The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Wednesday, Week X, Year II in Ordinary Time, 10 June 2020
1 Kings 18:20-39 ><)))*> ooo + ooo <*(((>< Matthew 5:17-19
View from inside the Old Jerusalem. Photo by author, May 2017.
Jesus said to his disciples: “Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until things have taken place. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven. But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 5:18-19
O Lord Jesus, these are heavy words for things we consider too small, too little that we take them for granted because they do not have much impact unto this big, wide world.
Like the salt you spoke of yesterday when a dash or a pinch can bring out a burst of flavors from food or a taste that can awaken us.
So many times in our lives, we forget the reality that great things always start with small beginnings.
That people who can be trusted with little things can be trusted with great things; and people who cannot be trusted with small things cannot be trusted too with bigger things.
Forgive us, Jesus, when we tend to look into the size and amount and number as bases for our decision and choices in life, when we continue to hold on to the belief the bigger is always better, the more the merrier.
But you, O Lord, are so different: you chose to be small being born as an infant, waiting for 30 years before coming out in public, having only a band of 12 followers who were practically a nobody in the society then, choosing an unleavened bread and ordinary grape wine as signs of your presence and eternal covenant for all time.
And here we are, like the Israelites of the time of Elijah who chose to to be quiet and doubt you because you only had one, old prophet; but when they his saw many counterparts of Baal, they all rooted for the false god whose only edge was number.
Elijah appealed to the people and said, “How long will you straddle the issue? If the Lord is God, follow him; if Baal, follow him.” The people, however, did not answer him. So Elijah said to the people, “I am the only surviving prophets of the Lord, and there are four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal. Give us two young bulls. Let them choose one, cut it into pieces, and place it on the wood, but start no fire. I shall prepare the other and place it on the wood, but shall start no fire. You shall call on your gods, and I will call on the Lord. The God who answers with fire is God.” All the people answered, “Agreed!”
1 Kings 18:21-24
Please forgive us, Jesus, when we would rather go and accept whatever is popular, trending and viral, when we are so concerned with more likes and followers, with whatever is more and bigger without realizing you are so great because you are so small with a little voice so you can dwell inside our hearts.
Let us value whatever is little and small, uphold whatever is tiny and minute because most often you are there with most power. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Tuesday, Week X, Year II in Ordinary Time, 09 June 2020
1 Kings 17:7-16 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Matthew 5:13-16
“Tiangge” in Carigara, Leyte; photo by Mr. Jim Marpa, 2019.
When this pandemic struck us and kept us home for two months, Lord, you never failed to bless us with food on our tables. It does not really matter whatever was served but the most important thing is how we have shared meals with family and friends, even with strangers.
And what makes food so glorious and wonderful, Lord, is not merely the food itself, be it meat or poultry, vegetables or fish but the things we take for granted like the people who prepared and gathered together, and not to forget, ingredients that bring out the flavor like the lowly salt.
Jesus said to his disciples: “You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”
Matthew 5:13
Like the food we prepare and share, we are good in ourselves because of you, Lord.
But our real goodness comes out when we become kind and generous with others, even a single smile or a pat on a shoulder of someone else can always make a world of difference. Indeed, a small deed is better than the best intention.
Like that widow at Zarephath of Sidon who was so kind and generous enough first to give your prophet Elijah some water and later with a bit of bread.
And you rewarded her kindness with overflowing goodness:
She was able to eat for a year, and Elijah and her son as well; the jar of flour did not go empty, nor the jug of oil run dry, as the Lord had foretold through Elijah.
1 Kings 17:15-16
Teach us, O Lord, to be generous like St. Ignatius of Loyola and make life here on earth more flavorful with just a pinch of salt.
Dearest Lord, teach me to be generous, teach me to serve you as you deserve. To give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labor and not to seek reward, except that of knowing that I do your most holy will. Amen.
Photo by author, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Monastery, Guiguinto, Bulacan, 2019.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Monday, Week X, Year II of Ordinary Time, 08 June 2020
1 Kings 17:7-16 <*(((>< + ><)))*> Matthew 5:1-12
Mount Sinai range at sunrise, May 2019. Photo by author.
Your words today Lord brought memories of childhood when I would always look up to the mountains, wondering what is up there or how wonderful it must be up there.
As I grew up, that fascination with the mountains remained until I had the chance to climb some of them and learned one very valuable lesson: it is so nice to be up on the mountain but always difficult.
One has to pour in a lot of planning and preparations, most of all, more sacrifices.
There is always that inverse proportionality when it can take so much efforts to ascend, always painstaking while every descent is always less than half the time and energy.
Most of all, every ascent to the mountain calls for trust, a great deal of trust in you, Lord, because anything can happen. In fact, one has to always expect the unexpected when ascending a mountain.
But rewards are so great and the feeling is always liberating and free.
Mt. St. Paul Spirituality Center, La Trinidad, Benguet, 2018 photo by author.
Teach me, Lord, to be like your Prophet Elijah, to always dare to climb mountains, to rely on your providence for water to drink and food to eat because more than these is the nourishment you provide for the soul and being of anyone willing to come near you.
Like your disciples and the crowd who followed you, Jesus, bless me with courage and trust to follow you up every mountain, listening and following your teachings.
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 5:1-4
How blessed indeed, O Lord, to be high up on the mountain with you for heaven is no longer that far, so reachable with you — especially when beside your holy Cross. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, Cycle A, 07 June 2020
Exodus 34:4-6, 8-9 ><)))*> 2 Corinthians 13:11-13 ><)))*> John 3:16-18
Our empty church at the height of the lockdown in March-April 2020.
Two young ladies attended our 4:00 PM Mass last Sunday. Just before the Lamb of God, the other lady collapsed and fell on the floor. Thank God she suffered no injury; later after the Mass I checked on her to see if she was sick or maybe hungry that caused her to collapse.
She said she could find no other reason for feeling dizzy and later collapsing except that they have walked two kilometers from their home under the intense heat of the sun that afternoon to celebrate Mass in the parish. She added that sometimes they also ran so as not to be late.
Then, they told me something that really touched me and broke my heart: “sawa na po kami magsimba sa Facebook Live kaya po kami nagpunta sa Parokya para magsimba” (we are fed up joining Facebook Live Masses that we decided to celebrate Mass at the parish).
As I prayed this week, reflecting on this Solemnity of the Holy Trinity, that story from my two parishioners kept on echoing in my head because that is the reality of God in the Holy Trinity: a God who loves because he keeps on giving, without taking anything in return.
The reality of God in the Holy Trinity
Beginning this Sunday as we resumed Ordinary Time in the liturgy, we are celebrating three solemnities successively: Trinity today, Body and Blood of Christ or Corpus Christi next Sunday and Friday after that, the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.
In a sense, these three solemnities remind us that God is with us always; hence, on this Sunday as we celebrate his being God in three Persons, he is also telling us to “get real” with him especially in this age of virtual realities and media manipulations.
Getting real with God is like my two parishioners who walked two kilometers under the sun just to celebrate Mass in the parish because they were fed up with online Masses that cannot capture entirely the experience of God in an actual Mass.
Photo by Ezra Acayan/Getty Images, Baclaran Church, 09 February 2020.
When we come to think of it, God does not need to prove himself to us. He simply shows us himself. That is why those two parishioners were willing to sacrifice walking two kilometers because they must have received something, must have experienced something from this God who is so personal, relating and so real that they wanted to experience him personally in the actual Mass.
The same must be true with us all who miss going to actual Masses, who continue to pray at home.
Why do we pray, why do we praise God, why do we ask him for mercy and forgiveness for our sins, why do we ask him for so many things, and the list can go on with one essential question: why do we come to God?
Is it not because he comes first to us? He makes himself known to us by giving himself to us, showering us with many blessings both material and spiritual, surprising us with so many wonderful things and sights like sunset and nature that we praise him? Most of all, he is so kind and loving that we feel sorry when we are mean with others, when we choose to do wrong, when we are not that good like him?
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.
John 3:16
That is the essence of God, a personal and relating God who gives everything because he loves us. Only God can adequately “speak” of him to show us he exists in ways so marvelous we cannot even dissect yet jump into conclusion right away that “it is the Lord!” like Peter in Lake Tiberias.
When we speak of a Trinity, of Persons, we speak of relationships that presuppose giving and loving. That is God in himself that he poured out this love in him by first creating everything (Father), then giving us his Son to save us after we have turned away from him, and to ensure that we never get lost again and find our way back to him, gave us the Holy Spirit as Advocate and Counselor.
Here we find God is more than a concept or an abstract and structure in our minds that we have construed or created. He has always been there. He has no need of proving himself to us, unlike us who always have to prove ourselves with others.
God is the giver and the gift himself because he is perfect and complete unlike us who can only give gifts and things as representations of our very selves.
And there lies more the mystery of the Holy Trinity — in his being both the gift and the giver, God remains perfect and one even if he keeps on giving and giving without taking anything for himself, a mystery he shares with us by asking us to be like him in giving so we would remain full like him.
Photo by Mr. Jim Marpa at Carigara, Leyte, 2019.
Something’s got to give
This mystery of the Trinity, of a relationship of persons that only gives yet never depleted or exhausted reveals to us what we must can and must always do as created image of the loving God.
Time and time again we have proven in history and in ourselves that it is only in giving when we truly receive, when we are truly human, truly loving.
This pandemic is telling us in no uncertain ways that our lifestyle of having and gaining has led us to more wanting and more wasting, more destruction and more separation.
God is telling us in the midst of this pandemic that we get real — learn to give and forgive, to let go and let God!
We are all linked together as one, a community of beloved, saved and forgiven though imperfect and sinful. On Mount Sinai Moses saw for himself this God giving everything despite his people being so stubborn, that he asked God to accompany them in their journey.
Since then God has always accompanied us in our journey in life though we always turn away from him, wandering off in the wilderness, following other paths that we end up more lost, more tired.
What are we willing to give up in this life to experience fullness in God and with others?
Getting real is giving up ourselves so we may be filled by God so we may experience life’s fullness in him and in our relationships with others and even with nature. Amen.
Our closed church but open hearts willing to give, willing to sacrifice will enable us to go through this crisis, more complete, more fulfilled.
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