Friday, Memorial of St. Peter Damian, 21 February 2020
James 2:14-24.26 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Mark 8:34-9:1
Photo by Mr. Jay Javier, Traslacion 2020, Quiapo, Manila.
Praise and glory to you, O Lord Jesus Christ, for standing by our side through all the trials that have poured upon us this early 2020. In fact, since December you have been keeping us, blessing us, protecting us from all the problems we have been going through in the family and in the world.
You have never left us, Lord, with many of us now moving on with our lives since losing our beloved earlier this year while war between Iran and the US was averted. Thank you, Jesus, the alert level of Taal Volcano had gone down and despite the continuing threats from the new corona virus, things seem to be improving.
Except us, your people who are supposed to be “faithful”.
The words of St. James since Monday have been shaking us down into our very core, reminding us to get real and do away with all the pomp and pageantries of being your faithful disciples.
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead. You believe that God is one. You do well. Even the demons believe that and tremble. See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. For just as a body without a spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.
James 2:14, 17, 19, 24-26
Continue to purify us, teach us how to truly “deny one’s self, take up one’s cross, and follow you, O Lord” (Mk.8:34).
How sad, O Lord, that as we approach your holy season of Lent, we are more preoccupied with how ashes should be distributed on Ash Wednesday.
What an “overkill” Lord in dealing with this disease when we have forgotten the more essential cleansing of our hearts, of our minds and conscience that flow into maintaining cleanliness and hygiene inside our churches.
Faith in this time of the new corona virus is proving to be a very crucial test of our being Christ-ians indeed through our genuine works of love and mercy for others.
Give us the same courage of St. Peter Damian in reforming not only your church but most especially our very selves. Amen.
Photo by Mr. Jay Javier, Traslacion 2020, Quiapo, Manila.
Lord Jesus Christ, today I beg you, please do not ask me the same question you have asked your apostles at Caesarea Philippi: “Who do people say that I am?”
I am not yet ready to report these to you, Lord, because I would be telling you also so many varied answers on what people say who you are just like the Twelve at that time.
But so unlike your apostles, the people’s many different answers on who you are – that are mostly wrong – are because of my own faults and shortcomings.
Yes, dear Jesus: when your apostles told you what people said about you, they merely reported what they have heard.
But, today Lord, people say different things about you largely because we your priests and modern followers have not fulfilled our mission from you. We have misrepresented you, Jesus, most of the time.
People get so many wrong ideas on who you are because we do not reflect your true self as a humble and loving servant living with the poor and marginalized.
People get so many wrong ideas on who you are because we do not reflect your true self as a suffering servant, sacrificing everything, bearing all pains for justice and truth.
Forgive us, Jesus, when most of the time, we are what your apostle St. James refer to as those showing partiality with the rich and powerful, forgetting the less fortunate among us.
I am sorry, Lord Jesus in misrepresenting you that until now, people still say so many things on who you are.
Please continue to purify me, to empty me of my pride, to fill me with your humility, justice and love so people may realize who you really are — through me. Amen.
Lawiswis ng Salita ni P. Nicanor F. LaLog II, 18 Pebrero 2020
Larawan kuha ng may-akda sa Mt. St. Paul, Trinidad, Benguet, 05 Pebrero 2020.
Buhat nung isang gabi
hindi ako mapakali
nang si Hesus ay hindi makapagtimpi
napabuntung-hininga ng malalim
nang makipagtalo sa kanya
mga Pariseo humihingi ng tanda
na siya nga ang Kristo.
Hindi ba turo ng matatanda
hanggang ngayon siyang laging paalala
masama magbuntung-hininga
na tila baga wala ka nang pag-asa?
Gayun pa man maski ito ay ating alam
madalas hindi natin mapigilan
kapag nahihirapan at nabibigatan.
Katulad natin marahil
si Hesus napupuno na rin:
nagbubuntung-hininga,
humuhugot ng kabutihan
sa kanyang kaibuturan
upang malampasan
mga kasamaan ng kalaban.
Iyan ang kabutihan
magandang kahulugan
nitong pagbubuntung-hininga
na pilit tinatanggihan, di naman maiwasan
dahil ating nang nakagawian
pumaloob sa kaibuturan
kaysa makipag-awayan
Hindi kaduwagan
bagkus katapangan kung minsan
dahil iyong sinasaalang-alang
katiwasayan ng ating mga ugnayan
kaya pilit sinisisid, sinasaid kabutihan
doon sa kalaliman ng kalooban
kung saan nanahan Panginoon ng Kapayapaan.
Larawan kuha ng may-akda, Poblacion ng Los Baños, Laguna, 13 Pebrero 2020.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul, Week VI-A, 16 February 2020
Sirach 15:15-20 ><)))*> 1 Corinthians 2:6-10 ><)))*> Matthew 5:17-37
Photo by author of pilgrims entering the Church of the Beatitudes with a painting of the Sermon on the Mount above the door, May 2019.
Jesus continues his Sermon on the Mount this Sunday, expounding the meaning of his teachings called the Beatitudes. As we have reflected last week, the Beatitudes tell us the person of Jesus Christ as being “poor, merciful, clean of heart” whom we must all imitate to become the salt and the light of the world.
Most important of all, Matthew presents to us at the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus is more than the new Moses as giver of laws like at Mt. Sinai in the Old Testament: Jesus himself is the Law, who is both our Teacher and Redeemer.
This we see in his teachings today when he claims to be the fulfillment of the Laws and the Prophets from God in the Old Testament.
Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill it. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.”
Matthew 5:17-18
Essence of the Laws: reflection of God, the good of man
Today, Jesus is teaching us to see the laws in the right perspectives, in the light of the will of God for the good of every person. Throughout his ministry, Jesus has always been consistent in reminding everyone that the laws were made for man, not the other way around.
During Christ’s time, people have lost the real meaning of the Commandments of God as priests and religious leaders focused more on its letters than in its essence and spirit that in the process, the laws have become burdensome. It has continued in our own generation with laws taking precedence over God and persons.
Photo by author of the Church of the Beatitudes at the Holy Land, May 2019.
At the Sermon on the Mount, we find Jesus restoring and recalibrating the laws so that these become more relevant and powerful as reflections of God in the service of man.
Jesus “relectures” us the laws in this part of his Sermon on the Mount by adding more righteousness (holiness), declaring that,
“I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 5:20
By using a pattern where he would cite Laws, saying, “You have heard that it was said”– Jesus shows us his fidelity and obedience to Judaism, contrary to his enemies’ accusations that he had abolished their laws. Moreover, in fulfilling the laws, Jesus put himself in the midst of every law and precept by declaring, “Amen, I say to you” or “but I say to you”.
In following that formula, Jesus gave the laws with a human face and a human heart in himself as its fulfillment so that from then on at his Sermon on the Mount, Christ made every law, every tradition, everything else to be seen always in his person.
Black and white photo by Mr. Jay Javier in Quiapo, 09 January 2020.
Performative powers of the laws in Jesus Christ
With Jesus in the midst of every law and precept as its fulfillment, God’s laws then become not only informative but most of all, performative to borrow one of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s favorite expression. This we find Jesus teaching us in three stages in our long gospel this Sunday.
Education of the heart.
The first two laws cited by Jesus in this long list of commandments are “You shall not kill” and “you shall not commit adultery”. Both laws bring us to the very core of our personhood, of what is in our hearts and in our minds. The Lord explains that being angry as well as saying bad words against another person is like murder while looking lustfully at a woman is a form of adultery because in both cases, we have ceased to regard the other individuals as persons to be loved and respected, created in the image and likeness of God.
From Google.
It is an invitation for us to purify our hearts and minds for what defiles man is not what enters him but what comes out from him (Mt.15:11). Whatever is within us will always have an effect in all of our actions, for better or for worse.
What a tragedy that right here in the middle of our wired world of social media and instant communications, we have actually grown apart than together in the last 35 year with so much animosities fed on by lies and misinformation.
How ironic also that despite the information explosion from the Net, we have more benighted souls today than ever before who have actually gone to schools who know nothing of our history and geography?!
Education of the heart is formation of the whole person, not just a training of skills. One problem we have these days is when information is geared on data and facts without integration that we forget our relationships as well as the values we keep like respect, kindness, and dedication. Unless we have an education of the heart, a wholistic and integral formation, we can never be transformed into like Jesus Christ.
2. Get into the roots of our sins.
In telling us to pluck out our right eye or cut off our right hand if these cause us to sin, Jesus is inviting us again to probe deep into our hearts and being to understand what causes us to sin.
Photo by author, water plants in my room at the Fatima Parish and National Shrine, Valenzuela City, 2010.
The key here is to be totally free. In the first reading, Ben Sirach counsels us to “choose” rightly what is good and avoid what is evil.
We can only exercise our true freedom when we have clearer knowledge and understanding of ourselves and of things within us. We fall into vices and sins because we do not know what is going on inside us; hence, we are enslaved by our desires and sins to be not free at all.
Once we understand our sins, we commit them less often. Most of all, when we understand our sins, our struggles against committing these become more persevering, resulting to more triumphs than defeats.
The Season of Lent is near. Once again, we shall be busy with fasting and abstinence, contrition and confession of sins, almsgiving and other spiritual works that make us holy. But too often, these acts become mechanical that sooner, we sometimes reach that point when we cannot find meaning in doing them anymore that we sink deeper into sins and evil.
This happens when we get focused with letters of the laws and we forget its spirit that we become mechanical because we have failed to understand our very selves as well as our sins.
3. Be true.
Jesus said it perfectly well at the end of his teachings today,
“Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one.”
Matthew 5:37
In this last installment of reviewing the laws, Jesus underscored the problems with divorce as well as with lies that continue to this day because we always choose not to be true at all with ourselves, with God, and with others.
Photo by author of the last two Stations of the Cross at the chapel of my niece Ms. Babs Sison in Los Baños, Laguna 13 February 2020.
See the wisdom of Jesus in putting together divorce and oaths, the two great lies that until now continue to mislead so many among us who refuse to accept and carry the cross of Christ, preferring only the Easter Sunday minus the Good Friday.
Being true is embracing the Cross of Jesus Christ like St. Paul in the second reading. It is something we cannot deny in this life. There will always be pain and sufferings. As Dr. Scott Peck put it in his book The Road Less Travelled, “life is difficult.”
At his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus clearly showed in his Beatitudes that he and his values are in sharp contrast to the wisdom of the world. And this wisdom is only accessible to those willing to embrace the crucified Christ and the scandal of the cross.
It is there on the Cross with Jesus Christ we truly find the fulfillment of the laws as well as our fullness as persons. Amen.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nick F. Lalog II, 13 February 2020
Photo by author, Mt. St. Paul, Trinidad, Benguet, 04 February 2020.
At the Ascension of the Lord, St. Luke tells us something very unique and unusual: the disciples returned to Jerusalem filled with joy.
Unusual and unique because when someone leaves us, either permanently like death or temporarily due to change of residence or jobs, we always feel sad.
But not the Apostles of Jesus along with the other disciples including Mary who were filled joy!
And so are we today because when someone dies, the person or our beloved does not leave us entirely. Though we do not see and feel them physically anymore, we continue to experience them personally.
Sometimes, we even grow more personal that there are people we feel getting closer with them after they have died.
Photo by author, Mt. St. Paul, Trinidad, Benguet, 05 February 2020
As I have been telling you, 2020 for me is tough with so many deaths in our Parish, in my family, and among my friends. Since last week of Christmas until the other week, I have been praying and celebrating funeral Masses almost everywhere.
This week, funeral Masses continue while at the same time, I have started celebrating the 40th days of those relatives and friends who have died last month.
In 1995, my father’s younger sister was stricken with pancreatic cancer. Being the eldest at that time among his nine surviving siblings, another aunt called me to ask my dad’s decision regarding their sick sister, if she would still go through surgery and just go home to Los Banos and wait for the inevitable.
He simply told me, “tell your Tita to just bring home Tita Rose; she had suffered enough and had lived a full life.”
Photo by author, Los Banos, Laguna, 13 February 2020.
That is when I realized that coming to terms with death iscoming toterms with life, and vice versa.
I know it is easier to say but that is how life is: we are often afraid to die because we know we have not fulfilled something yet, a mission or a promise made.
People who enjoy life, people with a sense of contentment are always the ones without regrets, always fulfilled, and ready to go.
And always, they are the ones who truly love that is why they live fullest, Valentine’s day or not.
God bless you and keep loving!
Photo by author, Collegeville Subd., Los Banos, Laguna, 13 February 2020.
Monday, St. Scholastica, Week V, Year II, 10 February 2020
1 Kings 8:1-7, 9-13 ><)))*> 0 <*(((>< Mark 6:53-56
Photo by author of a pilgrim writing prayer petitions in a Marian room of Greek Orthodox Basilica of St. George in Madaba, Jordan, May 2019.
Praise and glory to you O Lord for the gifts of church buildings where we can gather in your name especially on Sundays to praise and worship you. Thank you for the religious articles and images we have that also remind us of your being with us.
They all remind us of the relationships we keep with you our God expressed through our brothers and sisters around us.
Like the Ark of the Covenant and the Temple of Jerusalem mentioned today in the first reading, may your Holy Spirit dwell in us through these religious things to remind us of your presence in us and among us so that we may strive to live harmoniously as brothers and sisters in Christ.
May we have that kind of faith and trust in you like those crowds who followed Jesus everywhere in the gospel just to touch his cloak so they may be healed of their afflictions.
And like St. Scholastica whose feast we celebrate today, may we cultivate the relationships we keep in you and with one another through our actual presence. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Recipe for the Soul, Sunday Week V-A, 09 February 2020
Isaiah 58:7-10 ><)))*> 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 ><)))*> Matthew 5:13-16
Our parish cross at night, taken with my camera phone, 02 February 2020.
For most of us, 2020 is a very tough year with all the dark clouds that have come to hover above us in January remain in this month of February.
Threats from the corona virus are growing especially in our country. And while the alert level at Taal Volcano had gone down, dangers of its major eruption remain while volcanologists observed last week a “crater glow” on Mayon Volcano, indicating a possible rising of magma in the world’s most perfect cone.
Elsewhere, more bad news are happening like the sudden deaths this week of healing priest Fr. Fernando Suarez and of our very own and beloved Fr. Danny Bermudo, just 24 hours apart due to heart attacks.
In our own circles of family and relatives, friends and colleagues are also dark clouds covering us while we go through our many trials and tests in life that seem to eclipse this early the many gains we have achieved in the whole of 2019.
Indeed, year 2020 shows us in “perfect vision” the sad realities of dark spots in life that behoove us more to heed Christ’s call to be the light of the world.
Jesus said to his disciples: “You are the light of the world. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Heavenly Father.”
Matthew 5:14, 16
Photo by author, frost on petals, Baguio City, 04 February 2020.
Jesus is the light of the world, not us
Our gospel this Sunday follows immediately the inaugural preaching of Jesus called “the Sermon on the Mount” with the Beatitudes at its centerpiece. We have skipped that part of the gospel last Sunday due to the celebration of the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord.
For us to better appreciate this Sunday’s gospel, let us keep in mind that for Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount is the great discourse of Jesus Christ that depicts his image not only as the new Moses but as the Law himself, being both our Teacher and Savior as well.
Jesus shows us a picture of his person in the Beatitudes as someone we must imitate in being “poor in spirit, meek, and merciful” so we can follow his path to the Father. After all, as the Son of God, Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn. 14:6).
Hence, after enumerating the nine Beatitudes, Jesus followed up his Sermon on Mount with a call for us to be the salt and the light of the world: as salt, we merely bring out the Christ or the taste in every person and as light, it is the light of Christ that we share.
Focus remains in being like Jesus, not in replacing him who is our Savior. That is why he tells us clearly before shifting to another lesson in his Sermon that “your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Heavenly Father” (Mt.5:16).
Sharing Christ’s light with our good deeds as a community
So, how do we share the light of Jesus Christ in this age when so many others are claiming to be the light that will dispel all darkness in our lives?
As early as during the darkest period in the history of Israel in the Old Testament called the “Babylonian Captivity (or Exile)”, God had taught his people how to become light for one another during trials and sufferings.
Christ Light of the World, Red Wednesday, 27 November 2019. Photo by author.
Thus says the Lord: Share your bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and the homeless; clothe the naked when you see them, and do not turn your back on your own. Then your light shall break forth like the dawn… if you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; then light shall rise for you in the darkness, and the gloom shall become for you like midday.
Isaiah 58:7-8, 10
To share one’s bread with the hungry, to welcome the homeless, to clothe the hungry are some of the most concrete demands placed by God to his people since he had freed them from slavery in Egypt and later in Babylonia (Iraq today) when the third part of the Book of Isaiah was written.
Eventually, this prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus Christ who also preached exactly the same things shortly before fulfilling his mission in Jerusalem when he stressed the need to do good to one another because “whatsoever we do to one another, especially to the least among us, we also do unto him” (Mt.25:31-40).
We shall hear this part of Matthew’s gospel at the end of our current liturgical year on November 22, 2020 in the celebration of the Solemnity of Christ the King.
These instructions became the basis of our catechism’s “spiritual and corporal works of mercy” that Pope Francis stressed in 2016 during the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy.
From fathersofmercy.com
By saying “you are the light of the world”, Jesus is telling us that to fulfill this mission, we have to do it together as a community, as his Body, the Church!
No matter how good and holy we are, none of us is the “light of the world” on our own.
One candle or lamp, or even a light bulb today cannot produce enough light to brighten a whole town or community. But, if one Christian will be lighting just one little candle in the dark, he or she can encourage others especially those who are timid, hesitant, and indifferent until they finally set the world ablaze with Christ’s light.
Christ’s call to be the light of the world is also a call for us to be united as one community, one family, one faithful couple with all our imperfections and sinfulness. What matters is our striving to be good disciples, always charitable to one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Here we find the direct relationship of mission and community: every mission given by Jesus is also a call to become a community because without it, it soon becomes a cult centered on the disciple than the Lord.
Photo by Mr. Jim Marpa, 2018.
The example of St. Paul in sharing Christ’s light
St. Paul shows us the best example of being a light of Jesus is to always have it done and fulfilled in the context of a community, of the Church as the Body of Christ, avoiding chances of grabbing the light from him for personal gains.
“I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling, and my message and my proclamation were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of Spirit and power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.”
1 Corinthians 2:3-5
It has always happened especially for us serving in the Church that in sharing the light of Christ, we get carried by our ministry and apostolate that we forget him until we claim being the light ourselves.
Sometimes, we consciously or unconsciously create clouts and personality cults for ourselves for being the best, the brightest, even the holiest and most humble of all!
We foolishly brag the great buildings and edifices we have built or the countless malnourished kids we have fed or sent to school for free through college, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera without being bothered at all where is Jesus Christ in all our efforts and projects!
How sad when we forget that what matters most in life is not what we have done or what we have achieved but what have we become as bearers of the light of Christ like St. Paul.
My dear friend, if you are going through many darkness in life today, simply be good, think only of Jesus Christ in everybody you meet and deal with. That is actually when you shine brightest as the light of Christ because people will be surprised at how calmly and gracefully you carry your cross.
In that way, you encourage others living in darkness to let their little sparks of light come out too without realizing how in their own darkness and limitations they have made Christ’s light seen. Amen.
Have a bright and blessed Sunday with your loved ones!
2 Samuel 18:9-10, 15, 24-25, 30-19:3 ><)))*> <*(((>< Mark 5:21-43
Photo by author, Mt. St. Paul Spirituality Center, La Trinidad, Benguet, 03 February 2020.
Thank you very much, Lord Jesus Christ, for this gift of rest in you. Thank you for reminding us last Friday how you would always explain everything about your parables “in private” to your Twelve apostles (Mk.4:34).
Today I feel that if there is one thing you would really want to ask each one of us is to have some private, personal time with you.
We have always been so busy with so many things in life except with you, Lord.
Like that woman in today’s gospel afflicted with hemorrhages for 12 years seeking to touch even your clothes to be healed, many of us still feel so alone, even alienated in the midst of the crowds, of so many friends and followers in social media and of all kinds of BFF’s.
Many of us have forgotten that of all the bestest friends we can ever have in life is no one but you, Lord. And that’s the good news!
You are always here for us, Lord Jesus, always looking for us, searching us, wanting to enter into a personal relationship with us that is vibrant and alive.
Jesus, aware at once that power had gone out from him, turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who has touched my clothes?’ But his disciples said to him, “You see how the crowd is pressing upon you, and yet you asked, ‘Who has touched my clothes?'” And he looked around to see who had done it.
Mark 5:30-32
Photo by author, Mt. St. Paul Spirituality Center, La Trinidad, Benguet, 03 February 2020.
After meeting the woman you have healed, people came to inform Jairus that his sick daughter had died, that he should no longer bother you. But, you assured Jairus that his daughter was asleep and has not died, asking him to just have faith in you. Again, you asked him for some private time with you:
Then Jesus put them all out. He took along the child’s father and mother and those who were with him (Peter, James, and John) and entered the room where the child was.
Mark 5:40
Give us O Lord Jesus the grace to make that precious moment to spend time with you in private to experience your healing and loving presence.
May we always keep in mind that in the beginning when God created the first man, it has always been your desire that we be alone with you, first of all. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music, 02 February 2020
Photo by Mr. Jim Marpa, Bohol, 2019.
Welcome, followers and readers to this Sunday edition of our The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music as we feature a double-header from singer-composer Todd Rundgren: his first solid hit “I Saw the Light” and “Hello It’s Me” that are both from his 1972 album Something/Anything?
We are featuring two songs today because both are related with our celebration of the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord which falls on February second.
And besides, Todd’s music has always been my favorite while growing up in the 1970’s.
First, we choose I Saw the Light because it is very close to our liturgical feast today also known as Candlemass or Candelaria with Jesus Christ being the Light of the world. St. Luke tells us when Joseph and Mary brought the child Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem 40 days after Christmas, an old man of God named Simeon carried him in his arms and sang:
“Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in sight of all the peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory of your people Israel.”
Luke 2:29-32
Jesus is the Light of the world, the only one who can dispel all darkness in our lives.
In I Saw the Light, Todd tells us the story of a young man probably groping in some darkness in his relationship – actually a fling according to the song – with a girl and he does not know if that is really love.
Though we had our fling I just never would suspect a thing ‘Til that little bell began to ring in my head In my head But I tried to run, though I knew it wouldn’t help me none ‘Cause I couldn’t ever love no one, or so I said But my feelings for you were just something I never knew ‘Til I saw the light in your eyes
But I love you best It’s not something that I say in jest ‘Cause you’re different, girl, from all the rest In my eyes And I ran out before but I won’t do it anymore Can’t you see the light in my eyes
Meanwhile, in our second song Hello It’s Me, we find another man so in love with a woman who is also into some darkness.
Like in I Saw the Light, there is no recognition and hence, no meeting here in Hello It’s Me.
Hello, it’s me I’ve thought about us for a long, long time Maybe I think too much but something’s wrong There’s something here that doesn’t last too long Maybe I shouldn’t think of you as mine Seeing you, or seeing anything as much as I do you I take for granted that you’re always there I take for granted that you just don’t care Sometimes I can’t help seeing all the way through It’s important to me That you know you are free ‘Cause I never want to make you change for me
Both songs show us the important lesson taught to us by the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord: like anyone else, Jesus also comes but we on our part have to cultivate a relationship with him in order to always recognize him and eventually meet him to be one with him.
Just like the people we love.
Have a wonderful Sunday of prayer, food and drinks, and good music.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nick F. Lalog II, 13 January 2020
Photo by my high school seminary friend, Mr. Chester Ocampo, taken at the UST Senior High where he teaches art (2019).
Life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone..
John Mellencamp, “Jack & Diane” (1982)
Maybe this is part of getting old, of maturing. Of learning to grapple with life’s mortal realities and still be excited with living. It is a grace that is both fulfilling but also deeply moving and often, chilling.
An uncle and a friend have commented to me in our recent chats how 2020 had come in hard and difficult with so many sickness and deaths in the family.
Some relatives have to fly to Singapore on New Year’s Day to support a cousin whose husband had an office accident that left him in comatose for five days following a brain surgery. He eventually died and had to be cremated a few days later.
December 11 I had to drive to Manila to visit and anoint the father of my best friend from high school seminary who arrived December 2 from the States, fell ill December 4, and had to spen Christmas and New year in the hospital.
Less than 24 hours after being discharged January 3, he died the following morning after talking with my friend based in Chicago, three days short before eldest daughter arrived to accompany him and wife back to New Jersey this week.
Meanwhile last January 2, I had to rush again this time to Quezon City for the wake of our high school seminary classmate Rommel who had died of multiple complications morning of December 31.
He is the third to “rest in peace” in our batch of 18 men who graduated the minor seminary in 1982. We last saw him in our reunion, September 9, 1990 (9-9-90).
Suddenly, I felt myself in some kind of a time warp when everything seemed to be not too long ago, as if we have just graduated recently, or that my dad and their dads have just passed away one after the other these past months.
Death can sometimes be magical when life is lived in love
I realized that when we have so much love for everyone like relatives and friends, including parishioners in the last eight years, time stands still after their deaths. You do not count the days and weeks and months and years you were together and when they have all gone.
They all seem to be still present because you are focused on how those departed have enriched your very life, your very person no matter how fleeting or long ago you were together.
Death can sometimes be magical, most of all grace-filled, when our lives are lived in love.
Life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone…
John Mellencamp, “Jack & Diane” (1982)
Photo by author, our sacristy 2019.
Memories and knowledge fade, but love remains
Finally I had the chance to visit my mom – for Christmas! – evening of January 6. It was so good that just before leaving, a cousin arrived with his family to visit also my mother who is the younger sister of his mother, my Tita Celia.
It was only at that evening we have finally confirmed that Tita Celia has Alzheimer’s, the reason why her ways and attitudes have been noticeably erratic in 2019 as she was slowly losing grip of her senses.
And now, it is almost all gone according to my cousin whose sadness I strongly felt as he narrated to me the deterioration of his mother, of forgetting and losing so many things, of not recognizing familiar people like relatives and friends.
That same night, we also learned from him how our moms’ younger brother seem to be having signs of the onset of Alzheimer’s disease that are very similar with Tita Celia.
Again, I found myself in a “time warp” while they were happily conversing I was silently trying to recall the last time I have seen my mother’s siblings now afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease, wondering if they will still recognize me if I visit them later.
Moreover, I also realized how afraid I am with the prospects of getting sick in old age than of dying, sooner or later!
In fact, I was so scared that I had a nightmare that same night: in my dream I found myself lost, apparently with Alzheimer’s as I was searching for my parish rectory, looking for my bedroom, asking people about my parish staff, crying like a child.
What a relief when I woke up Tuesday morning that it was just a dream, that I was in fact in my bed, inside my room, in my parish rectory, so alive and still whole!
It seems it is easier to think and accept of one’s death than of getting sick and incapacitated later in old age. It is something we have to slowly come to terms with while still younger and stronger, and perhaps wiser.
How?
As I recalled our conversations with my cousin Louie that Monday night at home, I was amazed at his great love for his mother, Tita Celia. I remembered how he would always have pasalubong for his mother even upon coming home from school!
Maybe that is why even she had forgotten most of us her relatives, she always remembers Louie her son because he is the one who has truly loved her next to the late Tito Memo, her husband. The same is true with others taking care of their old parents afflicted with Alzheimer’s: they are recognized and remembered because they love.
Our memories and knowledge may be erased but the love we have in our hearts, the love we have experienced always remain even if everything has failed in life. That is why St. Paul declared that “love is the greatest of all gifts of God”.
Life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone…
John Mellencamp, “Jack & Diane” (1982)
With my former students at the Cubao Cathedral after the wedding of their classmate. I felt so proud, and old, that afternoon seeing them all with their career and family, of how they have maintained their friendships all these years like brothers, of they love one another. Photo by Peter dela Cruz, one in blue.
To live is to love
December 2019 and January 2020 are perhaps my most “marrying months” in my 21 years of priesthood.
Aside from the weddings of friends and students I have officiated these past two months, three more are coming next month of February.
Again, as I saw friends and especially former students getting married, I could not believe at how fast time had passed.
Should I really be surprised when I find out my former students already in their early 30’s, some with families of their own and children whom they instruct to kiss my hand, calling me Lolo Fr. Nick?
It was a very “existential” experience that they are already old, and most of all, I am really that old after all!
Maybe that is what my married friends are telling me of the joy of fatherhood, of having your kids getting married, of having grandchildren, of the inner satisfaction that you have brought life to fruition.
That you have truly loved and now being loved.
It is perhaps the joy of getting old, of maturing, of dying or even forgetting everything when afflicted later with Alzheimer’s that you start to fade from the scene and hand over the stage to the next generation, thinking that life will still go on after us because you have loved much.
What really matters in the end is how we have lived and loved the people around us, of how we have enriched each other’s lives so that as the young ones discover life’s meaning in love, we who are older find life’s fulfillment still in the love from the relationships we keep.
Here’s a hill-billy rock music about love to drive your Monday’s blues away.
lordmychef.com 