“So Far Away” by Carole King (1971)

LordMyChefSundayMusic//Week XXX-B//28 October 2018

Jesus Calls Us In Our Blindness

Our LordMyChefSundayMusic is for all the Bartimaeus shouting and longing for love and attention. Today’s gospel tells us the story of the blind Bartimaeus who was a beggar at the roadside of Jericho. When he heard Jesus passing by, he began to cry out to Him, saying“Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!” And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he kept calling out all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me!” Jesus stopped, called him and eventually healed him. He then followed Jesus to Jerusalem.

The story of Bartimaeus happens daily in our lives, in our modern Jericho when we are blinded by so many things that we forget the people around us who merely want to be loved and cared for, asking for just a little attention or smile from us. Listening closely to the sad but warm melody of Carole King’s “So Far Away” we also find the same situation of Bartimaeus: the emotional distance between lovers, among people that is more painful than physical distance. Like Bartimaeus, we sometimes feel to be so near yet so far from others because they refuse to “see” us as another person.

This Sunday Jesus is assuring us that unlike most lovers or people in general, He is never far away from us for He always comes to stop by our side to comfort us with our afflictions including our many blindness that prevent us from seeing the more essential things in life like love, kindness, and simple joys of being alive. Be a Jesus to the many Bartimaeus around, especially those nearest to us at home or the family.

So far away
Doesn’t anybody stay in one place any more?
It would be so fine to see your face at my door
It doesn’t help to know you’re just time away
Long ago I reached for you and there you stood
Holding you again could only do me good
Oh how I wish I could but you’re so far away

*Photo from Google.

“Guantanamera” Recorded by Pete Seeger (1963)

LordMyChefSundayMusic//Week XXIX-B//21October2018

Jesus is a Radical

This song is my earliest lesson on the universality of music: I was in elementary when I first heard it played by my elders totally ignorant of its lyrics and meaning except that the melody is so lovely, so moving. The music had stayed on with me since then and how glad to finally have it as our Sunday Music after mentioning Che Guevarra in my homily (https://lordmychef.wordpress.com/2018/10/20/jesus-is-a-radical/).

“Guantanamera” as a song was first recorded and popularized in 1929 by Cuban singer Joseito Fernandez. Its lyrics were based on the poem by Cuban poet Jose Marti that eventually became a patriotic song in Cuba. In 1963, the late American folk singer and social activist Pete Seeger recorded it during the Cuban Missile Crisis, eventually becoming a staple in the protest and peace movements of that time into the early ‘70’s. The song speaks well about the radical kind of love and service Jesus asks us in today’s gospel. It is actually the heartaches of a “truthful man” in Guantanamo, Cuba who was deeply hurt at how powerful and rich countries have destroyed his lovely native land. But despite these, he still offered peace and goodwill, a “white rose”.

And for the cruel one who would tear out

This heart with which I live.

I cultivate neither thistles nor nettles

I cultivate a white rose.

Guantanamera, guajira guantanamera

I know about a fatal evil

Among the unspeakable shames:

The enslavement of human beings

Is the great shame of the world!

Guantanamera, guajira guantanamera

With the poor people of this earth,

I want to share my lot.

With the poor people of this earth,

I want to share my lot.

The little streams of the mountains

Please me more than the sea.

Guantanamera, guajira guantanamera

*Photo from Google, Pope Francis celebrating Mass in Havana during his pastoral visit there in 2015.

https://youtu.be/h0gg3-xvMB0

“These Eyes” by The Guess Who (1969)

grayscale photo of jesus christ — Photo by Alem Sánchez on Pexels.com

LordMyChefSundayMusic//Week XXVIII-B//14October2018

Something’s Gotta Give

Mark tells us something so beautiful about the scene in today’s gospel when a man approached Jesus to ask him what he must do to inherit eternal life. After being told to obey the commandments, the man told Jesus he had kept all these since his youth. Then, Mark tells us how Jesus looked at him, loved him and said to him, “You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven, then come follow me.” At that statement his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions. (Mk.10:21-22)

So many times in our lives it also happens that Jesus along with our loved ones would always look at us with eyes full of love, telling us to do something but we refuse due to our foolish pride. So many times when Jesus and our loved ones give us the look of love, our faces also fall like that man in the gospel and we go away sad because we could not let go of things and people we feel more valuable than them. And for those occasions when we could not look straight into the eyes of Jesus and our loved ones filled with love, here is our LordMyChef Sunday Music from The Guess Who’s classic “These Eyes” released in 1969. The music and the lyrics, especially the vocals all make this so evocative that if I would make a movie about Jesus Christ, this song would definitely be a part of the soundtrack. Happy listening and a blessed Sunday!

These eyes, cry every night for you
These arms, long to hold you again
The hurtings on me, yeah
I will never be free, no, my baby, no no
You gave a promise to me, yeah
And you broke it, and you broke it, oh no
These eyes watched you bring my world to an end
This heart could not accept and pretend
The hurtings on me, yeah
I will never be free, no, no, no
You took the vow with me, yeah
And you spoke it, and you spoke it, babe……..

https://youtu.be/QKu-wVEPa2I

“Get Back” by The Beatles (1969)

LordMyChefSundayMusic//Week XXVII-B//07October2018

Get Back to Whom We All Belong, God

As I have told you in my earlier blog of how I have lately been feeling nostalgic of so many things with an urge to get back to the past, to the people and places and other fond memories including music (https://lordmychef.wordpress.com/2018/10/06/get-back-to-whom-we-all-belong-god/). Maybe that is the usual route we take in this journey in life when we get back to everything and everyone in our lives so that we could get back inside our hearts to finally get back to God in the end. It is not being morbid but simply being true. Anyone who had lived half a century probably realize this too when we suddenly feel missing so many things in life as we have been so focused with our many pursuits in life. And that is when we begin to slow down, to feel everything in life, rediscovering the beauty of prayer, silence, and stillness. When we get back to our inner self, we also get back to God and that is when we get back right on track with life again. Sometimes the key is to stop thinking so much and to start feeling more to understand more (https://lordmychef.wordpress.com/2018/10/05/knowing-too-much-understanding-too-little/).

Next to God and prayer, music has always been my most faithful companion in life. It just happens during and after meditations, a song or a tune would suddenly pop inside my mind and would keep playing in there for a few days that I have often incorporated them in my homilies and reflections. Just like our LordMyChefSundayMusic today which I have chosen to be the title of my Sunday homily. From the Beatles’ 1969 hit “Get Back” that became the closing track of their 1970 album Let It Be before they split, let’s rock n’ roll! Amen!!!

Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner

But he knew it wouldn’t last

Jojo left his home in Tucson, Arizona

For some California grass

Get back, get back
Get back to where you once belonged
Get back, get back
Get back to where you once belonged
Get back Jojo, go home

Get back, get back
Back to where you once belonged
Get back, get back
Back to where you once belonged
Get back Jo

Sweet Loretta Martin thought she was a woman

But she was another man

All the girls around her say she’s got it coming

But she gets it while she can

Get back, get back
Get back to where you once belonged
Get back, get back
Get back to where you once belonged
Get back Loretta, go home

Get back, get back
Get back to where you once belonged
Get back, get back
Get back to where you once belonged

Get back, get back
Get back to where you once belonged
Get back, get back, get back

“Caravan of Love” Performed by Daryl Hall and Friends at Live from Daryl’s House (2010)

LordMyChefSundayMusic//Week XXVI-B//30September2018

Discipleship, Not Membership

Sorry for the delay in our LordMyChefSunday music due to toxic schedules… after all it is still a Sunday with enough room to enjoy our beautiful choice: “Caravan of Love” performed by Daryl Hall and his friends at his award-winning online show Live From Daryl’s House. Daryl reunites with his longtime buddy and partner John Oates in this special show as tribute to the late musician T-Bone Wolke who suddenly died that year. Composed and originally performed by the Isley Brothers in 1985, Caravan of Love perfectly fits our gospel this Sunday wherein we reflected on the importance of discipleship than membership. The song invites everyone, regardless of color and creed to join a caravan of love where there is respect and kindness among everyone. What is the use of claiming to be Christian or whatever if you do not practice justice and charity? For Jesus, what really matters is how much we love each other as brother and sister….

Are you ready, are you ready?
Are you ready, are you ready?
Are you ready for the time of your life?
It’s time to stand up and fight
It’s alright it’s alright
Hand in hand we take a caravan to the motherland
One by one we gonna stand up with pride
One that can’t be denied
Stand up, stand up
From the highest mountain, valley low
We’ll all join together with hearts of gold
Now the children of the world can see
There’s a better place for us to be
The place in which we were born
So neglected and torn apart

Every woman every man
Join the caravan of love
(Stand up) stand up
Stand up
Everybody take a stand
Join the caravan of love
(Stand up) stand up
Stand up

I’m your brother
I’m your brother don’t you know
She’s my sister
She’s my…

Photo from Google.

“That’s The Way of the World” by Earth, Wind and Fire (1975)

LordMyChefSundayMusic//Week XXV-B//23September2018

The Way of the World Vs. The Way of the Lord

For our Sunday music today, we take the title track from the sixth studio album of the renowned group Earth, Wind and Fire“That’s The Way of the World” released in March 15, 1975. It is also the soundtrack of the movie of the same title at that time. EWF’s “That’s the Way of the World” hits the inner chords of our souls that perfectly fits the Sunday gospel where Jesus identified Himself with a child to show us how our relationship with children (and women) also reflect our relationship with God: “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.” (Mk.9:37)

Childhood is a value in itself, the most pristine image of holiness, of God! When we go back in the gospels and see the teachings of Jesus Christ, we always find His constant reference to children and to childhood, warning us not to lead them into sin because their angels are always guarding them (Mt.18:1-10). It is plain and simple that anyone who abuses and molests children and women are not of God. And that is the problem we have always have in the way of the world in relating with children, contrary to the way of the Lord which is to becoming like a little child (Mt.18:3). EWF captures in their song this problem lost in our insistence of being “adults”.

Hearts of fire creates love desire
Take you high and higher to the world you belong
Hearts of fire creates love desire
High and higher to your place on the throne

We come together on this special day
Sing our message loud and clear
Looking back, we’ve touched on sorrowful days
Future pass, they disappear
You will find peace of mind
If you look way down in your heart and soul
Don’t hesitate ’cause the world seems cold
Stay young at heart, ’cause you’re never, never old

That’s the way of the world
Plant your flower and you grow a pearl
Child is born with a heart of gold
Way of the world makes his heart so cold

Hearts of fire create love desire take you
High and higher to the world you belong
Hearts of fire love desire
High and higher, yeah yeah yeah
Hearts of fire love desire

Ahh higher

*Photo courtesy of Mr. Raffy Tima of GMA News taken at Batanes a day before typhoon Ompong hit the country Sept. 14, 2018. Used with permission.

“Good Times” by Bobbi Humphprey (1978)

LordMyChefSundayMusic//Week XXIII-B//16September2018

Realizing Who Jesus Is

We rejoice this Sunday that Super Typhoon Ompong is finally out of our country, hoping and praying that it would have not caused so much casualties and damages in areas it directly hit yesterday. As we start the brand new week overcoming so many storms in life, here is American jazz artist Bobbi Humphrey’s “Good Times” from her 1978 album Freestyle to soothe your soul, supporting our Sunday reflection on realizing who Jesus is. It is only through His Cross can we truly realize and know who Jesus Christ is because it was there where He not only revealed Himself to us but also made us experience God’s immense love for us. By suffering and dying on the Cross, Jesus did not remove but joined us in our pains and difficulties in life so that we may be one with Him in His glorious Resurrection. In our relationships with others, it is only during hard times that we truly get to know who our friends are, who really love us because they are the ones willing to suffer with us and even suffer for us so we could have “good times” as Bobbi tells us in her lovely, jazzy song. .

You and I have traveled life’s uncharted courses

We’ve been tossed around at many times on dark and stormy seas

But now the clouds are parting and the sun is shining through

It feels so good to know… you’re here with me,

To share the Good Times, that we waited for so long

I know the Good Times, will prove we weren’t wrong

To hold on to the dreams of how we knew it could be

We worked so hard at easin’ all the pain and misery

Until the Good Times had come ‘round for you and me

And now they’re here, now they’re here

I remember all the hard times when there wasn’t much to eat

And the longest coldest winter, when we didn’t have much heat

But we had all we needed with love enough to spare

Cause more than money we had what I knew would get us here

Bridge: We fought and won each battle that we had to fight

Made it through the darkness when we couldn’t see the light

And deep inside I guess we always knew that we were right

To try and catch that star….’cause baby here we are. (Let’s share Good Times…. )

“Take A Little Rhythm” by Ali Thomson (1980)

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music//Week XXIII-B//09September2018

Opening To God

Our gospel today tells us a beautiful story of a healing of a deaf-mute by Jesus Christ. It is something that had hit me so close during our Mass this morning when one of the young people near our altar is a deaf-mute too. He has been coming to our Eucharistic celebrations for about a year with his parents and elder sister. I recently had a chance to talk to him when they came early for the Mass, inviting him to be an altar server when his parents interjected and told me about his condition. I felt his sadness as he looked at his parents telling me his condition; and to cheer him up, I tried using hand signals to ask him if he might still want to become a sacristan as we are willing to make necessary adjustments for him. During our Mass this morning when I saw him, I used some sign languages while delivering my homily so he could follow our reflections. And I felt so blessed when I saw him smiled, as if telling me, he had understood my homily even a little.

Unlike the blind, people with hearing disabilities are often left unnoticed if not ignored unless we are told or we discover their condition. For our Sunday music, we pray for those with hearing disabilities as we thank God for the gift of hearing. Here is Scottish singer-songwriter Ali Thomson with his 1980 hit “Take a Little Rhythm”, a feel good music, inviting us like Jesus in the gospel to be opened especially to those with hearing disabilities.Fr.NicanorF.LalogII,ParokyaNgSanJuanApostolAtEbanghelista, Gov.F.HaliliAve.,Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan. (Photo by author, Mines View Park, Baguio City, 17 January 2018.)

“You’re In My Heart” by Rod Stewart (1977)

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music//Week XXII-B//02September2018

Cross My Heart

Today’s gospel invites us to examine our hearts because as Jesus Christ told the people of His time and us today, “Nothing enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile. From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile.” (Mk.7: 17,21-22)

There was only one song that I kept on hearing at the back of my mind while reflecting on the Lord’s teaching: Rod Stewart’s “You’re In My Heart”. I was in elementary school when this song came in 1977 that perfectly expressed my feelings with the only “crush” I had from Grade 1 to Grade 6. Now that I am a priest and still very much in love – with Jesus Christ! – I still find this song very relevant, of how a love that is true and noble inside one’s heart could inspire anyone to change ways to become a better person!

I took all those habits of yours

That in the beginning were hard to accept

Your fashion sense, Beardsly prints

I put down to experience

The big bosomed lady with the Dutch accent

Who tried to change my point of view

Her ad lib lines were well rehearsed

But my heart cried out for you

Chorus: You’re in my heart, you’re in my soul

You’ll be my breath should I grow old

You are my lover, you’re my best friend

You’re in my soul

My love for you is immeasurable

My respect for you immense

You’re ageless, timeless, lace and fineness

You’re beauty and elegance

You’re a rhapsody, a comedy

You’re a symphony and a play

You’re every love song ever written

But honey what do you see in me [Chorus:]

You’re an essay in glamour

Please pardon the grammar

But you’re every schoolboy’s dream

You’re Celtic, United, but baby I’ve decided

You’re the best team I’ve ever seen…

https://youtu.be/v1qxJPzjObI

“Let’s Stay Together” by Al Green (1971)

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music//Week XXI-B//26 August 2018

Words That Heal, Words Of Eternal Life

Today we conclude the “bread of life discourse” by Jesus Christ found in the sixth chapter of John’s gospel. The people who have followed Him four Sundays ago after the miraculous feeding of more than 5000 abandon Him after being disillusioned with His claims that He is “the bread who came down from heaven…that the food He would give is His flesh and the drink He would give is His blood.” Only the Twelve Apostles would stay with Jesus.

Sometimes in life, we get disillusioned with people, with organizations and institutions including the Church, and even with God Himself. And it is always easy to leave, to resign when we are disillusioned. Here is Al Green with his classic “Let’s Stay Together” to soothe you and give you more reasons to remain with your loved ones despite the pains and hurts in life. The music is soooo good that it is worth listening to the other versions of this Motown classic. Sing – and dance – if you want to enjoy. Most of all, remain in Jesus.