The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Tuesday, Memorial of Sts. Cyril, Monk & Methodius, Bishop, 14 February 2023
Genesis 6:5-8; 7:1-5, 10 ><]]]'> + ><]]]'> + ><]]]'> Mark 8:14-21
On this most joyous day of hearts,
dear God our Father,
I pray for us all with a heart
to have a natural heart
not hardened by sin and bitterness,
not a heart lacking in understanding
nor a heart so caught up with selfish
and personal agenda.
When the Lord saw how great was man’s wickedness on earth, and how no desire that his heart conceived was ever anything but evil, he regretted that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was grieved.
Genesis 6:5-6
Give us a heart
inclined to you, O Lord,
a heart that listens in silence,
a heart that rejoices in truth,
a heart that celebrates what is good,
a heart that sings amid the many scars
and pains of infidelity and betrayal,
unkindness and unfriendliness,
a heart that is whole and undivided
in courage and freedom to do what
is most loving, most self-sacrificing
and self-giving like that of Jesus Christ.
Let us not be carried away
and worst, give rise to the commercialization
of Valentine's Day that we forget the
true meaning of loving which is
forgetting one's self and thinking more of
the other person; how lovely it is to read how
you, O God, directed Noah to build an ark
to save his family from the great flood:
Everyone inside the ark was in pair -
Noah and his wife,
his three sons and each one's wife
as well as the animals with one male
and one female each to show us that
love is never alone,
always with another person
with a community of believers!
Many times, O Lord,
we miss your point because we are so
caught up with our own thoughts and ideas
that our eyes cannot see,
and ears cannot hear.
Teach like our brother saints today,
St. Cyril and St. Methodius
to seek your holy will
so we may love truly
like Jesus Christ who
died on the Cross
for us.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thursday, Feast of St. John Marie Vianney, Priest, 04 August 2022
Jeremiah 31:1-7 ><}}}*> + ><}}}*> + ><}}}*> Matthew 16:13-23
Photo by Mr. Jay Javier, Acacias at UP, Diliman, QC, April 2022.
Glory and praise to you,
dear Jesus for the gift of
priesthood!
Thank you for the grace of
St. John Marie Vianney our
patron who taught us that
"The priesthood is the love
of the heart of Jesus".
That is why on this day of the
priests, we pray like the psalmist:
A clean heart create for me, O God,
and a steadfast spirit renew within me.
Cast me not out from your presence,
and your Holy Spirit take not from me.
Give me back the joy of your salvation,
and a willing spirit sustain in me.
I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners shall return to you.
For you are not pleased with sacrifices;
should I offer a burnt offering,
you would not accept it.
My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit;
a heart contrite and humbled,
O God, you will not spurn.
(Psalm 51:12-13, 14-15, 18-19)
Indeed, dear Jesus,
it is the heart of us your
priests that must be cleansed
and purified for it is where
your new covenant is written
as Jeremiah prophesied
in the first reading today:
"I will place my law within them,
and write it upon their hearts;
I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
No longer will they have need to
teach their friends and relatives
how to know the Lord"
(Jeremiah 31:33-34).
In your many teachings, Jesus,
especially in the Beatitudes,
you have always declared the heart
as the wholeness of every person
that must be purified to be open
and free to see God because
our intellect is never enough;
like Peter when he confessed "you
are the Christ" at Caesarea Philippi,
let our hearts be silent to listen to
the voice of the Father revealing
you in our hearts (Matthew 16:16-17).
Most of all, purify and cleanse
the hearts of us your priests,
dear Jesus so that we may have
a loving heart that is obedient to you
in serving your people; a heart that
is one with you, O Lord, on the
Cross for it is only in humbling
ourselves, in going down like you
can we truly be loving to have a heart
like your Most Sacred Heart.
Amen.
St. John Marie Vianney,
Pray for us priests!
Photo by Ka Ruben, National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, 24 June 2022.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday, Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, 24 June 2022
Ezekiel 34;11-16 ><}}}}*> Romans 5:5-11 ><}}}}*> Luke 15:3-7
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate and Spirituality Center, Novaliches, Quezon City, 2017.
The three solemnities we have been celebrating these past three weeks in the resumption of Ordinary Time after the great Season of Easter – the Blessed Trinity, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ and now the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus are meant to invite us to share in the mysteries of life and love of God himself.
Two Sundays ago we learned in the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity that God is not just a Being but most of all a Person relating within himself and with us humans despite our weaknesses and limitations, even sinfulness. And there lies the greatness of God who chose to share his life with us and love us even if we worth nothing at all by sending us his Son Jesus Christ who gave us himself, Body and Blood to be shared so that we too may be like him to give ourselves to others.
Today’s Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus celebrates the love of God revealed by Christ who died so that we may have life in him.
Jesus addressed this parable to the Pharisees and scribes: “What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it? And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy.
Luke 15:3-5
From todayscatholic.org.
The Sacred Heart captures the beautiful imagery of the good shepherd who leaves the “ninety-nine sheep in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it” (Lk.15:4) because he first of all sees with his heart, not with his mind.
It is the image of Jesus Christ’s loving sacrifice for us all by dying on the Cross, offering us forgiveness of sins and redemption as Paul explained in the second reading that we have become beloved children of God, forgiven sinners for each one of us is of great worth in the eyes of God that are actually his very heart.
That is how God sees us. Always with his heart, the Sacred Heart of Jesus that even a single soul, a single sheep getting lost has to be searched and saved because every one is of great worth and value!
Anyone who had searched for a missing loved one or ever a pet had experienced the more difficult and more dangerous situation of searching than actually being lost. When we search for a missing beloved like that shepherd in the parable, it is as if the whole world is on our shoulders with our heart beating so wild while racing in our thoughts are all the dangers and worst scenarios that may happen. There are times that the one searching for the missing person or sheep or any pet is the one put at more risks than the missing person or animal.
But, when the beloved is found or like in the parable of Jesus, instead of punishing the errant sheep, the good shepherd tenderly carries it on his shoulders to bring it home full of joy. That is all because of the love, tenderness, and joy flowing from the Sacred Heart that we celebrate today.
When we see with our hearts, that is when we begin to see the goodness and beauty of everyone that our intellect cannot accomplish. Many times when we use our minds, we see people and the world as so dark and so evil. But, if we have hearts that can see, we are surprised that there are more goodness, more beauty in this world than what we hear and see in the news and social media.
Like God who knows everything about us – our sins, our past, even our thoughts – but he chooses to see with his heart because he is love himself who loves us truly.
Life and love are the most common yet most profound and deep mysteries we have as persons. And the more we dwell into its beauty and majesty, the more we are absorbed into the mystery of God, a mystery we are able to grasp little by little of how God fills us with his life and love (https://lordmychef.com/2022/06/11/the-holy-trinity-our-life-and-love/).
See how these feelings and experience of being alive, of being loved and so in love are difficult to explain and even understand but so very true that we dwell in them and even keep them to relish and enjoy often in our hearts. Let the love of Christ which is the fire that purifies and cleanses our hearts unify our intellect, will and emotion to enables us to see our oneness in ourselves before God; as we see more of our goodness, then we begin to see our oneness with others or those around us that our love is translated concretely into our loving service to others like what Ezekiel had prophesied and fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
The heart is the wholeness of the person not just concerned with feelings but translating these emotions into actions. Like that prophecy by Ezekiel fulfilled in Christ, God did not merely feel nor long to be one with his people but he did make it happen in Jesus who came to search and rescue us, heal and care for us so that we may be whole again and eventually find fullness of life in him by dying on the Cross.
Thus says the Lord God: I myself will look after and tend my sheep. As a shepherd tends his flock when he finds himself among his scattered sheep, so will I tend my sheep. I will rescue them from every place where they were scattered when it was cloudy and dark. The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal but the sleek and the strong I will destroy, shepherding them rightly.
Ezekiel 34:11-12, 16
Photo by author, 2017.
In this age of “practical atheism” when we live as if there is no God according to St. John Paul II under a “dictatorship of relativism” put forth by Pope emeritus Benedict XVI when there are no more absolute values and morality, the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart invites us to allow ourselves to be wrapped in the many mysteries of life and love to see again the wonder and joy of our humanness found in God.
Contrary to what most people believe or perceive, God is not controlling nor competing with us in life. In fact, in Jesus Christ, God is living with us, guiding us and leading us to fullness of life that the world has always tried but failed to give us with its many lures of power, wealth and fame now so intense with the new technologies available that have left us more empty and more lost than ever.
COVID-19 had taught us that it is not the mind but the heart that matters most in life, that we need more of love than reasons and logic, more of giving than receiving, and most of all, more of courage that comes from the heart to go out to the middle of the street to walk with Jesus in loving service and self-giving to his flock than by merely standing idle as bystanders.
Jesus meek and humble of heart, make our hearts like thine! Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thursday, Week XXI, Year I in Ordinary Time, 26 August 2021
1 Thessalonians 3:7-13 ><]]]]'> ><)))*> ><]]]]'> Matthew 24:42-51
From inquirer.net, 20 August 2021.
Strengthen us, O God
in this trying time of the pandemic;
keep our body healthy and strong
to fight the virus and most especially
to take care of the sick among us.
Strengthen our hearts, loving Father
by cleansing it of our sins, taking away
our pride and filling it with your Son
Jesus Christ's humility, justice and love
that always have a space for those
with less in life, to those most in need
like the sick, the children and elderly.
Strengthen our hearts, O God,
so that as St. Paul had reminded the
Thessalonians, we may "be blameless
in holiness before you our God and Father
at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ"
(1Thess.3:13) by being "faithful and prudent"
like the wise servant in the parable today.
Strengthen our hearts in Christ Jesus
so we may consistently seek and serve him
among one another at every moment
of our lives. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Saturday, Solemnity of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, 12 June 2021
2 Corithians 5:14-21 ><)))'> + <'(((>< Luke 2:41-51
Praise and glory to you, O God our loving Father for your immense love for us. Yesterday we celebrated the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus your Son who revealed to us the boundless love you have for us all as your beloved children.
But, such great is your love for us, God our Father, that today, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of your Son Jesus Christ who gave her to us to be our Mother too!
All for your love for us!
What a wonderful twin celebrations of your love for us which must also be the main reason, the very essence of everything in our existence. St. Paul expressed it so well in today’s first reading, “The love of Christ urges us” (Caritas Christi urget nos, 2Cor.5:14).
Love is the very reason, the only reason why you have created us, why you have saved us, why you have given us your Son, why he had given himself for us.
Forgive us when we refuse to accept and recognize, and most of all, when we refuse to share your great love for us with others.
Teach us to be like the Blessed Virgin Mary whose heart is so inflamed with great love to you and her Son Jesus Christ.
Open our hearts to welcome you always, Lord.
Dwell in our hearts, reign in our hearts, dear Jesus, so that we may work for peace, for reconciliation in ourselves with the Father, with our family and friends, and with our countrymen. Help us to heed these beautiful words of St. Paul today:
So we are ambassadors for Christ,
as if God were appealing through us.
We implore you on behalf of Christ,
be reconciled to God.
For our sake
he made him to be sin who did not know sin,
so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
(2 Corinthians 5:20-21)
Like Mary, along with Joseph, may we always find our way back to God our Father when they decided to go back to Jerusalem to look for the missing child Jesus. And once found, may we imitate Mary who “kept all these things in her heart” (Lk.2:51). Surely, you must have told her many other things, Lord, but most of all, it was YOU whom she must have kept and treasured in her heart!
And that is why on this most crucial part of our history as the only Christian nation for 500 years in this part of the world deeply caught in all kinds of crises especially moral decadence in governance despite our celebration of 123 years of Independence from foreign rule, help us to consecrate our nation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary of the Blessed Virgin Mary so that your love Jesus Christ may impel us to never waver in our efforts for true reconciliation, for real transformation to be truly a people dedicated to God our Father. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday, Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, 11 June 2021
Hosea 11:1, 3-4, 8-9 + Ephesians 3:8-12, 14-19 + John 19:31-37
Let me begin my prayer to you, dear God,
with a confession from my heart that despite my
many years of praying, I have not really known you;
when I pray the "Our Father"
words simply pass my lips
slipping, skipping depths of my being.
On this Solemnity of Your Son's
Most Sacred Heart, please grant me
intimacy you have long offered a reality
if only our eyes can see
by looking at him whom they have pierced
blood and water flowed, our source of peace.
In that natural heart of your Son
is found your revelation
that outside of him
we find no salvation;
open our hearts, clear our doubts
to experience your love!
How sad that we cannot love
because we feel not being loved
when our Father in heaven is truly a Dad
who has never been mad when we are bad
in his boundless love for us
gave us his Son, full of tenderness and compassion!
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday, Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, 11 June 2021
Hosea 11:1, 3-4, 8c-9 ><)))'> Ephesians 3:8-12, 14-19 ><)))'> John 19:31-37
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Spirituality Center, Novaliches, QC, 2018.
So many times in life, we think we have loved so much, that we are a good and loving person when it is all an illusion because in reality, we have actually failed in truly loving the people and institutions we profess to love so much.
It is always easy to say in so many words, even to brag to our very selves and others of how much we love our family and friends, our country, our Church, and our company. But, when a little discomfort happens that result from misunderstanding or miscommunications, or a few mistakes and shortcomings, we flare up in anger expressing it in harsh words and deeds, hurting the people we supposedly love.
Not only that. Long after an unloving incident, we later hold grudges that we cannot forgive and forget, hurting us most in the process when sanity returns and see how we have broken a beautiful relationship.
But, it is not all that bad.
We all have our low moments in not showing how much we truly love like Simon Peter denied knowing the Lord three times on Holy Thursday evening while being tried by members of the Sanhedrin after their last supper. And very much like him too at the shore of Lake Tiberias eight days after Easter, we profess to Jesus and our loved ones that “you know everything; you know I love you” (Jn.21:17).
Our imperfect human love in God’s perfect love
We celebrate today the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart to be reminded of God’s immense love for us despite our failures and fears in expressing that love he continues to pour upon us through his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
It is the third major feast of the Lord since we have resumed the Ordinary Time after Pentecost to instill in us God’s deep, personal love for us through Jesus Christ with whom we have become brothers and sisters, beloved children of the Father in heaven.
Thus says the Lord: When Israel was a child I loved him, out of Egypt I called my son. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, who took them in my arms; I drew them with human cords, with bands of love; I fostered them like one who raises an infant to his cheeks; yet, though I stooped to feed my child, they did not know that I was their healer.
Hosea 11:1, 3-4
See how God had always loved us like a loving father to his son or daughter.
Try to feel God speaking through Hosea in the first reading reminding us of his great love for us, doing everything to free us from the bondage and slavery of every form of evil.
But, like our own experiences with our parents as we grow older, the more we distance ourselves away from them and from God who always come to get nearer and intimate with us: “A child I loved you, I called you my son; and the more I called you, the farther you went away from me” (cf. Hos.11:1-2).
What have happened to us as we matured?
We have become so cerebral, thinking more, and feeling less, always trying to assert our independence, our strength, and self-reliance when the sad truth is we are all weak inside who cannot accept and believe the fact that we are truly loved by God and by others!
Imagine this lovely scene of God reminding us of his great love for us just like our Dad: “I took you in my arms with hands of love; I fostered you like one who raises an infant to his cheeks yet though I stooped to feed my child, you did not know I was your healer” (cf. Hos.11:4).
Here lies the problem with all our praying and loving that are detached from God, something like an echo of the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son!
When our love for God is superficial, our love to our family and friends, to our institutions and other relationships become skin deep too. Our many love experiences are forgotten as we give more emphasis on others’ shortcomings and to our expectations from them.
We find it so hard and difficult
to truly love God and those dearest to us
not because we are bad and evil
but primarily we ourselves are not convinced we are loved.
Today's readings remind us
that human love is imperfect,
only God can love us perfectly.
We find it difficult to truly love unconditionally because deep inside us is a festering anger or hatred for our parents or siblings or friends who have hurt us a long time ago but we are so afraid to bring out in the open or just simply cast away or transcend so we can move forward to deeper and matured love in Christ.
Of course, there is that love remaining in our hearts but inert because we cannot accept nor be convinced that we are truly loved by God and by others.
We find it so hard and difficult to truly love God and those dearest to us not because we are bad and evil but primarily we ourselves are not convinced we are loved. Today’s readings remind us that human love is imperfect, only God can love us perfectly.
Thus says the Lord: My heart is overwhelmed, my pity is stirred. I will not give vent to my blazing anger, I will not destroy Ephraim again. For I am God and not man, the Holy One present among you. I will not let the flames consume you.
Hosea 11:8-9
Just keep on loving no matter how imperfect we may be for God perfectly knows us so well as humans with so many weaknesses and limitations.
God’s universal and personal love for us in Christ
We can never truly experience
God's personal love for us in Jesus Christ
unless we are first convinced of his great love for us
despite our sinfulness and weaknesses.
The more we doubt the love of Jesus,
the more we hurt him,
the more we hurt others,
and the more we hurt our selves.
Photo by author, St. Joseph Parish, Baras, Rizal, January 2021.
This personal and fatherly love of God is what St. Paul had always shared and elaborated in his many writings and teachings. See how he humbly introduced himself in our second reading as “the very least of all the holy ones, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the inscrutable riches of Christ” (Eph.3:8).
More sinful compared to Simon Peter, Saul as he was called before his conversion persecuted the first Christians, having a direct hand in the stoning to death of our first martyr St. Stephen (Acts 8:1). Yet, in God’s fatherly love and mercy, Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus that led to his conversion. He would later insist in his letters how he had experienced both the universal and personal love of God through Jesus Christ.
St. Paul was so good and effective as an apostle because he was so convinced that while Jesus had died and rose for all, he also died personally for him (St. Paul) as an individual! He was the first to elaborate the universality of God’s love through Jesus Christ’s dying on the Cross and the subjectivity of his death and love for each one of us.
From being a sinner to becoming a believer, from a persecutor to an apostle, St. Paul tells us in the second reading today how he had experienced this love of Christ in himself which we can all personally experience too, praying that we may “be strengthened with the Holy Spirit to comprehend the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that we may be filled all the fullness of God” (Eph.3:16, 18-19).
We can never truly experience God’s personal love for us in Jesus Christ unless we are first convinced of his great love for us despite our sinfulness and weaknesses. The more we doubt the love of Jesus, the more we hurt him, the more we hurt others, and the more we hurt our selves.
Thank goodness God knows us so well that despite our doubts in him, his mercy is always stirred, not allowing his anger to consume or destroy us. On the contrary, the more we hurt God, the more he loves us until we are convinced that we are truly loved by him!
So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and then of the other one who was crucified with Jesus. But when they came to Jesus and saw he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out.
John 19:32-34
It was from this scene that we find the meaning of the Sacred Heart of Jesus that was pierced after offering himself on the Cross as the sign and symbol of God’s unique love for us all. For the evangelist, that flowing of blood and water from the pierced side of Jesus was a special “sign” pointing to the work and mission of Christ which is our own salvation.
But aside from linking the blood and water that flowed out from the Lord’s pierced side with the two prominent sacraments known by then early Christians, namely, Baptism and Eucharist, St. John as a witness to the event showed us how two natural elements that are so personal to everyone as signs of God’s intimacy with us.
On this Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, God is reminding us of his immense love for us expressed most personally in the self-sacrifice of his Son our Lord Jesus Christ in whom we have all become the Father’s beloved children.
Despite our ingratitude to his Fatherly love for us, God cannot let himself be angry to chastise us as we deserve. Instead, he kept on forgiving us for our sins, sending us his Son Jesus Christ to redeem us.
Today Jesus is inviting us to go back to our Father – our Dad who watched and guided us through life without our knowing – to be convinced of his personal love for each of us. Outside of him, we can never find peace nor joy nor fulfillment. That is why the human heart of Jesus is always here with us as the revelation of the Father’s boundless love for us.
Let us experience anew his tenderness and forgiveness so that we may grow too in our love for God through one another despite our many sins and weaknesses.
Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make our hearts like yours! Amen.
Lawiswis ng Salita ni P. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 04 Setyembre 2020Unang Biyernes ng Setyembre, Ika-XXII Linggo sa Karaniwang Panahon1 Corinto 3:18-23 /// Lukas 5:33-39
Larawan kuha ni G. Angelo N. Carpio, Hunyo 2020.
O Kamahal-Mahalang Puso ni Hesus,
tulungan Mo kami na Ika'y matularan sa pakikinig sa kapwa.
Nawa aming mapalampas ano man ang hindi mabuting sinasabi
laban sa amin at sa halip ay aming pagyamanin aming karanasan
at palalimin aming katauhan.
Katulad ni San Pablo sa kanyang sulat sa mga taga-Corinto,
“Walang anuman sa akin ang ako’y hatulan ninyo o ng alinmang hukuman ng tao; ni ako ma’y di humahatol sa aking sarili. Walang bumabagabag sa aking budhi, ngunit hindi nangangahulugang ako’y walang kasalanan. Ang Panginoon ang humahatol sa akin." (1Cor.4:3-4)
Siya namang tunay, Panginoon!
Palaging mayroong masasabi makakating labi
laban sa amin palagi ano mang buti aming mga gawi.
Bakit nga po ba sa gitna nitong pandemya
laganap hindi lamang sakit kungdi galit at pagmamalupit
masasakit na pananalita ng ilan naming kapwa?
Tulungan mo kami, O Hesus
na dalisayin aming puso at kalooban,
maging bukas sa mga pagkakataon na magbago
gaya ng Iyong turo sa Ebanghelyo:
“Walang pumipiraso sa bagong damit upang itagpi sa luma. Kapag ginawa ito, masisira ang bagong damit at ang tagping bago ay hindi babagay sa damit na luma." (Lk.5:36)
Lagi naming panghawakan
na higit na mahalaga ang Iyong sinasabi Panginoon
kaysa sinasabi ng tao dahil Ikaw pa rin sa kahuli-hulihan
ang sa amin ay hahatol at papataw ng kapasyahan
kaya nawa Ikaw ang aming pakinggan
hindi pinagsasabi sa amin ay kumakalaban.
Amen.
Lawiswis ng Salita ni P. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Ika-19 ng Hunyo 2020
Napakahirap isipin
masakit tanggapin
sinapit maraming
kababayan natin
na hanggang ngayon
hindi pa rin nakakauwi
upang sariling pamilya'y
makapiling.
Pinakamasakit nilang
dinanas na sila'y ituring
kaiba sa atin; matagal na
hindi pinansin
walang nakabatid
sa kanilang mga hinaing
hanggang sa bumantad na lamang
sila sa ating paningin sa TV screen.
Matay ko mang isipin
sa panahon ito ng COVID-19
marami pa rin sa atin
hindi lang sumpungin
pag-uugali'y karimarimarim
salita'y matatalim
nakakasakit ng damdamin
wala na bang buting angkin?
Sa panahong ito ng pandemya
na ang banta ng kamatayan ay tunay na tunay
kabiyak o kapatid, kaibigan o kasamahan
o sino pa man ay tila nalilimutang
kapwa ring nahihirapan, nabibigatan
sa halip na tulungan, iniiwanan;
sa halip na kalooban ay pagaanin
ito'y sinasaktan pati na rin katawan.
Kapistahan ng Kamahal-Mahalang Puso ni Hesus; larawan kuha ni G. Gelo Nicolas Carpio, 19 Hunyo 2020.
Kaya aking dalangin
sana'y tupdin ng Panginoong Hesus
ating hiling gawin ang mga puso natin
katulad ng kanyang Puso,
maamo at mahabagin
puno ng kanyang pag-ibig
bawat tibok ay tigib
ng kabutihan Niyang angkin.
Mabuti pa ang puno ng saging
madalas na biro natin: may puso kesa atin!
Sana'y alisin Mo, Hesus, pusong bato namin
palitan ng pusong laman sa Iyo nakalaan
huwag naming panghinayangang kabutihan Mo'y ipamigay
huwag rin kaming maghintay ng Iyong sukling ibibigay
bagkus ay magmahal nang magmahal
hanggang kami'y mamatay at sa Iyong piling mahimlay.
*Mga larawan sa “collage” sa itaas ay mula kay G. Raffy Tima ng GMA News; ang nasa gitna na larawang ng imaheng bato ni Hesus ay mula Google.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday, Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, 19 June 2020
Deuteronomy 7:6-11 ><)))*> 1 John 4:7-16 <*(((>< Matthew 11:25-30
Photo from Google.
O most Sacred Heart of Jesus, make my heart like yours — make me small and little in standing, hidden and unknown among many, simple and humble in a world now measured in influence, popularity, and following.
On this Solemnity of your Most Sacred Heart, I thank you dear Jesus in choosing to be small and little, always hidden in the simplest things of life like soft voices of kindness and mercy, reason and wisdom, gratitude and love.
You have shown us that to be truly loving like you, we have to be small and little like children.
Most of all, free to be ourselves as beloved children of the Father!
Free from inhibitions and guilt to truly express the love and joy within.
Help us, Jesus, to cast all our worries to you, to take your yoke that is easy, burden that is light.
It is so difficult to love when we are burdened by many concerns and considerations, when we cannot be our true selves that we lack spontaneity, of being natural and easy.
In the same manner, it becomes hard for us too to love or even please someone who sees him or her self bigger than reality, when they see themselves as “big shots” and “heavyweights” who have to be pleased and “followed” or affirmed.
May we always keep in mind the words of Moses so applicable also to us today:
“It was not because you are the largest of all nations that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you, for you are really the smallest of all nations.”
Deuteronomy 7:7
O Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, you have given us your heart that bleeds due to the thorns of our sins, yet aglow with the fire of your immense love and mercy.
May we come to you, today and always to find rest, to learn from your gentle and humble ways so needed in our heartless world. Amen.
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