Thank you very much, O Lord, for this brand new day, for this breath of new hope at the middle of the week as I pray for those who make life difficult for me, for those who mess your plans like those spies Moses sent to reconnoiter the Promised Land.
Instead of building up the people to meet the challenges of settling in the Promised Land, “they spread discouraging reports among the children of Israel about the land they had scouted” (Num.13:32).
Forgive me Lord for doubting you, for thinking that you do not seem to care at all for me when I feel so alone with nobody on my side.
Increase my faith in you like that Canaanite woman who begged you to heal her daughter possessed by the devil. You did not say a word to her that prompted your disciples to intercede for her just to silence her, telling them you had come to search the lost sheep of Israel until….
He said to her in reply, “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.”
Matthew 15:26-27
You praised that Canaanite woman, Lord, for her great faith; but, those children of Israel who trusted more the lies of those sent to scout the Promised Land were eventually punished, paying the very dear price of wandering for 40 years in the desert because they chose to mess your plans.
Vanish all anger and bitterness in me against these people who would surely soon “realize what it means to oppose you, O Lord” (Num.14:34) while I await your further plans and instructions. Amen.
Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, 06 August 2019
Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14 >< }}}*> 2 Peter 1:16-19 >< }}}*> Luke 9:28-36
Photo by Atty. Grace Polaris Rivas-Beron, top of Mt. Sinai, May 2019.
Lord Jesus Christ, two Sundays ago you have taught us how to pray, welcoming us into your inner self on having the right attitude in prayer, of being formed like you, obedient unto death to the will of the Father in heaven.
Today as we celebrate your feast of Transfiguration, once again through St. Luke, you welcome us into your prayer moment to be transformed like you on Mount Tabor.
Jesus took Peter, John, and James and went up the mountain to pray. While he was praying, his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.
Luke 9:28-31
Thank you for bringing us along like your three privileged apostles up on the mountain to pray. Thank you in enabling us to pray with you, in you, and like you. Indeed, every prayer is a moment of transfiguration and transformation.
Most of all, every prayer period is also an exodus, our passing over from darkness to light, from sinfulness to grace, from slavery to freedom.
On the evening of your Resurrection as St. Luke recorded, you walked with two disciples going home to Emmaus, explaining to them how the “Law and the Prophets” spoke about your own pasch or passover and exodus on the Cross.
There on top of the mountain during your transfiguration while you were praying, Moses and Elijah, representing the Law and the Prophets, came to discuss with you your own exodus of Passion, Death, and Resurrection.
When we are so hard pressed with our life, with our pains and hurts, when nobody seem to care, when everybody seem to forget us, join us in our mountain of prayerful transfiguration.
When we feel giving up, when things are breaking apart in our life whether at home or office or school, when we feel hopeless even in the Church, in our Parish and among our parishioners, when we see you dear Jesus “dead” on the Cross, let us hold on to that revelation on Mt. Tabor that you are “the chosen Son” of the Father so we may listen to you always to deny our selves, take up our crosses and follow you.
May we stop seeking some “cleverly devised myths” (1Pt.1:16) towards Transfiguration for there is no other way but through your Cross that makes us your indwelling and presence. Let your face shine on us today to bring more light and hope in this world darkened by sin. Amen.
Happy 13th Anniversary to our Parish of St. John Evangelist, 06 August 2019.
Monday, Feast of the Dedication of St. Mary Major, 05 August 2019
Revelation 21:1-5 >< )))*> <*((( >< Luke 11:27-28
Mural painting of Mary and Child Jesus at Monte Sant’ Angelo, Citta Longobarda, Italy. Photo by Arch. Philip Santiago. 2018.
Praise and glory to you, our loving Father in heaven for this new day, Feast of the Dedication of St. Mary Major, the first Marian Shrine and one of the Mother Churches in our eternal city of Rome.
Indeed, you make all things new as St. John had seen in his vision at Patmos when he wrote the Book of Revelation.
And the best part of it is how you make all things new with Mary, the Mother of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Give us the grace to be like Mary intimately one with you and your will in Christ Jesus.
Help us to be open in receiving your word, bearing fruit in words and in deeds as we share it with others. Amen.
Dome of St. Mary Major in Rome. Photo by Arch. Philip Santiago, 2018.
Thank you very much, O Lord, for punctuating our days with your various festivals to remind us of your coming, of your presence, and your blessings upon us.
But please forgive us when so often, we are so focused with your festivals especially the rituals and the dates but always forget YOU!
So often, we forget to see your coming in your Son Jesus Christ to us not only during the festivals but most of all in the most ordinary days and events of our lives.
Like the people of Capernaum during his time, we rarely see Jesus, recognize Jesus and worst, refuse to believe in Jesus whenever he comes to us – “his native place” – our very selves as well as our places of work and study, even in our prayers.
Please open our eyes and our hearts, O God, to see you in the abundant blessings we always receive, no matter how little or great these may be.
Most of all, may we see you on the face of those next to us every time we look at your blessings and festivals for charity and justice are the best expressions of our celebrations in your honor through Christ. Amen.
Thursday, Feast of St. Alphonsus Liguori, 01 August 2019
Exodus 40:16-21, 34-38 >< )))*> <*((( >< Matthew 13:47-53
Photo by Lorenzo Atienza, 12 June 2019, Malolos City.
You must have heard so many times, Lord, our many wishful thinking of being with you like in our bible readings today.
We always think – and believe – that if we were there with you in the wilderness with Moses or with Jesus in his time in Galilee, we would have obeyed and followed you.
So many times we waste our prayers with so many wishful thinking how you would just let your cloud appear like that in the wilderness so we would know if we must continue with our journey or stop for a rest.
We waste precious moments wishing we are face to face with Jesus inside the house, listening to him explain his parables as if we would understand it easily.
On this feast of St. Alphonsus Liguori, we pray to you O God that we may imitate him to be like “every scribe who has been instructed in the Kingdom of heaven who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old” (Mt. 13:52).
Give us the grace like what you have given St. Alphonsus to continually seek you and your will at all time, in sickness and in health, especially in the most trying moments of life when we are old and sick, when those we have trusted betray us, relying solely in your fidelity and mercy and love.
Instead of entertaining flights of fancies about you, may we be like St. Alphonsus who was so open to your presence and reality especially among the poor and the suffering, the confused and the lost.
May we rediscover not only you, Lord, but through the intercession of St. Alphonsus Liguori, may we also rediscover the beauty and practicality of your morals so we may truly follow your ways of holiness in life.
Likewise, on this feast of St. Alphonsus Liguori, we pray in a special way those suffering various forms of arthritis that afflicted too our blessed saint today. Amen.
According to stories, St. Alphonsus Liguori’s arthritis was so severe that his head was bent down acutely that the pressure of his chin caused a wound on his chest.
Wednesday, Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, 31 July 2019
Exodus 34:29-35 >< )))*> <*((( >< Matthew 13:44-46
Lake Tiberias in Galilee, May 2017.
Dearest Lord:
Please teach us to be generous like your servant St. Ignatius of Loyola whose feast we celebrate today.
Teach us to be generous in examining our conscience so we may readily confess our sins to you each day.
Likewise, teach us Lord to be generous in examining our consciousness too so that we may gratefully acknowledge the good things we have done each day through you.
Most of all, teach us to be generous in being with you in prayers, in seeking your holy will so that like Moses in the first reading, your light may shine on us as we proclaim your greater glory with our words and works.
Let us zealously seek your kingdom like a buried treasure or a precious pearl that once found we may joyfully and lovingly share with others.
Exodus 33:7-11; 34:5-9, 28 >< )))*> Matthew 13:36-43
Photo by Jim Marpa, 2018.
Dear God:
When I come to think about your dwelling place, your tent like in the first reading today where Moses used to enter and converse with you, there is always that peaceful feeling within me. There is that kind of serenity, of stillness and calmness that is very “homey”.
To enter your tent or your dwelling place, O Lord, is simply to be in you, to be one with you. You dwelling place is lovely because it is YOU – how lovely indeed to be in your dwelling place, to be in you, O Lord!
In the same manner, when Matthew told us in today’s gospel your Son Jesus Christ “entered the house”, it is you, O Lord, in turn who comes not only to us but “in” us, when you fill us with your warmth and joy.
Thank you for dwelling in us, Lord.
Indeed, you are kind because you chose to become “one of us”, your kin or kindred.
Help us today to be one like you in love and mercy, kindness and generosity where others especially the weak and the poor may dwell in you in us, Lord. Amen.
Exodus 32:15-24, 30-34 >< }}}*> <*{{{ >< John 11:19-27
Raising of Lazarus by Jesus with Martha and Mary from Hunterian Psalter via Google.
Praise and glory to you, O God our loving Father!
Thank you for the gift of St. Martha whose memorial we celebrate today.
St. Martha is a most beautiful image of somebody busy for the Lord, believing in him as the Christ, always waiting on him, waiting for him. She believed in you as the Christ that is why she waited on you during your visit to her home at Bethany. She also believed in you as the Christ when she awaited your coming on the death of her brother Lazarus, welcoming you on the road to express her grief and sadness.
There was no guile in St. Martha, Lord, as her feelings and words matched her actions.
When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now, I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise.” Martha said to him, “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and anyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”
John 11:20-27
Grant us, O Lord, the same faith St. Martha had in you as the Christ, the “resurrection and the life” of every believer.
In this fast-paced world, faith in you has greatly eroded as most of us can no longer wait.
We have become impatient, believing less in you like the Israelites who turned to a golden calf because they could no longer wait for Moses who had stayed on top of Mt. Sinai conversing with you, God (Ex. 32:23).
Awaiting Christ’s coming and life eternal like St. Martha who actively waited and served on the Lord in her lifetime is faith in action.
Like St. Martha, help us to believe in you so we would wait on you, wait for you.
Like St. Martha, may we live in every here and now in your presence. Amen.
I always tell people that prayer does not necessarily change situations like preventing a calamity from happening like typhoons and earthquakes. Prayer primarily changes people, of how we cope and respond to bad things happening to us and to others. Prayer is more of becoming like Jesus Christ, loving and compassionate, merciful and forgiving. Prayer is the expression of our love that is why it is always transformative.
That is essentially the meaning of our Sunday music today by the great Boz Scaggs, “Look What You’ve Done to Me” from the 1980 movie Urban Cowboy starring John Travolta and Debra Winger. Never saw that movie but I have always been a follower of Scaggs since 1976 when I was only in grade four and hopelessly in love with a classmate singing his poignant ballad We’re All Alone.
In this 1980 hit he had reportedly written hurriedly with David Foster, we also find the right attitude in praying taught by Jesus in the Our Father which is primarily to lose one’s self with God or with one’s beloved. That is exactly what Scaggs is saying in “Look What You’ve Done to Me” – of how love had formed and transformed him into a better person despite all the pains and sufferings.
Hope you enjoy our music today.
And yes, do not forget to pray for it is our expression of our love to God who makes us better persons by being more loving like him.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe, Wk. XVII-C, 28 July 2019
Genesis 18:20-32 >< }}}*> Colossians 2:12-14 >< }}}*> Luke 11:1-13
I have always loved this photo by Ms. Jaileen Jimeno or “JJ”, a former colleague at GMA-7 News. JJ told me how on the evening of May 28 she dropped by the Adoration Chapel of the UP Parish of the Holy Sacrifice for a very special intention when she was stunned by this sight of the “headless man” praying in one of the pews. Always a journalist, JJ took this shot with her camera phone and after praying, posted it on her FB with the caption, “losing one’s head in prayer.” I have not talked with her since then but perhaps, her special intention that evening must have been heard by God because her photo itself is essentially a prayer too!
This is what prayer is all about – losing one’s self in 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.”
Luke 11:1
The Our Father Church outside Jerusalem where Jesus taught his disciples to pray the Our Father, 04 May 2019.
This is the third Sunday in a series of “things to do to gain eternal life” following that conversation by Jesus with a scholar of the law on his way to Jerusalem when he taught us to “love God and love others” by showing compassion to the suffering like the Good Samaritan. Last Sunday during his stopover at the home of Martha and Mary, he taught us that the more we are busy, the more we must pray; and the more we pray, the more we realize of the need to be active. This Sunday, Jesus deepens this lesson about prayer which is also the more essential – “the better part” – as he told Martha that we must do to gain eternal life.
For St. Luke, this episode of Jesus teaching his disciples the Our Father is more than the teaching of a prayer to recite but the attitude itself they must possess in praying.
Of the four evangelists, St. Luke is the one who always present to us Jesus at prayer like at this scene today. Unlike with St. Matthew’s version when Jesus taught the Our Father during his sermon on the mount so that his disciples would know what to pray for instead of multiplying words like the Pharisees and scribes at that time, St. Luke set this teaching in the context of the Lord at prayer to teach us how to pray.
He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test.”
Luke 11:2-4
Jesus came to make known to everyone God is our Father whose name we must always revere and never take in vain. By dying on the Cross, he revealed the glory of the Father who loves us so much that “he gave us his only Son so that we may not perish but gain eternal life”.
This is the first lesson of the Our Father. By teaching us the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus involves us in his own prayer to form our inner being to be like him in total obedience to the Father so that his kingdom may come. Remember the acronym ACTS in praying: “A” for adoration, “C” for confession of sins, “T” for thanksgiving, and “S” for supplications. So often, we only pray the “S” that we no longer merely ask but even demand from God so many things without even praising and thanking him for all his kindness, without realizing how we have turned out to be gods and the Lord our servant!
Wailing Wall of Jerusalem, May 2019.
“And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg? If you then, are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”
Luke 11:9-13
Another unique feature of St. Luke’s version of the teaching of the Lord’s prayer is the parable that follows about an insistent neighbor asking for bread followed by a series of valuable sayings about prayer. Contrary to common interpretations, Jesus is not telling us to ask God for anything we want like money and gadgets. Prayer is essentially asking for God. It is God whom we must desire in prayer because when we have God, we have everything!
In St. Luke’s second book, the Acts of the Apostles, we find the Holy Spirit animating the early Church as a community as well as every individual. Every decision, every plan, and every prayer is always powered and guided by the Holy Spirit. When Jesus told his disciples to ask, to seek, and to knock, he was referring to always pray for the Holy Spirit for we really do not know how to pray. It is the Holy Spirit who enables us to speak rightly to God for things we need to tell him.
See how the two basic prayers we have, the Our Father and the Hail Mary are actually the words of God, not by men. The Our Father is by Jesus Christ himself that is why we call it the Lord’s prayer. The Hail Mary are the words of God through Archangel Gabriel when he greeted Mary to deliver the good news she would be the Mother of Christ. Even its second part are also the words of God when the Holy Spirit filled Elizabeth to praise Mary and the fruit of her womb, Jesus!
We need to ask for the Holy Spirit so that we can truly pray and enter that wonderful dialogue with God. When we pray like Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit, we realize what God wants from us and we are able to respond properly as he gives us the necessary grace to accomplish them. Praying like Jesus is entering a dialogue with God, searching him and acting on his words.
Deacons prostrating before God in earnest prayer before their ordination.
That dialogue between God and Abraham at Mamre before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in our first reading shows us that prayer helps us discern good and evil. Abraham did not bargain with God to save Sodom and Gomorrah for the sake of up to at least ten good people. In fact, only two good people remained there, Abraham’s nephew Lot and his wife who eventually perished after disobeying the angels’ instructions. What really matters in that episode is how Abraham recognized not only the good people but most of all, the prevailing evil at Sodom and Gomorrah.
Chapel of the Assumption Sabbath in Baguio, January 2019.
When we pray like Jesus, we also realize our giftedness of being saved from sin, of being “buried with him in baptism and brought to life along with him” (Col. 2:12,13) and thus becoming children of God. As children of the Father and brothers and sisters of Christ, prayer is where we enter into that deep relationship with God, learning his plans for us and how we can accomplish them by staying out of sin.
The example of Abraham and the teaching of Jesus show us that prayer is not a flight from the realities of this life and of this world. Far from being an escape, real prayer brings us closer to life, to following Christ our Savior for the glory of the Father by bringing his kingdom in this imperfect world marred by sins.
When we pray like Jesus, we get in touch with our true selves as well as with the many pains and hurts we share with others in this life journey, making us realize that we cannot do it alone. And more than the love and support we can get from our family and friends, there is God who loves us so much, giving himself to us to make it through eternal life. Have a blessed Sunday! Amen.
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