Category: saints

Advent is Answering God’s Call

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The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe-Prayer
Wednesday, 12 December 2018, Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Revelation 11:19; 12:1-6, 10///Luke 1:39-47

            Thank you very much, O loving Father, in giving us in this season of Advent the wonderful feasts of Mary and the saints who inspire us to always create a room for your Son Jesus Christ in our hearts.

            On this feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, we remember your wondrous way of calling the Blessed Virgin Mary, her cousin Elizabeth, and St. Juan Diego for your specific mission.  All were “ordinary” people just like most of us.  Mary was a young maiden from an obscure town you have chosen to be the Mother of Jesus Christ while Elizabeth her cousin was already old and barren when you blessed her to conceive the Lord’s precursor, John the Baptizer.  Like these two women of simplicity and humility was St. Juan Diego, an Aztec Indian who became the visionary of Guadalupe.

               Like Elizabeth, I always ask myself and, you, O Lord my God, “how does this happen to me that you my Lord should come to visit and call me (Lk.1:43)?”  St. Juan Diego also asked the Blessed Mother to call somebody else for her mission but she replied, “My little son, there are many I could send.  But you are the one I have chosen.” 

               Loving Father, please bear with me if I always ask you with many whys, always unbelieving in my abilities to do your work and fulfill your mission.  Help me to keep following you, cover me with your mantle of grace and protection like the Blessed Mother as seen by John, “a woman clothed with the sun” (Rev.12:1) so that like her I may “to give birth to Christ” (Rev.12:2) to this  world deeply in sin, totally forgetting you.  Wrap me also like St. Juan Diego with your mantle of love and affection so that from my words and deeds would come the fragrant blooms of your kindness and charity in serving others.  AMEN.Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II,Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria,Bulacan 3022.

*Photos from Google.

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Disturb Me Within, Lord

RaffyBatanes12
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe-Prayer
Friday, 30 November 2018, Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle
Romans 10:9-18///Matthew 4:18-22

            Thank you very much Lord Jesus for the gift of your Apostle Andrew whose feast we celebrate today.  I have always loved his attitude of always being disturbed deep within his heart and bringing it out in the open with you.

           The moment he first saw you when John the Baptist proclaimed you as the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world,” Andrew was there, moved in his heart and asked you, “Rabbi, where are you staying?”  You asked him and his companion to “come and see,” and he believed you are the Messiah! (Jn.1:35-41)

            When you tested Philip in the wilderness and asked him where you could buy food to feed more than 5000 people, Andrew again felt his heart stirred within, presenting to you a boy with a boy with five loaves of bread and two pieces of fish.  But, Andrew could not also contain himself in knowing their situation then that he asked you, “what good are these for so many?”  And the great miracle happened when everyone was fed and satisfied with so many leftovers!  (Jn.6:1-15)

            “For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.” (Rom. 10:10)

            Indeed, Lord Jesus Christ!  St. Andrew the Apostle always believed in his heart, always allowed his heart to be stirred with your words, with your presence, with your feelings.  And he dared to open his mouth, to express to you these stirrings in his heart, always asking you and voicing out his feelings and thoughts no matter how crazy or even stupid they may be.  But because of his inquiries that you were made known as the Christ!

            Give me that grace Lord Jesus, to always recognize the stirrings in my heart, no matter how crazy they may be and to always tell these to you.  Give me that same courage Lord to ask you, to express whatever disturbs me deep within so that like Andrew, you may reveal more of your ways, more of your heart, and more of your very Self to me and others.  AMEN. Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan 3022.

*Photo by Mr. Raffy Tima of GMA-7 News, Batanes before typhoon Ompong, 14 September 2018.  Used with permission.  Photo below from Google.  St. Andrew, like his brother St. Peter, felt unworthy of being crucified like Jesus Christ; he asked to be crucified on an X-shaped cross.

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