Category: Music/Spirituality

Every Kinda People

amorsoloharvesting
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Prayer-Recipe, Tuesday
10 July 2018, Week-14/Year-2 Ordinary Time
Hosea 8:4-7, 11-13///Matthew 9:32-38 

            How easy for us Lord to always pray like the psalmist that we trust in You but, in reality we rely more with our very selves and with material things!  Like what You told Hosea in the first reading, “we make kings not by Your authority and we make princes without Your approval (Hos.8:4)” for we are so self-centered.

            Most of the time, we forget that what we really need here on earth are people – persons like each one of us with equal dignity created in Your image and likeness who must be respected regardless of creed and color.  Whenever something good happens with our brethren like when Jesus healed a demoniac in today’s gospel, we are like those people of His time who were either struck in awe or doubtful and suspicious without realizing that You come to us with every person who loves and cares for the sick and the poor.

            Move and stir our hearts, let us be merciful like Jesus Christ who said “the harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”(Mt.9:37-38)  Teach us to stop praying for more things and start praying for brothers and sisters capable of loving and caring for one another.  AMEN. Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II,Parokya ni San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria,Bulacan 3022.  Photo from Google.

Pray this with the late Robert Palmer’s “Every Kinda People”, have breakfast and be kind with everyone you meet today.

“You Are Everything” by Marvin Gaye with Diana Ross (1973)

seeinglove
Photo from Google.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music
Week XIV-B, 08 July 2018
Recognizing Jesus

            In my homily today I have mentioned that “people took offense at Jesus for they lacked faith because they do not love Him…  To believe in Jesus, like with any person, demands love.  When we truly love a person including Jesus, our eyes are always opened, recognizing them even in their shadows or footsteps.  When we truly love anyone, there is no need to see because in our hearts, that person is already present in us.”

            In fact, we would never even see the one we truly love because they are already in eternity like Jesus and our dearly departed.  But even if we do not see them, we truly recognize them because we love.  That explains why so often, we thought we “see” the ones we love.  Loving, believing, seeing and recognizing are all interconnected; when there is a breakdown in our love, we stop believing, we become unfaithful as we fail to recognize our beloved.  That is when we also sin.  And that is the pain of not being seen and recognized by those closest to us like our family and friends because they refuse to love us in return.  But even if it happens, just keep on loving and believing because in Jesus, we are His everything.  Miracles can only happen and joy would start to overflow when we love, believe, and recognize Jesus in Himself and in others.

Today I saw somebody
Who looked just like you
He walked like you do
I thought it was you
As he turned the corner
I called out your name
I felt so ashamed
When it wasn’t you
Wasn’t you.
 
You are everything
And everything is you
Oh you are everything
And everything is you
‘Cause you are everything
And everything is you.
 
How can I forget
When each face that I see
Brings back memories
Of being with you
I just can’t go on
Living life as I do
Comparing each girl with you
Knowing they just won’t do
They’re not you.

“He Touches Me” by Lisa Stansfield (2004)

touchedbyjesus
Photo from Google.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music
Week XIII-B, 01 July 2018

            When I was still teaching at our diocesan school for girls in Malolos City (ICSM-Metropolis), one of the things I used to tell my students was to never be fooled by a man’s looks and “porma”.  Always look for a man who would truly love you, respect you, care and protect you.  Find a man who really touches you as a person, as a woman.          

He don’t bring me anything but love
He don’t bring me anything but love
If you offered me the stars I would decline
I don’t need ’em I got mine
I don’t know where to start
But I know what’s in my heart
So keep your silver and your gold ’cause I got my man to have and hold

            For this Sunday Music by Lisa Stansfield, imagine that man is Jesus touching you, touching each one of us.  Touching Jesus and being touched by Jesus is always a step into an intimate relationship with Him that calls for faith in us.  But we should not stop at simply touching Jesus – let us be touched by Jesus too!  When we allow Jesus to touch us, then we get in touch also with our true selves.  And when we are in touch with God and with our self, we get in touch with life’s realities and most especially in touch with others.  That is when we are transformed because Jesus had touched us.

No poetry, no diamond ring
No song to sing
He don’t bring me flowers, oh no
But he touches me, he touches me
No crazy dreams, no limousines
He makes me feel I can do anything
And that’s power, oh yeah
When he touches me, he touches me

             In this age when our communications and interactions are always mediated by gadgets and things, we have forgotten the power and impact of personal touch.  What really matters in this life are not only what we can touch like things but those who touch us like family and friends, persons who love and care for us, persons who make us whole. Enjoy Sunday!
I know they’ll say I’m crazy letting you go
Of a man like you
Who seems to have it all
But they don’t see what I see
No, they don’t feel like me
And even…
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“Wichita Lineman” by Glen Campbell (1968)

sunset-lineman-260nw-193705
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music
Week XI-B, 17 June 2018
Father’s Day

            I know.  Our LordMyChefSundayRecipe for today is titled “Sowing the Seeds of Love” from the 1989 hit by Tears for Fears.  But even before I have written that, I already had “Wichita Lineman” in my head as our Sunday Music on this Father’s Day because it best describes every father including me.  Even in this age of wireless communications, people are still essential to enable the proper function of technology that connects people with one another.  There would always be a “lineman” to ensure connectivity.

I am a lineman for the county and I drive the main road
Searchin’ in the sun for another overload
I hear you singin’ in the wire, I can hear you through the whine
And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line.
 
            Every dad, every priest is a lineman, trying to connect people with others and with God.  One of the earliest seeds of my vocation was actually planted by my father without him knowing it.  Even I did not realize it only later in life.  Every morning before leaving for office, I always woke up seeing him in front of our “Cristo Rey” praying.  Upon arrival from work before we would pray the Angelus in front of our grotto, dad would be in front of Cristo Rey again praying.  Until his retirement, he never failed to pray in front of our altar at home.  And now he is gone, I could still feel him praying for me and the family.  Maybe, that is the reason why most fathers die ahead of mothers:  they are the first to go beyond life, to link us with this world and the next world.  They never stop connecting us because a father is always a “lineman”.
I know I need a small vacation but it don’t look like rain
And if it snows that stretch down south won’t ever stand the strain
And I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time
And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line.
 
            Real fatherhood is 24/7, thinking more of the children than one’s self.  Above all, it is keeping the lifeline open, near or far, all the time because of love.  Hail to all the dads and Rev. Fathers here and above us in heaven.  Amen. Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Parokya ni San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan 3022
Photo from Google.