The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Monday in the Second Week of Advent, 11 December 2023 Isaiah 35:1-10 ><))))*> + ><))))*> + ><))))*> Luke 5:17-26
Photo by author, Advent Sunday II, 2021, Basic Education Department chapel of Our Lady of Fatima University, Valenzuela City.
Thank you, dear God, our loving Father for this Season of Advent, a season of our vindication in your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; what a joy to hear your words on this Monday of the Second Week in Advent through the Prophet Isaiah:
Strengthen the hands that are feeble, make firm the knees that are weak, say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong, fear not! Here is your God: he comes with vindication; with divine recompense he comes to save you.
Isaiah 35:3-4
Vindication, O God, is one word we miss so much these days, an experience we long for when finally we are proven right or true, and most of all, justified; it is a difficult mission from you, dear Father, to always walk in your ways, to follow your will especially in this world when being true and faithful, honest and kind, loving and caring are looked down upon as signs of weakness; it is so difficult to be good and holy, just like those men carrying that paralytic to enter the room to get near to Jesus Christ.
Teach us to persevere always, Lord Jesus like those men, to never give up on you, to always find ways even if we have to climb our way up just to go down to you to experience your healing and mercy. Most of all, your vindication. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Wednesday in the Thirty-fourth Week of Ordinary Time, Year I, 29 November 2023
Daniel 5:1-6, 13-14, 16-17, 23-28 <'[[[[>< + ><]]]]'> Luke 21:12-19
Photo by author, St. Scholastica Retreat House, Baguio City, 23 August 2023.
God our merciful Father,
help us to stand always
for what is true and good,
just and proper;
give us the courage to
give testimony in Jesus Christ
especially in moments of trials
when the lures of the world
like power and fame
are so strong.
Teach us to be like your
servant Daniel:
Daniel answered the king: “You may keep your gifts, or give your present to someone else; but the writing I will read for you, O king, and tell you what it means. You have rebelled against the Lord of heaven. But the God in whose hand is your life breath and the whole course of your life, you did not glorify.
Daniel 5:17, 23
So many times, O God,
especially us your priests
and servants are so afraid,
others too numb, shamelessly
choosing and preferring
comforts than difficulties,
oblivious to your call for sacrifices
have given in to the temptations
of the world, embracing more
the rich and powerful,
gracing all their affairs and parties
unmindful of the needs of the poor.
Worst, many of us
have turned away from the
Cross of Jesus Christ,
refusing to give testimony
to him and his teachings,
sorely lacking in any
perseverance at all.
Have mercy on us, Father;
may we live each day
as our last day
here on earth,
each day a Parousia
of your Son Jesus,
so that like Daniel,
we serve you alone,
our God and Master
lest we too find
your words and writings
on the wall - MENE, TEKEL, PERES
warning of our downfall.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thursday in the Twenty-Seventh Week of Ordinary Time. Year I, 12 October 2023
Malachi 3:13-20 <*{{{{>< + ><}}}}*> Luke 11:5-13
Photo by author, Laiya, San Juan, Batangas, 2022.
Forgive us, Father,
when prayers confuse us
that we sin more against you
like those people mentioned
by your prophet Malachi
in the first reading today:
You have said, “It is vain to serve God, and what do we profit by keeping his command, and going about in penitential dress in awe of the Lord of hosts? Rather must we call the proud blessed; for indeed evildoers prosper, and even tempt God with impunity.”
Malachi 3:14-15
Continue to teach us
more about prayer,
suffuse us in the light
of the Holy Spirit
so we may be more
pliant and docile to
your will, loving Father;
empty us of our pride
and fill us with Jesus
so that we may
know him more clearly,
love him more dearly,
and follow him more closely
daily.
Let us realize that
you alone, O God,
whom we must solely desire
in our prayers that is
why we must persist
and persevere (Lk. 11:9-10)
because
when we have you,
then we have everything!
May we keep in mind
that prayer is a relationship,
O Lord, not a transaction
to have things;
may we realize
that prayer changes
the person
not the situation;
most of all,
prayer is more of
listening to you
than of us speaking
for you listen always
to our pleas and
prayers; you are so good
and so loving,
God, that you want
only the best for us
we never realize
because we are so
occupied with ourselves
in prayer
not with you.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thursday, Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, 14 September 2023
Numbers 21:4-9 ><}}}}*> Philippians 2:6-11 ><}}}}*> John 3:13-17
Photo by author, 02 September 2023.
With their patience worn out by the journey, the people complained against God and Moses…
Numbers 21:4
Forgive us,
God our Father,
for always complaining
even challenging you
when things get
difficult and rough
for us in life;
forgive us,
merciful Father
when our patience
is worn out
by life's journey
that we forget all
your good works,
not seeing the long
distances we have
covered,
the rivers we have crossed,
and mountains and hills
we have overcome
with you,
through you,
in you.
Brothers and sisters: Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.
Philippians 2:6-8
Empty our hearts
of our pride,
Lord Jesus Christ
and fill us
with your humility,
justice,
and love;
make us realize
Jesus that it is in
being empty
and detached
when we are truly free
and hence, more faithful
and loving without
any encumbersome
or excess baggages
that bog us down
in moving on in life.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that anyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.
John 3:16
Let me love
like you,
dear God:
a love that seeks
relationships
and connections
not isolation
nor self-sufficiency;
let me love
like Jesus,
a love rooted in the Father,
a love that is more than a feeling
but a decision,
a choice made daily,
affirmed in actions of
fidelity and kindness,
obedience and trust;
let me love
like you, O God:
a love that gives life,
other-centered,
veritable/truthful,
and enduring.
Let me love my Cross,
Jesus,
to let me lose
everything in you
and for you
in order to gain
life and you.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Wednesday, Memorial of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Virgin & Martyr, 09 August 2023
Numbers 13:1-2, 25-14:1, 26-29, 34-35 <*{{{{>< + ><}}}}*> Matthew 15:21-28
Photo by author, sunrise at Camp John Hay, Baguio City, 12 July 2023.
How timely are your words
these past three days,
God our loving Father;
like your people in the wilderness
after their Exodus from Egypt,
we continue to grumble and
complain against you and your
plans for us through the people
you have sent to lead us
like our parents, siblings,
even friends and superiors
in work or in community.
Worst than our stubbornness
in defying your instructions through
the modern Moses you send us,
we have even created our
own monsters and ghosts
within us,
exacerbating the fears
we have in trusting you,
believing you,
and following you!
So they spread discouraging reports among the children of Israel about the land they had scouted, saying, “The land that we explored is a country that consumes its inhabitants. And all the people we saw there are huge, veritable giants (the Anakim were a race of giants); we felt like mere grasshoppers, and so we must have seemed to them.”
Numbers 13:32-33
Forgive us Father
for our outrageous foolishness
that have infected so many others,
paralyzing us to move
on in life,
to dare and dream
great things in life
that could proclaim
your majesty and mercy,
your life and love;
forgive us Father
for choosing mediocrity
than striving for the best
for us,
for others,
and for you;
forgive us Father
for not daring to venture
into the unknown
where Jesus Christ
goes, the Tyre and Sidon
of our lives that we fail
to meet him.
Grant us, O Lord,
the courage,
tenacity and faith
of the Canaanite woman
who begged Jesus
to exorcise her daughter;
most of all,
grant us the clarity
of mind and perseverance
of St. Teresa Benedicta
to seek and follow you,
and stand for you
even before the real monsters
of our time
like the gas chambers of
indifference and
the prison camps
of power and pleasures
that all negate the Cross
of Jesus Christ..
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Monday, Memorial of St. Ignatius of Loyola, Priest, 31 July 2023
Exodus 32:15-24, 30-34 <*((((>< + ><))))*> Matthew 13:31-35
Photo by author Camp John Hay, Baguio City, 12 July 2023.
Glory and praise to you,
God our loving Father,
our Lord and Master,
our Origin and Home;
thank you for the gift
of St. Ignatius of Loyola
who taught us through his
"Spiritual Exercises"
to truly pray by seeking
you and only you alone.
Teach me, O Lord,
to be patient
and persevering
in my prayer life,
to never be contented
with mere feelings and
self-absorption that are
manipulative like what your people
felt at the foot of Mount Sinai
while awaiting Moses;
let me be at home
with desolation and dryness,
being still when nothing seems to happen,
finding you when you seem nowhere,
desiring you most while amid
all of these like in awaiting the
sprouting of a mustard seed
or the leavening of bread
in Christ's parable.
Many times we feel
we are awaiting you, God
when actually it is you who
awaits us always to experience
you and your presence,
your love and mercy
if we could just be still and
silent. Amen.
St. Ignatius of Loyola,
Pray for us.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Monday, Memorial of St. Boniface, Bishop & Martyr, 05 June 2023
Tobit 1:3, 2:1-8 ><))))*> + ><))))*> + ><))))*> Mark 12:1-12
Photo by author, Anvaya Cove, 05 January 2023.
Glory and praise to you,
God our loving Father
for enabling us to cover
this first half of 2023!
Grant us the grace
of perseverance like Tobit
in the first reading who
kept on doing what is good
despite the many beatings,
literally and figuratively speaking,
he had had in helping his countrymen
in a foreign land.
I, Tobit, have walked all the days of my life on the paths of truth and righteousness. I performed many charitable works for my kinsmen and my people who had been deported with me to Nineveh, in Assyria… Once the neighbors mocked me, saying to one another: “He is still not afraid! Once before he was hunted down for execution because of this very thing; yet now that he has escaped, here he is again burying the dead!”
Tobit 1:3, 2:8
Teach us to persevere,
Lord, to have the endurance
and stamina in surviving the
toughest conditions to
emerge better persons,
better disciples
who help those in need
and neglected like Tobit
and his son Tobias.
Or like St. Boniface who,
despite his so many successes
in Germany insisted in returning to
Frisia in the Netherlands where
he had first failed as a missionary
only to be massacred later with
his disciples.
Many times,
death awaits perseverance
like your Son Jesus Christ,
the heir of the vineyard owner
in today's parable.
But still, O God,
perseverance in you pays
so well if not for the ones
persevering but most
especially for those their
efforts are directed.
Most of all,
perseverance teaches
us to never give up,
to never quit,
for every effort
in your glory
matters so much.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thursday in the Seventh Week of Easter, 25 May 2023
Acts 22:30, 23:6-11 ><))))*> + <*((((>< John 17:20-26
Photo by author, Anvaya Cove, 27 February 2023.
How wonderful and
so touching, Lord Jesus,
for you to call us
a gift from the Father.
“Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”
John 17:24
Help me keep, dear Jesus,
that being of a gift to you
from the Father by being
a witness of your glory
which is standing by your
side at the Cross like St. Paul
whom you have called "to bear
witness to you in Jerusalem and
in Rome" (Acts 23:11).
May we always remember
this truth, our being a gift to
you dear Jesus, so that in moments
we feel so overburdened,
when we are losing hope,
when we feel like giving up,
we may forge on
and persevere
in bearing witness
to your Cross of suffering
so that eventually be one
in your glorious Resurrection.
Amen.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
The Seven Last Words, 04 April 2023
Photo by author, Chapel of the Holy Family, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, Quezon City, 2014.
From noon onward, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And about three o’clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachtani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Matthew 27:45-46
God is perfect. So perfect in fact He is all beauty and majesty. Perfectly whole and holy. But He chose to be like us human in everything except sin in Jesus Christ to experience pain and suffering. Even death. And right there on the Cross, Jesus felt the most painful pain of any suffering – that of being abandoned.
Any suffering becomes most unbearable, most painful when we are alone, when family and friends abandon us. Worst is when even the society would not care at all! That is why St. Mother Teresa thought of serving the “poorest of the poor” when she saw the sick of Calcutta dying alone.
It is the most miserable situation anyone could be. To suffer alone, abandoned with no one to even look at, no one to listen to one’s cries of pain, no one to even comfort and ease one’s physical, emotional and spiritual sufferings.
And sadly, it is in fact a reality happening daily in our lives, not only in the slum areas but even in the most sophisticated facilities where the sick and the elderly literally await death alone.
Jesus went through the same experience too, abandoned by almost everyone. Of the twelve Apostles, one betrayed Him, the leader denied Him thrice, going into hiding along with the other ten except for the youngest of them, John the Beloved who stood with Mother Mary there at the foot of the Cross along with two other women. Not one of those He had healed nor fed came.
But Jesus never felt alone on the Cross. Like any good and pious Jew, He prayed Psalm 22, a psalm of lament, of suffering and total trust in God.
And that is the good news of Jesus dying on the Cross. From then on, humans have never been alone in life’s pains and sufferings, even death because God has consoled us in Christ through the Cross. From the Latin words con solare that literally mean to be with one who is alone (solo), God has become most closest and truly one with us in our sufferings and death in Jesus Christ so that we too may be one in Him and with Him in His Resurrection.
Because he himself was tested through what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.
Hebrews 2:18
In my two years as chaplain of Our Lady of Fatima University and Fatima University Medical Center, I have seen and experienced first hand how real some people – young and old alike, sick and those with strong and robust bodies, rich and poor alike many times feel alone in their sufferings and miseries. Many are crying in pain alone, by themselves because the wife or husband or children or parents and friends are so busy or away for various reasons.
Is anybody still home?
Let us pray for one another, especially those suffering alone.
God of all consolation,
You gave us Your Son Jesus Christ
in order to experience Your love and mercy,
Your healing and comfort,
Your presence and peace
so that we may never be alone;
may we always remember when we are
in our most trying moments in life,
when we feel alone and abandoned
because that is when Jesus is most closest
with us, us present right in our sufferings,
right where we are on the Cross.
Amen.
Never say, “walang-wala ako” because we always have God – “laging mayroon tayo, ang Diyos.” When there are storms, that is when rainbows appear, like the outstretched arms of Jesus on the Cross, consoling us, assuring us He is with us, ever-present. Photo by author, 04 March 2023, Katmon Nature Sanctuary & Beach Resort, Bgy. Binulusan, Infanta, Quezon.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
The Seven Last Words, 02 April 2023
Photo by author, Chapel of the Holy Family, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, Quezon City, 2014.
Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He replied to him, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Luke 23:42
Every time we feel good, whenever we see something so beautiful, whenever we are with those we love, we describe the feelings as “like paradise” or “heaven”. For us, paradise is all bliss. No sickness, no problems, no sufferings, nothing bad, nothing dark, nothing unpleasant. It is all good. In fact, perfect.
And that is why heaven or paradise is! From the ancient Persian word paradiso, it referred to the innermost room in the palace where only the most trusted ministers of the King were allowed to enter along with his immediate family, From that came the idea that paradise must be so beautiful that the Greek translators of the Bible used it to refer to heaven as God’s dwelling. After all, our God is the only One who is perfect and supreme than any king in the world.
Recall that when Adam and Eve sinned, they were banished from Paradise that was henceforth closed until that Good Friday when Jesus promised Paradise – of all people – to a former thief!
Yes, Paradise is for every sinner ready to beg forgiveness, ready to claim Jesus Christ as our Savior!
And that is just one of the surprising things about Paradise or Heaven according to Jesus on that Good Friday.
See that Jesus never promised “Paradise” when He was freely going around Galilee, preaching and healing the people, when He was dining with sinners and tax collectors, when He was very well and strong.
Jesus promised Paradise when he was dying there on the Cross, not when He was strong and free!
See also how He said the words to Dimas, “today you will be with me in Paradise”.
Jesus promised Paradise at that very moment they were on the Cross, hanging and dying. Not later when they died nor on Sunday when He resurrected from the dead.
Jesus promised Paradise at that very moment they were suffering and dying, in extreme, excruciating pains never imagined by anyone, presumably with all the fears, negative thoughts and feelings that went with it.
And that is precisely when we enter Paradise with Jesus, too.
When we are suffering from our sickness and disabilities especially over a long period of time, when we are deep in pains in our heart for all the hurts inflicted by a loved one, when we are old and bed-ridden awaiting the final moment of death, when we are in agony for the loss of a loved one, when deep in trials and disappointments, or whenever we are so weak and dying literally or figuratively speaking.
That is when we slowly enter Paradise.
In a world where the most prescribed medicine is the pain reliever, where everything is invented to minimize even eradicate difficulties and hardships, Jesus is reminding us that we enter Paradise when we are with Him suffering there on the Cross.
That is the value and meaning of the Cross we always evade these days. It is not all suffering but also a foretaste of eternal bliss, of perfect joy and happiness because it is during our darkest moments in life that we get a glimpse of Christ’s eternal light, when we are transformed and made stronger and better as persons soon enough to be worthy to enter the most exclusive circle of all – Paradise – to dwell in the Lord with His angels and Saints.
Let us pray for those going through many sufferings these days, including ourselves.
Lord Jesus Christ,
before all these pains and trials
came to my life,
You were there FIRST for me on the Cross;
You were there FIRST for me to suffer and die
on the Cross.
Let me stay with you on Your Cross
so I may enter Paradise with You,
right now,
right here.
Amen.
One of the most beautiful front page photos I have seen in many years. Taken in August 2021 when we were in the midst of a surge in COVID-19 cases, the photo evokes Paradise, “right here, right now” while people were suffering in Jesus, with Jesus and through Jesus. Photo from inquirer.net.
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