Restore all things in Christ

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thursday, Memorial of St. Teresa of Avila, Virgin and Doctor of the Church, 15 October 2020
Ephesians 1:1-10 <*(((><< || + + + || >><)))*> Luke 11:47-54

Photo by Dr. Mai B. Dela Peña at a Carmelite Monastery in Israel, 2016.

You know so well, O God, how we must pray to you that you have taught St. Paul one of the most beautiful prayer – and greetings – we can all recite individually or communally when gathered in your name.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before him.
Ephesians 1:3-4

So beautiful are these words showing to us our blessedness in Jesus Christ! If we could all be aware of our blessedness in you that springs from your infinite love for us poured by Jesus Christ at the Cross, maybe there would be less chaos in the world today.

Forgive us in wasting your blessings, exchanging them for fleeting pleasures of fame and wealth that set us apart from one another. Worst, in misleading others away from you with our sinful ways of life like the enemies of Jesus in today’s gospel.

Help us restore all things in your Son, dear Father, like St. Teresa of Avila who taught us to be mindful always of Jesus Christ’s love for us.

Whenever we think of Christ we should recall the love that led him to bestow on us so many graces and favors, and also the great love God showed in giving us in Christ a pledge of his love; for love call for love in return.
St. Teresa of Avila, Office of Readings, October xv

St. Teresa of Avila, pray for us!

Faithful living

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Wednesday, Week XXVIII, Year II in Ordinary Time, 14 October 2020
Galatians 5:18-25 >><)))*> + >><)))*> + >><)))*> Luke 11:42-46

Photo by author, Church of Holy Sepulcher, May 2017.

It was a very enriching week of lessons about faith as reflected by St. Paul in his Letter to the Galatians, God our Father. We have learned so much to appreciate this gift from you we rarely recognize and give importance to.

As we end the readings from the Letter to the Galatians today, teach us through Jesus Christ how to live faithfully in your Holy Spirit to reap its fruits in our lives we badly need these days amid the pandemic and follies going on around us especially among our elected officials.

Brothers and sisters: If you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissension, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like. In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
Galatians 5:18-23

Forgive us Lord when we choose to be prisoners of so many rules that govern our lives forgetting the more important things of living faithfully in you like the Pharisees in today’s gospel. We are so concerned with little things that we make so big a fuss; worst, we refuse to “lift one finger to touch them” by passing them on to others, subjecting them to so many things that they miss the beauty of your gift of life.

Make us grow deeper in faith in you and may the Holy Spirit enlighten our minds and our hearts to always seek and follow your most Holy Will. Amen.

Faith works through love

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Tuesday, Week XXVIII, Year II in Ordinary Time, 13 October 2020
Galatians 5:1-6 >><)))*> + >><)))*> + >><)))*> Luke 11:37-41

Photo by author, Lovers’ Bridge, Tamsui in Taiwan, January 2019.

Thank you again, God our Father, for the gift of faith that enables us to do good, to do your works of charity and love. You have gifted us with freewill primarily because of faith itself when you believed in us and trusted us.

Yes, dear Father: like love, we are able to believe and trust you because you were the first to believe and trust us. Forgive us for those times we wrongly chose sin, when pride and selfishness, doubts and mistrust clouded our decision making. When despite our faith, we refused to love.

For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
Galatians 5:6

Indeed, it is because of faith that we are able to choose and do what is good. And the more faithful we become to you, O God, we become more loving like you!

Without faith, it is difficult for us to love because of the pains that come always in loving

Without faith, it is impossible to forgive and be merciful, to let go of others’ infidelity and lack of love and concern because these are virtues and values that come only from within, from a loving heart where faith dwells.

Sometimes, like the Pharisees, we become so focused with what is outside to cover what is missing inside us — faith!

And despite our confessions of our faith, we believe more on outside appearances and forget the more essential inside that is faith leading to love.

The Lord said to him, “Oh you Pharisees! Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, inside you are filled with plunder and evil. You fools! Did not the maker of the outside also make the inside? But as to what is within, give alms, and behold, everything will be clean for you.”
Luke 11:39-41

Teach us, Jesus, to trust in you, to grow in faith in you so we may be more loving like you! Amen.

Faith to read signs

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Monday, Week XXVIII, Year II in Ordinary Time, 12 October 2020
Galatians 4:22-24, 26-27, 31-5:1 ||| +++ ||| Luke 11:29-32

Cross of Christ atop the church of our Lady of Lourdes in France. Photo by Arch. Philip Santiago, September 2018.

Today O God our Father I thank you for the gift of faith we have always taken for granted. Faith is not just for believing in you, God; faith is for believing what is true! Without faith, life would be a drab and even senseless for there is nothing we can ever hold as reliable and true.

Without faith is like living without friction with everything sliding, slipping, escaping our grasps. There is nothing we would ever believe in. Most of all, without faith we can never read and understand any kind of signs, especially your saving work in Jesus Christ.

While still more people gathered in the crowd, Jesus said to them, “This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah. Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.
Luke 11:29-30

We live in a world of so many signs and symbols but it is only through your gift of faith that they all become meaningful and useful.

Teach us, Lord, to deepen our faith so we can read your signs better like St. Paul in the first reading whose deep faith in you enabled him to interpret the meaning of the signs of Abraham’s two sons, Ishmael by Hagar and Isaac by Sarah.

May we love and care more for your gift of faith to us, Lord, because it is through our faith that we know and discover, follow and hold on to your plans for us. Amen.

Faithful and free

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Saturday, Week XXVII, Year II in Ordinary Time, 10 October 2020
Galatians 3:22-29 ||+|| >><)))*> ||+|| Luke 11:27-28

Glory and praise, O God, our Father for another week that had passed and another new one to start! Thank you so much for everything we have received this week: the beautiful things that have blessed us wondrously and the sad things that have also blessed us with lessons in life.

Thank you for the gifts of faith and conviction, faith and being realistic, faith and consistency.

And so, I pray today for the gifts of faith and freedom for a truly faithful person is always one who is also truly free!

Brothers and sisters: Scripture confined all things under the power of sin, that through faith in Jesus Christ the promise might be given to those who believe. Before faith came, we were held in custody under law, confined for the faith that was to be revealed. Consequently, the law was our disciplinarian for Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a disciplinarian.
Galatians 3:22-25

You know how so many times, Lord, when we feel imprisoned and chained by our broken and toxic relationships, sickness and handicaps, painful memories, failures and other past sins.

Let us realize and be convinced that you have come to set us free from all of these, that we are now free to love, free to be ourselves, free to grow, free and faithful in you.

Show us the path how we can break the many barriers that continue to imprison us and prevent us from maturing in faith and freedom in you like gender, color, language, social status and even religion.

Help us imitate you, Jesus, who boldly claimed before everyone that true blessedness is not found in affinities or blood ties but in freely receiving and observing the word of God. Amen.

Faithful and consistent

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday, Week XXVII, Year II in Ordinary Time, 09 October 2020
Galatians 3:7-14 <*(((><< + >><)))*> Luke 11:15-26

Glory and praise to you, O God our Father through your Son Jesus Christ! Today we are celebrating the Memorial of some great men who faithfully and consistently served you and your people with their lives of witnessing to your gospel as members of the clergy: St. John Leonardi who founded in 1570’s the forerunner of Propaganda Fide now headed by Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle; St. Denis, first bishop of Paris who suffered martyrdom with his priest and deacon in 258; St. Louis Bertrand who came to be known as the “Apostle to the Americas” during the 16th century; and beatified recently by Pope emeritus Benedict XVI, Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman considered as one of the great Christian intellectuals of the 19th century.

They were all great men of deep faith. And most of all, consistent in heeding your call, doing your work.

And that is why, today O Lord I pray for the gift of being consistent in my faith.

A believer without consistency in his faith and actions is not faithful at all. A truly faithful servant is always consistent especially when the chips are down, we are confronted of either for you, Lord, or against you.

Sometimes we try “moving the lines”, convincing ourselves that we are not crossing the line of morals and morality like when we are bent on accommodating others and ourselves in some occasions to justify personal preferences like tinkering with the formula of the Sacraments as well as those pertaining to intrinsically sinful and immoral.

Like St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians today, clear our minds and our hearts of all kinds of inconsistencies in our faith, set us straight onto your paths, Lord and let us see your own consistency, your works in the past that are fulfilled in the present.

Unlike those people accusing you of driving evil spirits in the name of Beelzebul, may we be consistent in relying only in you and your powers despite our many setbacks and failures in life when you never failed to bless us and work things out for our own good. Amen.

Contemplating the face of Jesus with Mary in the Holy Rosary

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog
Wednesday, Memorial of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, 07 October 2020
Galatians 2:1-2, 7-14 >><)))*> >><)))*> >><)))*> Luke 11:1-4

Today, O God our Father, as we celebrate the Memorial of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary, we hear one of the most beautiful requests from your Son Jesus Christ. Who else can teach us so well how to pray but him, the Son of God?

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come.”
Luke 11:1-2

In calling you “Our Father”, Jesus had taught us the basic truth and reality of every prayer that it is never alone nor solitary but always implies a community, a family — that we are all called and gathered to be one in you, O God.

And in giving us his own Mother to be our Mother too, Mary became our constant reminder of the importance and need to pray always to you God our Father, coming to us in our darkest moments like at the Battle of Lepanto Bay more than 400 years ago today.

By praying the Holy Rosary, may we learn through Mary to contemplate the face of Jesus Christ so we may be faithful to our call and mission specially in this 24/7 world of continuous action and noise that have left many of us empty and without meaning in life.

Photo by Fr. Gerry Pascual (Diocese of Iba, Zambales), Our Lady of the Rosary at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington DC, 2018.

The contemplation of Christ has an incomparable model in Mary. In a unique way the face of the Son belongs to Mary. It was in her womb that Christ was formed, receiving from her a human resemblance which points to an even greater spiritual closeness. No one has ever devoted himself to the contemplation of the face of Christ as faithfully as Mary. The eyes of her heart already turned to him at the Annunciation, when she conceived him by the power of the Holy Spirit. In the months that followed she began to sense his presence and to picture his features. When at last she gave birth to him in Bethlehem, her eyes were able to gaze tenderly on the face of her Son, as she “wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger” (Lk2:7).
St. John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae (2002), paragraph 10

Through her intercession, may we all be like St. Paul “on the right road in line with the truth of the Gospel” (Gal. 2:14). Amen.

Sitting beside at the feet of Jesus

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Tuesday, Memorial of St. Bruno, Priest and Founder of Carthusians, 06 October 2020
Galatians 1:13-24 >><)))*> |+| <*(((><< Luke 10:38-42

Photo by author, antique door of a resthouse in Silang, Cavite, 22 September 2020.

What a wonderful story from St. Paul today of his conversion, Lord Jesus Christ! How lovely to read his story without any airs or pride but full of humility, focused on the mystery of your call for him to be your Apostle to the Gentiles.

Clearly, the fruit of long years of prayers, of sitting beside you at your feet.

Brothers and sisters: You heard of my former way of life Judaism, how I persecuted the Church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it… And I was unknown personally to the churches of Judea that are in Christ; they only kept hearing that “the one who once was persecuting us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” So they glorified God because of me.
Galatians 1:13, 22-24

Lord Jesus, keep me simple and humble like St. Paul in telling my story of your call that is always both a mystery and a gift, something so special known only to you. Purify me and my story of vocation in spending silent moments at your feet contemplating, meditating on your words.

Sometimes, some people complain how their lives are not as colorful as somebody else’s life like St. Paul with a lot of dramatic twists and turns.

We do not need those things, Lord. You call each of us in the most unique and personal way. Every encounter with you Jesus is always personal, always special.

What we really need is a listening heart: no matter how colorful and dramatic our lives may be but if we do not spend time with you listening and praying like Mary in the gospel, everything will always be bland and dry.

Let us reflect more, to treasure every encounter with you by being silent and still, less distracted with the ways of the world that make us forget you to turn our very selves as the center of attention even unconsciously demanding you to focus on us like Martha!

Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him (Jesus) and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.” The Lord said to her in reply, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”
Luke 10:40-42

Teach us to follow the examples of St. Paul and Mary, of St. Bruno whose memorial we celebrate today so we may we strive “to seek God assiduously, to find God promptly, and to possess God fully.” After all, as his Carthusian monks motto profess, “while the world changes, the cross stands firm.”

Yes, dear Jesus, nothing is most worthy in this life than to be always at your side, doing your work, speaking your words, living your life. Amen.

Prayer for deep conviction in faith

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Monday, Week XXVII, Year II in Ordinary Time, 05 October 2020
Galatians 1:6-12 >><)))*> |+| <*(((><< Luke 10:25-37

God our loving Father, I praise and thank you for the gift of faith in you that have greatly helped me finding fulfillment in you. As I grow and continue in this journey in faith, I have realized too that it is not enough to just believe in you but also be convinced in this faith in you.

Like during the time of St. Paul especially among the Galatians, until now many of us are easily swayed by so many other beliefs that are misleading. claiming to be a part of the faith we received from you through Jesus Christ.

Teach us to be like St. Paul in his firmness and conviction in his faith no matter what modern thoughts claim to be a part of the gospel of Jesus Christ that try to accommodate certain thoughts and lifestyles, like masquerading as being “politically correct”.

Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the Gospel preached by me is not of human origin. For I did not receive it from a human being, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
Galatians 1:11-12

If we can have St. Paul’s kind of conviction in faith, maybe we can be more authentic Christians or believers of God like the good Samaritan unlike the priest and Levite who just passed by the victim to robbers on the road to Jericho.

Forgive us Lord when our faith and lives do not match because so often our faith have no roots within us, we are not personally convinced in believing and following you. Amen.

Blessedness springs from brokenness

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Saturday, Week XXVI, Year II in Ordinary Time, 03 October 2020
Job 42:1-3, 5-6, 12-17 |||+||| >><)))*> <*(((><< |||+||| Luke 10:17-24

Photo by author, Mt. St. Paul Spirituality Center, La Trinidad, Benguet, 2017.

God our loving Father, another week is closing and another is coming. Thank you for the many blessings you have given us, most especially for those blessings that have come our way through many trials and sufferings.

Like Job, if not for my many brokenness, pains and disappointments, I would have never been this strong and so blessed. Looking back to those days of trials, I am so grateful to you like Job, O God, in opening my eyes to so many wonderful things I cannot know nor even understand!

I have dealt with great things that I do not understand; things too wonderful for me, which I cannot know. I had heard of you by word of mouth, but now my eye has seen you.
Job 42:3, 5

I pray in a very special way today for people going through very rough times of crises, those diagnosed with cancer, those who have lost a loved one, and those whose business have hit rock bottom due to the pandemic.

Keep us all faithful to your call, God, for true blessedness is not found in doing but in being in you through your Son Jesus who told us “Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven” (Lk.10:20). Amen.