Category: people

Lamenting in time of quarantine

Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 03 May 2020
Photo by author, Parokya ni San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Bagbaguin, Santa Maria, Bulacan. April 2020.

Against the advice of good friends, I went out to distribute Holy Communion in the streets to some parishioners who have participated in our Sunday Mass early this morning at Facebook Live.

I know the risks involved despite our best efforts in having all the precautionary measures but, what convinced me to go on with it is a beautiful Psalm so appropriate during this quarantine period.

As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God.

My being thirsts for God, the living God. When can I go and see the face of God?

Psalm 42:2-3
Photo from Reddit.

Sometime in March, I had some blues when I came across a reflection in one of the blogs I follow that soothed me like a gentle caress from God himself that I began praying Psalm 42 again (https://prodigalthought.net/2020/03/02/lament-in-silence/#comments).

And when our quarantine period was extended for the second time before the end of Holy Week last month, I began praying again Psalm 42 every night for that is when I truly long for God so much, most of the time lamenting to him our situation, my condition of being alone in my rectory.

This is the first time I felt like this, so different from those so-called “desolation” or “dryness” because I could feel God present in my prayers but… he is not “fresh”.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Like the deer longing for streams of water, my soul longs for God too.

Not just like the water we buy from a filling station but exactly what the deer yearns for — fresh water that is refreshingly cool not only on your face but deep into your body when sipped amid the burbling sounds of the spring, babbling through rocks and branches of trees with the loamy aroma of earth adding a dash of freshness in you.

Admittedly, sometimes I wonder if I still know how to pray or if I still pray at all!

I can feel God present but he is like someone stacked there in my mind, in my memory, in my ideas shaped by my years of learning and praying.

What I am longing for is a God so alive, so true not only in me but also in another person.

And that is when I realized, most likely, my parishioners must be longing for God too in the same way — the God we all come to meet and celebrate with every Sunday in our little parish, among the people present who are so alive, so vibrant, so true, so touching.

Our empty church since March due to COVID-19.

Psalm 42 is believed to have been sang by David when he was prevented from coming to the tent of God either during the reign of King Saul who plotted to kill him or during the revolt of his own son Absalom when he was already the king of Israel.

Like David or the psalmist, I miss celebrating Mass with my parishioners.

And maybe it is safe to assume that two or three of my parishioners are also feeling the same way with me and David, saying these to the Lord:

My tears have been my food day and night, as they ask daily, “Where is your God?”

Those times I recall as I pour out my soul,

When I went in procession with the crowd, I went with them to the house of God,

Amid loud cries of thanksgiving, with the multitude keeping festival.

Psalm 42:4-5

If there is one very essential thing this pandemic has brought back to us in our very busy lives, it is most certainly God. And if ever this is one thing people need most in this time of corona virus, it is spiritual guidance and nourishment from God through his priests.

Of course, people can pray and talk to God straight as the Pope had reminded us before Holy Week.

But, human as we are, we always experience God and his love, his kindness, his mercy, his presence among other people who guide us and join us in our spiritual journey. They are special people like friends or relatives or pastors with whom they can be themselves, let off some steam, get some rays of light of hope and encouragement.

And that this is why I try to keep in touch with my parishioners in various ways in this time of corona: even I myself can feel so low and dark despite my prayers and very condition of living right here in the house of God who can still feel alone and desolate, even depressed.

If I – a priest – go through all these uncertainties and doubts this in this time of quarantine, how much more are the people, the beloved sheep of Jesus the Good Shepherd?

Why are you downcast, my soul; why do you groan within me?

Wait for God, whom I shall praise again, my savior and my God.

Psalm 42:6
Photo by Ms. Ria De Vera, 10 April 2020.

After our Mass this morning when we set out to distribute the Holy Communion, there was a little drizzle. It did not last long that I just wore a hat and left my umbrella in the rectory.

There were about 30 people who waited for us to receive Holy Communion, most of them along the main highway that stretched to about 2 kilometers. Some families gathered with a little altar at their front gate while a waited a couple waited in a gas station along our route.

In less than 20 minutes, we have completed our mission and as we headed back to the parish, the rains fell again, this time stronger than before.

My driver commented, “The weather cooperated with us, Father”1

I just nodded my head to him inside his tricycle but deep inside me, I felt joy because God answered my prayer, my lamentations for he was crying too, – for me and his people.

May this lamentation be an answer to your lamentations during this pandemic of COVID-19.

Continue with your lamentations to God our Father for this very act of crying out to him is the working of the Holy Spirit he had sent us through our Lord Christ Jesus. Amen.

Photo by Ms. Ria De Vera, 26 April 2020.

Looking up to heaven, looking down within us for God

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul, Friday, Easter Week-II, 24 April 2020

Acts of the Apostles 5:34-42 ><)))*> + 0 + <*(((>< John 6:1-15

Photo by Ms. Jo Villafuerte, Atok, Benguet, September 2019.

Praise and glory to you, O God our loving Father in heaven!

I have been taught since childhood that you dwell up in the sky and that is why like all the others, I always point up to you whenever we refer to your dwelling place, O God.

And I am certain, too, that you are indeed up there that every time we wake up, every time we feel happy or troubled, we always glance upwards like praying to you, calling to you, and looking for you.

Indeed, Gamaliel was absolutely correct when he cautioned his fellow Pharisees in the first reading to remind us too of this certainty:

“Fellow children of Israel, be careful what you are about to do to these men… But if it comes from God, you will not be able to destroy them; you may even find yourselves fighting against God.”

Acts 5:35, 39

Give us the gift of discernment of your Holy Will, Father, that we may always know what to do, that we may always decide according to your plan.

As we look up to you in the sky where believe heaven is, the more we also look down inside ourselves and everyone to find you among us in your Son Jesus Christ.

Yes, loving Father, you have sent us Jesus so that as we look up to you in the heavens, the more we shall search and probe our hearts, our lives, our situations, and our brothers and sisters to find you dwelling among us in Christ like there in the wilderness when he fed more than 5000 people.

Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee. A large crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick. Jesus went up on the mountain, there he sat down with his disciples. The Jewish feast of Passover was near. When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that a large crowds was coming to him, he said to Philip, “Where can we buy enough food for them?” He said this to test him because he himself knew what he was going to do.

John 6:1-6

What a lovely scene repeated to us daily, especially in this time of the quarantine!

Jesus raising his eyes, seeing a large crowd hungry, sick, afraid… and then talking to us where to find bread in order to test us — because he always knows what he is going to do….

If we could all be like that little boy who looked into himself, into what he had, no matter how little they may be like the five barley loaves of bread and two pieces of fish….

O Lord, keep us looking for you first within us, into whatever we have, and unto others so we may let you do your work in us to feed and heal the people locked in this quarantine.

Give us the grace, Lord, to always search and find you and follow you not only up in the heavens most especially down deep in our hearts, in the face of the people we meet, in our situation in this time of the corona virus.

It is in finding you in our hearts, on the face of one another, and in the situation we are into when we truly dwell in your house, O Lord. Amen.

Sunrise at the Sea of Galilee, Israel. Photo by author, May 2017.

Where is our love?

40 Shades of Lent, Saturday, Week III, 21 March 2020

Hosea 6:1-6 <*(((>< +++ ><)))*> Luke 18:9-14

Photo by author, Mount St. Paul, Trinidad, Benguet (04 February 2020).

Your words today, O Lord, are so true.

And so painful, too.

What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you, Judah? Your piety is like a morning cloud, like the dew that early passes. For this reason I smote them through the prophets, I slew them by the words of my mouth. For it is love that I desire, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather burnt offering.

Hosea 6:4-6

We could feel your sadness, O Lord, speaking to us who have become like your people Israel. Slay us with your words as we close the first week of our heightened community quarantine deep in confusion and loss when our leaders fail – or refuse – to rise to maturity and statesmanship when concern for ego and turfs have become their main preoccupation while others are nowhere to be found.

Where is the love, O Lord, they have promised us, our country?

But the more painful question we all have to answer really is where is our love? Where is our love for our country expressed in electing all these officials we now have? Where is the love we have promised to one another, of husband and wife, of parents and children, of siblings, of friends?

We have sinned, O God our Father, because we have failed or refused to love and share your immense love for each one of us.

Forgive us, for we have lost the essence of love, of forgetting one’s self in favor of the beloved. We have loved our selves too much, thinking we are always just and right, truly the ones for whom today’s gospel is meant for without exceptions.

Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else. Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector.

Luke 18:9-14

We have thought that love is when the good times roll, when there is laughter and pleasure, when there is affluence. Worst of all, we have thought that love is a material expressed in things or mere feelings we always show in sweet nothings.

Teach us again to remember that love is a person … because you are love, O God!

Deus caritas est (1 John 4:8).

Let us love, love, and love truly like Jesus your Son who gave himself for us on the cross. Amen.

Parokya ni San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, 2019.

Valuing the human person always: A review of the series “Giri/Haji”

Quiet Storm by Fr. Nick F. Lalog II, 15 January 2020

From The Times.

Now streaming at Netflix is this excellent original 2019 BBC production, Giri/Haji (Duty/Shame), a Japanese story of two brothers set almost entirely in London seemingly inspired by French existentialist writer Albert Camus with closing scenes set in Paris.

Midway through the series, one notices right away the complexities or, absurdities of life that one cannot simply categorize it between “duty and shame”, or good and evil, right and wrong, black and white.

It is a series that hits our innermost core when we find ourselves in those gray areas of confronting what we believe as right and just versus the value of every human person that Camus beautifully expressed in his 1947 novel “The Plague”:

“A loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one’s work, and of devotion to duty; and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart.”

Albert Camus, The Plague

Like most Netflix series, Giri/Haji is rated 18+ for its violence, language, substance, and nudity but everything is done beautifully and artistically.

It is a masterpiece that shows some common threads among us humans regardless of our color and culture, gender and age, belief and language. How the creators were able to perfectly blend these all with the excellent cinematography, music, and fine prints into uncluttered and pure simplicity of Japanese Zen principles are a work of art and film genius.

Simple plot but very personal and universal

The plot is simple: an elder, straight brother is a cop with a younger brother who is a Yakuza member hiding in London after being presumed dead when he got the daughter of his boss pregnant. He staged his revenge in London where he killed a Japanese executive with the knife of his former boss that had sparked a war among Yakuza families in Tokyo that was going out of control. Cop-brother comes to London to bring his gangster brother back to Japan to atone for his sins so that peace is restored among the Yakuzas.

Along the way, the two brothers’ stories converged with the stories of three other main characters that provided the many uneventful twists to be united by the element of deaths in various forms and circumstances.

From Google.

Giri/Haji honestly confronts our basic issues of love and acceptance so lacking or taken for granted in our own families that lead to a host of so many other problems and situations like drugs and other crimes, infidelity and promiscuity, as well as homosexuality and sexual orientations.

What is so unique with the series is how it was able to take these sensitive issues as subjects to be seen in relation with persons, not as objects to be studied or examined apart from anyone that it becomes more of an experience, not just an entertainment.

Giri/Haji is so personal, you can feel yourself “slashed” so you experience the subjects’ pains and hurts, longings and desires, dreams and aspirations.

Like the samurai blade that can cut through almost anything, the series hits you at almost every turn that you find yourself laughing and weeping without realizing that along with the characters, you have also laid your soul bare for serious self-confrontation and examination about your very self and the people around you in the relationships you keep as well as skipped or taken for granted.

Death and new life

There is no glorification of evil and immoralities but Giri/Haji invites us to see these as realities in our imperfect world that must be seen more with our hearts than with our minds and convictions. The series contrasts the Western frame of mind of morals as codes to be followed to the minutest details that slashes even persons into categories with the Oriental point of view of seeing morality in the totality of the person.

How it is resolved in the end is amazing!

And despite its genre being crime and violence, I would still say Giri/Haji is so lovely, even quaint and as Japanese as it can be especially with the depiction of changing of seasons that peaked at autumn.

Despite the dark and gloomy nature of the topics of death in all of its forms, there is the radiance of hope always that will lead to new life. The series teems with other symbolisms and signs including great music selections that add intensity to its drama and tragedy that make us hope the new season comes soonest.

For the meantime, listen to the beautiful music theme of the Giri/Haji by British singer Tom Odell.

Take my mind
And take my pain
Like an empty bottle takes the rain
And heal, heal, heal, heal
And take my past
And take my sense
Like an empty sail takes the wind
And heal, heal, heal, heal

Best Gifts of Christmas, II

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.

  1. 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.
  2. 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!
  3. 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.

Prayer for enthusiasm

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Friday, Week XXXI, Year I, 08 November 2019

Romans 15:14-21 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Luke 16:1-8

Photo by Mr. Jim Marpa in Carigara, Leyte last September 2019.

Before everything else, O loving Father as we praise and thank you for this new day, we fervently pray for our brothers and sisters severely affected by the rains and floods up north in Cagayan as well as those displaced by the effects of earthquakes last two weeks in Mindanao.

Take care of them and make us more sensitive to their plights that we may be moved to do something concrete for them.

Like St. Paul, fill us with the same Holy Spirit, with zeal and enthusiasm to always do your work, Lord.

But I have written to you rather boldly in some respects to remind you, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in performing the priestly service of the Gospel of God, so that the offering up of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:15-16

Fridays for everyone is the end of school and/or work, a time to celebrate and have fun; the most welcome break of the week. But with you, Lord, you never stop working for us, with us, and in us.

Like St. Paul, fill us with yourself, O God which is the literal meaning of “enthusiasm” from the two Greek words, “en theos”, “be filled with God”.

Like St. Paul, may we never stop proclaiming you and your salvation joyfully even among those who have known you, Lord.

In this world of so much competition and rat race with no clear winners at all, make us realize like the shrewd steward in today’s gospel that being wise is giving more importance to people and persons and relationships than money and wealth. Amen.

Prayer to value persons

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Wednesday, Week XXVII, Year I, 09 October 2019

Jonah 4:1-11 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Luke 11:1-4

Photo by Mr. Jim Marpa at Otap, Carigara, Leyte. September 2019.

O dear God…

How could some people be like Jonah in our first reading today — prayerful and a man of God and yet be so mean not to see the value of every person?

Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry that God did not carry out the evil he threatened against Nineveh. The the Lord said to Jonah, “You are concerned over the plant which cost you no labor and which you did not raise; it came up in one night and in one night it perished. And should I not be concerned over Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot distinguish their right hand from their left, not to mention the many cattle?”

Jonah 4:1, 10-11

Forgive us, Lord, when things like money and gadgets, whims and desires blind our eyes not to see and recognize every person who must be loved and cherished.

Forgive us when there are times we forget all about respect, even civility especially when all we see are the sins and mistakes, weaknesses and shortcomings of people that make us speak ill them, judging them harshly with our words that we forget we never lose dignity and honor because we are all created in your image and likeness, Lord.

Please teach us, Jesus, like your disciples in the gospel today the right attitude of praying which is recognizing the value of every person so we can truly pray and say

“Father, hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come.”

Luke 11:2

It is only when we value persons more than anything else can we truly mean our prayers to you, O Lord and God. Amen.

Prayer to believe in people

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Tuesday, Week XXVII, Year I, 08 October 2019

Jonas 3:1-10 ><)))*> <*(((>< Luke 10:38-42

Photo by Mr. Jim Marpa in Carigara, Leyte, September 2019.

Thank you very much, O Lord our God, for this wonderful Tuesday! Thank you for the changing of season with the coming of Amihan’s cool northeasterly winds replacing the warm and humid winds of Habagat.

Please do change also our perception of people around us, especially those we have boxed and stereotyped simply because they are not like us in beliefs, ways, and color.

Help us to believe in everyone’s ability to become better persons, receptive to your words and mercy like the people of Niniveh during the time of Jonas and of Mary, the sister of Martha whom Jesus visited in a village on his way to Jerusalem.

So often, we are like Jonas and Martha, so focused with our very selves that we are the only ones worthy of your love and mercy as if we have been endowed with special blessings and privileges from you.

How sad that we always feel so exclusive instead of being inclusive like you, sending rains to sinners and non-sinners alike.

May we let go of any hint of “self-entitlement” that have kept us apart from each other and worst of all, prevented us from truly being one in you whom we call “Our Father”. Amen.

We are God’s chosen people

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Monday, Week XXI, Year I, 26 August 2019

1 Thessalonians 1:1-5, 8-10 ><)))*> Matthew 23:13-22

From Google.

We are now at the final stretch of the month of August, Lord, and everybody is thinking of September already, counting the days until Christmas.

How sad, O Lord, that we are so focused with the dates and we miss the event of your coming to us, of your birth. No wonder we also miss your great gift of calling us unto you, of making us your new chosen people.

St. Paul reminds us today of how you have loved us, God, of how we were chosen and called in Christ Jesus to become his body, the Church.

How sad that these days, churches and houses of worship have become more of places to meet for lovers and friends than for people to gather as a community of disciples waiting for the Lord’s coming again.

How sad that like the scribes and Pharisees of the time of Jesus, we have also become hypocrites living in the darkness of sin and self-centeredness, believing more in our selves than in you.

Lead us out anew, Lord, from the many darkness that blind us and prevent us from living a life of faith in you and love among our brothers and sisters. Amen.

We are the mosaic of God

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul
Thursday, Easter Week IV, 16 May 2019
Acts 13:13-25///John 13:16-20
Madaba Mosaic Map on the floor of the Byzantine church of St. George in Madaba, Jordan dating back to 560 AD, one of the oldest maps of the Holy Land discovered in late 19th century. Photo by author, 02 May 2019.

Your readings for today, Lord Jesus, remind me of that wonderful experience you gave us to see so many beautiful mosaics in your Holy Land. Some are very old, some are new. But they are all so lovely not only for our sight to behold but also for our hearts to reflect and cherish.

It was only then when I realized in the production of a mosaic that each stone represents every one of us who has rough edges cut into a tiny piece then glued together to form one big picture by highlighting each one’s smooth and shiny surface.

Just one shiny, smooth surface needed to complete a beautiful picture.

Just one good character or trait of us, never mind our rough and uneven edges and sides, to portray your beauty, your majesty, your glory.

Thank you, Lord, for looking more on our beautiful side like in a mosaic.

Thank you for washing us of our sins so we may be smoother and shinier.

Thank you for that long story of salvation Paul summarized in the first reading at how you patiently waited in time to fix everything until you came to save us. It is the same kind of patience and love you must have put on each of us to be a part of your big picture, Lord.

May we always see the bigger picture of you among us who are tiny pieces of little stones with many rough sides with just one good side needed to portray you. May we keep in our minds and our hearts that “no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him” (Jn.13:16) so we may always focus on the brighter and smoother side of us and of life to reflect you more. Amen.

The Madaba Mosaic Factory in Jordan employs disabled persons with a large part of its earnings supporting other disadvantaged people in the area. Photo by the author, 02 May 2019.