Lord My Chef Sunday Recipe by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Sixth Sunday of Easter, Cycle A, 10 May 2026
Acts 8:5-8, 14-17 ><}}}*> 1 Peter 3:15-18 ><}}}*> John 14:15-21

Jesus wraps up this Sunday his Last Supper discourse into its very meaning of love as basis of our relationships in him who is both our “gate” as the Good shepherd (April 26) and our “home” (May 3). It was at his Last Supper when Jesus gave his new commandment of love that is why Holy Thursday is also known as Maundy Thursday from the Latin mandatum for “command.”

Jesus said to his disciples: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments… In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I live and you will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and reveal myself to him” (John14:15, 19-21)

See how Jesus mentioned the word “love” five times in our short gospel this Sunday.

Love is the basis of every relationship; without love, any relationship will not last, will not grow, will not mature and deepen into what it is meant to be.

This is most true in our relationship as disciples of Christ wherein love is more than a feeling but a decision, a choice we make daily in favor of Jesus through the persons around us like your spouse and children, our parents, and fellow disciples. And mothers!

Happy Mothers’ Day to every mom especially those in their sick bed, those widowed, and those who gone ahead of us to eternity.

Mothers are the best examples of the love Jesus is speaking of in the gospel today.

It is the love we affirm despite the pains and hurts of misunderstanding from people we love; it is the love calling us to remain faithful even if others are not; it is the love that remembers and never forgets; it is the love that forgives, that cares and understands without asking anything in return.

It is a love that unfolds, like a process going through stages that calls us to be patient as St. Paul described it in one of his letters. That is why Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit later to his disciples to understand better his lessons and mission for them.

See how in the first reading we have a glimpse of the kind of love of Jesus calling us – the conversion of the people of Samaria: first was Philip coming to them like preparing the ground for the gospel in them and when they seem to be ready, Peter and John arrived to pray over them to receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit. More than to show us how the Holy Spirit works, the story is all about the love that bound the early Church together especially when the persecution begun.

I prefer the word “unfolding” in describing love wherein slowly there is the sort of “unveiling” of the cover of the face because love is more than a concept and thought or experience: love is a person as John wrote in his first letter, Deus caritas est, God is love (1Jn.4:8).

It is the title of the first encyclical by Pope Benedict XVI who wrote that true love involves transformation wherein the lover seeks to become like his beloved, moving from selfish desires known as eros into the self-sacrificial and other-centered love called agape, the Greek word used by John in writing his account of the Last Supper.

The love that Jesus is calling us is that love of his on the Cross we make present in the Eucharist, that even though we repeat it over and over daily, we never get fed up because something is happening in us, there is something changing, making us better, more matured, more loving that we keep coming back to the Holy Mass to listen to his words and receive him Body and Blood under the signs of the bread and wine.

Every true love is always a person. This is the reason why those who love persevere and forge into every obstacle, fight for their love, bear all pains because we find our fulfillment in being with our beloved, whether physically or spiritually. The mode does not really matter because true love touches our very personhood always.

Here lies the beauty of Albert Camus’ 1947 novel The Plague that had a sort of rediscovery during the 2020 COVID pandemic where he wrote that “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.”

Without love, humanity will go extinct.

Because of love, every tragedy, every suffering and problem we go through leads to happy ending primarily because we discover something in ourselves and in someone beyond far more important than any situation or plight we may be into.

And that is the joy of the love of Jesus Christ when God is revealed in us in his love when we love like him. It is Jesus Christ whom we “sanctify as Lord in our hearts” (1Pt.3:15) is the one we imitate and follow, the one we see and, most of all, the only one we must share when we love, when we serve.

I know, these are easier said than done.

Specially when we who love are not loved by those we love. Or taken for granted, even forgotten.

Again, let us return to that love of mothers that is most closest to the love of Jesus Christ, a love so willing to give up one’s self in spite and despite of everything.

One of the hardest things many of us go through like priests and nuns, the eldest in the family and the newly widowed or anyone looked up to as someone without a problem: very often people forget us or take us for granted including those supposed to be closest to us, thinking we are fine or doing great without any hint of the sufferings we are going through.

But, it is a source of constant deep joy while suffering in silence, God’s grace is always overflowing because Jesus is within each one of us who believes in him and tries hard to keep his commandments.

We just have to do our part, to keep on believing in Jesus, loving Jesus, and most of all, keeping his commandments because Jesus is the “explanation to anyone who asks us for a reason for our hope” (1Pt.3:15).

We are about to close the Easter Season in two weeks: next Sunday will be the Solemnity of the Lord’s Ascension and after that the Pentecost Sunday. This Last Supper scene perfectly captures the very kind of love Jesus is asking us – a love so personal like his, a love that unfolds and grows deeper as we love more despite the pains and sufferings, and a love that often looks absurd to others and even to us because it is not physical. And beyond logic.

Jesus invites us to continue to be his loving presence in this selfish world, where everyone demands of deserving so many perks in life. Let us do away with that expression “dasurv ko” this or that. Let us pray for more love to conquer all. Don’t forget to hug or remember your mom this Mothers’ Day. Have a blessed Sunday and keep cool and hydrated too! Amen.