in the Bible, especially in the gospel accounts where Jesus tells us that financial viability is a blessing. On the contrary, his teachings teem with a lot of moral aspersions against reliance and worship of money and material wealth.
True blessedness is having faith in God, believing that his words would be fulfilled!
Church of the Visitation, the Holy Land. Photo by author May 2017.
Mary set out in those days and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”
Luke 1:39-43, 45
Conversations between women
The Bible rarely records conversations exclusively between women. And even less frequent in the Bible is a conversation between two pregnant women that makes St. Luke’s account of the Visitation unique in itself.
For St. Luke, this encounter and exchange is significant because here are two women who bore a child in the most miraculous manner. Observe that St. Luke never used the word “pregnant” to describe the two women but simply told us that it is obviously the situation of both Elizabeth and Mary.
Exegetes explain St. Luke may have never used the term “pregnant” to emphasize to his readers God’s powerful grace on the two women in bearing a child: Elizabeth in her old age and barrenness and Mary in her youth and virginity.
What is most remarkable here is the way the two women were so “absorbed” in their conversation that one can imagine the “holy ground” they were standing so filled with Divine presence with the Holy Spirit hovering above them as two great souls met to honor God!
Even now if you go on a pilgrimage to the Church of the Visitation in Ein Karem, you can still experience that serenity and joy both women must have experienced on that hallowed ground.
Left painting on the dome is the Visitation while the other at the right is a depiction of how the angel saved St. John the Baptizer with St. Elizabeth from the murder of Holy Innocents ordered by Herod after learning the birth of Jesus Christ. Photo by author, May 2017.
True Blessedness
St. Luke tells us a lot of stories about “blessings” in his gospel account like here at the Visitation.
The most significant of these story of blessings is found in Luke 11:27-28 when Jesus was preaching, “a woman from the crowd called out and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed.’ He replied, ‘Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.'”
And that “blessed one who hears the word of God and observes it” is none other than his own Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the first and par excellence “Doer-of-the-Word” for St. Luke!
Here at the Visitation, Elizabeth became the first human person, a woman, to call Mary “blessed” – the first of many disciples from future generations who will address the Blessed Mother in this manner as proclaimed by Mary herself in her Magnificat, “from now on will all ages call me blessed” (Lk.1:48).
Mary blessedness is primarily due to her faith and trust in God’s word spoken to her by the angel Gabriel. Unlike Zechariah, Mary right away submitted herself to the will of God by asking “how can this be”, indicating her deep faith.
Mary’s faith makes her a model disciple whom we must all imitate in following and believing Jesus Christ our Savior.
Likewise, Elizabeth can also be considered as a model disciple to us all because she believed and recognized the coming of the Christ by calling Mary “the mother of my Lord” (Lk.1:43). And again, holds the distinction as the first person and woman in St. Luke’s gospel to call Jesus “Lord”.
Here we find again the story of the Visitation that true blessedness and holiness is to be filled with God like St. Joseph the other day.
The Immaculate Conception at the Cathedral Basilica in Malolos City. Photo by author, December 2019.
In praise of the women of the world, man’s part-ner
Another beautiful trait of St. Luke’s gospel account is it emphasis on the important roles of women not only in the spread of the Gospel but most especially in the world. He is the first champion of women’s rights, next only to Jesus Christ.
In narrating to us this brief story of the Visitation, we rediscover the beauty and blessedness of womanhood – and that is the celebration of Messianic age. Mary and Elizabeth are great women because of their faith, we now celebrate Advent and Christmas.
They both brought Jesus Christ into the world, something that women always do until now, especially mothers who faithfully teach and form their children to become good and faithful Christians.
Both women are a testament to Isaiah’s portrayal of God as a woman who is like faithful mother:
“Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you.”
Isaiah 49:15
Christmas is a beautiful reminder to us all of the very noble and important role of women in the world that unfortunately many of us, especially men, have continually refused to accept or ignored since the Fall of Adam and Eve.
In Genesis, we find God declaring “let us make man a suitable partner.”
And he created the woman, a part-ner of man, taken from one of his ribs because she is equal in dignity with him, created in the image and likeness of God. In fact, she is the most beautiful of his creation, being the last and most perfect!
During his recent concert in the country, U2’s Bono praised the women and human rights activists in the country, dedicating to them their song “Beautiful Day”.
“Human rights drown out human wrongs, that’s a beautiful day. When sisters around the world go to school with their brothers, that’s a beautiful day. When journalists don’t have to worry about what they write, that’s a beautiful day. When women of the world unite to rewrite history as herstory, that is a beautiful day.”
Bono from news reports
Because of Mary and Elizabeth, we now have that beautiful day of the year, Christmas that led to the most beautiful day of all, Easter.
In a fitting rejoinder to our gospel today, another woman the other day gave us a beautiful day to celebrate justice and democracy in the country when Quezon City RTC Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes convicted Datu Andal Ampatuan Jr. and other members of his influential clan for the murder of 57 people in the Maguindanao massacre that happened ten years ago.
Throughout history, we have seen that it has always been the women who make it happen for us all to have a beautiful day because they are the ones who bring life, who nurture life, who deepen life.
Let us make each day more beautiful by loving and caring always especially for those special women in our lives who have shown us the beauty and meaning of life, beginning with our own mother. Amen.
Monday, Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, 09 December 2019
Genesis 3:9-15, 20 ><}}}*> Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12 ><}}}*> Luke 1:26-38
Every year, O Lord Jesus Christ, we celebrate on your birth month the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of your Most Blessed Mother Mary who was conceived without the stain of original sin.
Until now, many are still confused with this feast especially when our Gospel speaks about the annunciation of your birth, dear Jesus.
Nonetheless, it is the single most important part of your lives both that truly give us a valuable lesson about Mary’s blessedness – later to be expressed by Elizabeth at the visitation, “Blessed is she who believed that the words spoken to hear will be fulfilled”.
Her Immaculate Conception teaches us the importance of faith especially at this time when we face a great crisis in faith in the Church.
And so, we pray to you O Lord for the gift of faith like that of your Mother Mary, a faith that is deeply personal yet communal.
The first is subjective and the second is objective.
Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.
Luke 1:38
Malolos Cathedral, June 2019.
Unlike Eve in the first reading, Mary had always believed in God.
Her faith is a total entrusting of herself to God on a person-to-person relationship. It is subjective faith where emphasis is on believing itself than on what is believed.
However, Mary did not believe in a purely subjective manner as if God is a personal God detached from others and exclusively revealing only himself to her in secret.
Mary’s faith is also objective because when the angel explained everything to her, she believed the good news proclaimed to her is part of the bigger whole, of the coming new covenant, of the fulfillment of the promise of God made to Abraham and the fathers of Israel as she would later express in her Magnificat.
It is only in believing like Mary can we truly give ourselves to you, Jesus, to the Church so that what we believe may truly be fulfilled in us like Mary. Amen.
2 Maccabees 7:1, 20-31 ><)))*> <*(((>< Luke 19:11-28
Candle and ordo in our sacristy, 17 November 2019.
Today’s first reading is very interesting, Lord, especially that part describing the disposition of the mother of the seven Maccabean brothers facing execution:
Filled with a noble spirit that stirred her womanly heart with manly courage, she exhorted each of them in the language of their forefathers…
2 Maccabees 7:21
I really wonder the meaning of “womanly heart with manly courage” but something tells me it is exactly what we need these days.
A womanly heart is a faithful heart, like a mother who would never forsake her child (Is. 49:15). It is a heart willing to bear all pains in life, suffering in silence, totally empty for the beloved and filled with God.
In this age of “instants” where lines are always moved to accommodate our whims and selfish desires, we need a womanly heart that is rooted and inclined to you O God.
Like the mother of the Maccabean brothers, she freely gave up her sons and exhorted them to look more intently to you, God, than to her herself, insisting that in the end, we are all answerable to you alone, O Lord.
Our sacristy table, 17 November 2019.
Manly courage, on the other hand, Lord is perhaps our ability to muster our strength to be truthful about our very selves.
It is something that still pertains to the heart because the word “courage” is from “cor” or heart.
A manly heart is a sincere heart that gallantly accepts one’s limitations than pretend to be somebody else.
In our suffocating world of social media where everybody is blowing out of proportion everything including one’s self, it is very ironic that while everybody claims to be the best, the more our lives are in a mess.
Like those servants in your parable, O Lord, grant us a manly heart so we may graciously accept our role and mission in this life to please you than pretend to be somebody else who really has nothing at all. Amen.
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!
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.
1 Thessalonians 2:1-8 ><)))*> <*(((>< Matthew 23:23-26
How wonderful, O God, that on this feast of the patroness of mothers, St. Monica, the Apostle Paul identified himself as a mother caring the church he founded.
“Rather, we were gentle among you, as a nursing mother cares for her children. With such affection for you, we were determined to share with you not only the Gospel of God, but our very selves as well, so dearly beloved had you become to us.”
1 Thessalonians 2:7-8
Teach us to be like St. Paul in his passion and drive caring for those you have entrusted to us like “a nursing mother who cares for her children”.
But most especially, as we remember St. Monica who embodied true motherhood with her patience and perseverance and undying love for her wayward son St. Augustine, we pray also today for all mothers.
We pray, O Lord, for mothers in their old age, sick and fragile, afraid of the inevitable, feeling alone filled with so many doubts and uncertainties of what is coming, of what is next: give them the firm faith and enlightenment of mind and heart like St. Monica.
We pray for the departed mothers and may you grant them, O Lord, eternal rest and peace in your presence. May they reap the fruits of their hard work here on earth that have caused so much physical and emotional pains for them here on earth.
Photo by Jim Marpa, 2017.
We pray for the many suffering mothers, Lord: those sick with cancer and other diseases; for those who have to suffer and cry in silence due to lack of concern and understanding by their unfaithful husband or ungrateful children; for those mothers who have to leave home to earn decent living abroad, taking care of somebody else’s children while their own children are left home alone.
We pray, O Lord, for the widows who always feel alone and misunderstood by everyone especially by their grown up children, always trying to put up a front that everything is going well so as not to make others worry.
We pray also for mothers who take care of their sick children who suffer twice even thrice seeing their sons and daughters writhing in pain; bless those mothers who have lost their children for various reasons that shattered all their dreams and hopes for a wonderful future.
We pray, Lord, for mothers left behind by their own families and by the society, living on the streets or in some orphanages, unwanted, unloved. We pray also for mothers-in-law especially those “boxed” by their in-laws.
We pray for the young mothers especially the first-timers at a loss at how to care for their babies, for working mothers trying to juggle motherhood and career.
Do not forget also, Lord, the many mothers who have forgotten their children have their own lives to live too, who have wrongly thought they are always right, manipulating their children who eventually were pushed over the cliff and now lost. Help them and their mothers find their way back to you, O Lord, and to each others’ loving arms.
Bless also, O Lord, all the other mothers who are forced to work under unfavorable conditions due to poverty, for mothers languishing in jails especially the innocent ones, for mothers into some other forms of crusades and advocacies nobody cares.
Lastly, we pray for us all children and for the husbands too that we may keep in mind only you, O God, can love perfectly. A mother’s love is always imperfect but no matter how defective it may be, it is the best love she can give. Help us create a room for our mother’s imperfections filled with your divine love that would console them, soothe them, and make them feel they are loved and appreciated. Amen.
St. Monica with her son St. Augustine. She died at the age of 56, always depicted dressed like a nun with a black habit to symbolise her being a widow.
lordmychef.com 