Category: Sins

Priest as reminder of life’s temporary pains and of God’s permanent love and mercy

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Tuesday, Feast of St. John Baptiste Marie Vianney, Priest, 04 August 2020
Jeremiah 30:1-2, 12-15, 18-22 >><)))*> || + || <*(((><< Matthew 15:1-2, 10-14
Photo by author, pandemic lockdown, March 2020.

Dearest Lord Jesus Christ:

Praise and glory to you, O Lord, and thank you very much for the gift of vocation to the priesthood.

Thank you very much for a wonderful patron Saint for us all whose feast we are celebrating today, St. John Baptiste Marie Vianney, the Curé of Ars in France.

How wonderful that we celebrate his feast this year on the first day of our return to Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine (MECQ) when public Masses are suspended in our province and other places due to the alarming spread of COVID-19 virus.

Yes, it is wonderful. Beautiful.

At first during last summer’s lockdown when we celebrated Mass without people, I felt sad; but today, I feel happy because I am totally yours, Lord Jesus. Somehow, this pandemic is teaching us priests most specially that life is a constant return to quarantine, to be alone with you always, dear Jesus!

Most specially, to remind us priests that the Holy Mass is never a show, never about us but always YOU, Jesus.

Like the prophet Jeremiah in the first reading, every priest like St. John Vianney is a reminder to the people that in life, there are always pains and sufferings. And most of the time, it is because of our sins and wrong choices in life, of turning away from God.

However, these sufferings like our pandemic and St. John’s French Revolution are all temporary.

Like Jeremiah, we priests are most of all reminders of God’s permanent love and mercy to everyone as exemplified by St. John in his life and ministry of hearing confessions for long hours each day!

Thus says the Lord: See! I will restore the tents of Jacob, his dwellings I will pity; city shall be rebuilt upon the hill, and palace restored as it was. From them will resound songs of praise, the laughter of happy men. I will make them not few, but many; they will not be tiny, for I will glorify them.

Jeremiah 30:18-19

As I reviewed anew the life of your humble and holy pastor St. John Vianney, I realized how our present situation is similar with his time: a period of sufferings after the French Revolution when priests were looked down upon, even maligned and hunted.

Yet, St. John persevered in his vocation, reminding us “The priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus.”

May we your priests be reminders of your love and mercy, courage and faith in the face of adversaries like when you boldly spoke against the Pharisees and scribes, reminding your disciples…

Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into the pit.

Matthew 15:14

St. John Baptiste Marie Vianney, pray for us your brother priests! Amen.

Photo from Primera Missa Solemne by Fr. RA Valmadrid, December 2019.

Contact

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Monday, Week XVII, Year II in Ordinary Time, 27 July 2020
Jeremiah 13:1-11 >><)))*> >>><)))*> >><)))*> Matthew 13:31-35
Photo from Google.

What a great way to start our last week of work and studies in July with your sense of humor, O God! Your words are so witty and funny but with a strong punch. Hard-hitting, so biting. And so revealing.

For, as close as the loincloth clings to a man’s loins, so I had made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the Lord; to be my people, my renown, my praise, my beauty. But they did not listen.

Jeremiah 13:11

You really got me, Lord.

What can I say?

Our underwear, that is, the loincloth of Jeremiah’s time, is our most intimate clothing, always in contact with our very selves, in that part of our body that we always guard and keep to ourselves.

But, what happens when we “dirty” ourselves with sins, when we put on all those filth in ourselves, we also feel the same way inside, no matter how clean and crisp our clothes are but when deep down our loincloth – underwear – is rotted and good for nothing?

We can always hide it from others and they will never know the kind of underwear we have but we cannot deceive ourselves of how dirty we are with sins and evil.

And so far from you, O God.

Forgive us when you are supposed to be the closest to us, the one we are always in contact with but we have totally disregarded because of our many sins, when we thought we can always have our own ways without you, denying the fact it simply cannot be for indeed, you have made us to be that closest to you.

Forgive us in your Son and our Lord Jesus Christ. Renew us inside, cleanse us and refresh us to be in close contact with you again, O God.

Help us to remain good and clean inside like the little mustard seed so we may grow to have leafy branches for birds to come and dwell in us.

In your mercy, cleanse us of our sins and be our yeast to mix with us again to leaven into a dough to make your kingdom come here on earth. Amen.

Photo by Life Of Pix on Pexels.com

Holding on to God

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thursday, Memorial of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, 16 July 2020
Isaiah 26:7-9, 11, 16-19 >><)))*> + <*(((><< Matthew 11:28-30
Photo by author, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel of the Holy Family, Guiguinto, Bulacan, 08 December 2019.

Your words today, O God our Father, are very comforting and consoling, so reassuring of your love and mercy for us sinners, giving us new life in you as we celebrate the memorial of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

Like the Israelites living in exile because of their own making when they turned away from you in sins worshiping false gods, we also admit our sinfulness and failures in standing up for what is true and just, in being faithful to you.

Help us to rise again, heavenly Father, breathe into us your life-giving Spirit specially at this time we feel so down and crushed not only by COVID-19 pandemic but by public officials concerned only with their well-being and whims forgetting the people they are supposed to serve.

We conceived and writhed in pain, giving birth to wind. Salvation we have not achieved for the earth, the inhabitants of the world cannot bring it forth. But your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise; awake and sing, you who lie in the dust. For your dew is a dew of light, and the land of shades gives birth.

Isaiah 26:18-19

If there is anything we would want to have these days, it is rest, O Lord.

A lightening of our load and burdens.

But why another yoke, Jesus?

Forgive us Jesus when we feel negative with yoke because they always portray to us images of slavery and oppression. Open our eyes, Lord, as we come closer to you to take your yoke because you not only help us carry our burdens but most of all, your yoke gives us direction in our path back to the Father.

May your Blessed Mother of Mount Carmel help us to hold on to God in this hour of darkness in our lives as individuals and as a nation. Amen.

Photo by author, Our Lady of Mount Carmel of the Holy Family, Guiguinto, Bulacan, November 2019.

With God, everything continues; without God, everything ends

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday, Week XIV, Year II in Ordinary Time, 10 July 2020
Hosea 14:2-10 <*{{{><< <*{{{><< + >><}}}*> >><}}}*> Matthew 10:16-23
Photo by author, Wailing Wall of Jerusalem, May 2019.

Your words today, dear God, hit us hard, very hard especially after we have gravely sinned against you when we have “collapsed through our guilt” (Hosea 14:2). Indeed, without you on our side, everything ends.

And the sad part of this reality is we refuse to listen to you. We have grown so accustomed to our sinful ways, believing more to our selves that we can get away with everything. How foolish, indeed, O Lord that we would not stop until everything collapses and crumbles before us. We have been so drunk with the fleeting pleasures of the world, thinking they are the “real things” we badly need.

Open our eyes, our minds, and our hearts to your love and mercy, Father.

Teach us to be wise to understand your ways and your teachings, your offer of redemption to start anew because with you, everything continues despite some setbacks sometimes.

Let him who is wise understand these things; let him who is prudent know them. Straight are the paths of the Lord, in them the just walk, but sinners stumble in them.

Hosea 14:10

Let us take into our hearts the assurance given us by your Son Jesus Christ not to worry about what to speak or say when persecuted because it is the Holy Spirit who shall be speaking for us, fighting our battles.

Most of all, teach us how to be “shrewd as serpents and simple as doves” (Mt. 10:16) especially in this world and time where sin and lies are glorified and seemingly to be having the “upperhand” in everything, whether in our personal lives or life as a community and a nation.

May we see beyond this world where our lives and stories live on, continuing in you through eternity. Amen.

Photo by author, 2020.

Aral ng COVID-19, IV: nakakahawang katangahan!

Lawiswis ng Salita ni P. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Ika-09 ng Hulyo, 2020
Larawan kuha ni G. Jay Javier, 2020.
Kapansin-pansin
mula nang dumating sa atin
itong COVID-19:
pairalin at palaganapin ba naman
kabobohan at katangahan
kaya't karahasan at kasamaan 
unang naranasan at nasaksihan
ng mga mamamayan 
kesa ang karamdaman.
Alalahanin paanong maliitin
ng mga upisyal banta ng COVID-19:
nahiyang patigilin pagdating 
ng mga dayuhan sa atin
patriotism daw ang pairalin
uminom ng maraming vitamin,
resistensiya palakasin,
nagbanta pa ang magaling
kanya raw itong sasampalin?
Nang ang virus ay kumalat
sumambulat kapabayaan at kawalan
ng ano mang plano nitong pamahalaan
datos ng mga bilang ng nahawahan
hanggang ngayon walang kaliwanagan;
halos walang pinatunguhan mahabang lockdown 
ekonomiyang pinahahalagahan
pilit binubuksan habang sarado naman
mga isipan ng mga hunghang, mamamayan nahirapan. 
Social distancing pinagdiriinan
sa atin na parang alipin
hindi nila alintana ang kaba
ng mawalan ng kikitain at pagkain;
kay hirap bang isipin 
face mask ay hubarin
kung ika'y kakain o mayroong iinumin?
Wala silang ibang gustong gawain
kungdi sisihin ng sisihin pati na rin mga dolphin!
Napakaraming pinahihirapan, pinagmamalupitan 
hanggang humantong sa kamatayan ng ilan
pagdiriinan ng mga patakaran
gayong silang nasa kapangyarihan
ang palaging lumalabag
walang kahihiyang nangangatuwiran
upang pagtakpan kanilang kapalaluan
kaya hindi maramdaman kanilang slogan
"we heal as one" na malayo sa katotohanan.

Itong kabobohan at katangahan
uri ng kasamaan, pinagmumulan ng kasalanan
parang isang sakit na asymptomatic:
hindi alam o ayaw malaman 
na mayroong karamdaman kaya nagkakahawahan;
at ang masaklap na katotohanan 
akala ng mga sunud-sunurang karamihan 
karunungan, kahusayan kanilang nasasaksihan
gayong pare-pareho lang silang walang nalalaman!


Magkaiba ang tanga
at mahina ang isipan;
nahahasa, napapatalim 
mapurol na isip ngunit ang katangahan
ay kalagayan na kung saan 
biyaya ng isipan ay sinasayang, pinababayaan
dahil sa katamaran at kasakiman
sariling kaluguran at kapakanan lang pinahahalagahan
walang pakialam kung mayroong masaktan o mahirapan.
Kung ating pagninilayan
ang mga santo at santa ang mga tunay
na marurunong dahil sa kanilang kaisipan
walang nanaig kungdi kabutihan;
wala sa pinag-aralan ang karunungan
kungdi sa busilak ng kalooban
kaya naman huwag nang pagtakhan
itong mga puno ng kasamaan
ay puro katangahan at kahangalan!
Mga larawan kasama na yaong sa itaas ay mga kuha ni G. Raffy Tima ng GMA-7 News, Abril 2020.

The goodness of God our Father

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thursday, Week XIV, Year II in Ordinary Time, 09 July 2020
Hosea 11:1-4, 8-9 >><}}}*> >><}}}*> >><}}}*> Matthew 10:7-15
Photo by Mr. Jim Marpa, 2019 in Carigara, Leyte.

This is the fourth straight day, O God when you have come to me in the most touching and personal manner through your prophet Hosea. It is so comforting to dwell on the tenderness of your love for me but at the same time so embarrassing too at what I have given back to you.

Thus says the Lord: When Israel was a child I loved him, out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the farther they were from me, sacrificing to the Baals and burning incense to idols. Yet it was I who thought 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 I was their healer.

Hosea 11:1-7

These expressions are so true and so lovely, O God! I could feel your personal closeness to me as my Father, feeling all your love and concern for me, teaching me how to walk, taking me into your arms. And most especially that part of being fostered and raised like an infant to a father’s cheeks.

That’s how close you have been to me in many instances but sadly, it is true that the more you called me to stay closer to you, the more I drifted apart from you in sin and evil.

Forgive me, dearest God our Father, in taking you for granted in the same manner we I disregard the love and affection of those closest to me.

And that is where I feel most your personal love for me — when despite my sinfulness and turning away from you, you prefer not to give vent to your “blazing anger” to me because you are God, not human.

In fact, when your Son Jesus Christ came, his first order to his disciples was to cure the sick among us, raise the dead, cleanse lepers and exorcise those possessed by evil spirits. You only have our good always in your mind that we always fail to see or even refuse to accept and believe.

Today, Lord, we ask you for the grace to bask in your goodness and grace! Amen.

Photo by author, Church of the Our Father outside Jerusalem where Jesus taught his disciples the Lord’s Prayer.

When evil becomes life

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Wednesday, Week XIII, Year II in Ordinary Time, 01 July 2020
Amos 5:14-15, 21-24 <*(((><< <*(((><< >><)))*> >><)))*> Matthew 8:28-34
Photo by Mr. Raffy Tima of GMA7 News, Taal eruption, January 2020.

Praise and glory to you O God our loving Father for this brand new month of July! It is our hope this month will be kinder and more gentle with us than June. It is our hope that this July, we can all come closer to you doing what is good, what is right.

Seek good and not evil, that you may live. Then truly will the Lord, the God of hosts, be with you as you claim! I hate, I spurn your feasts, says the Lord, I take no pleasure in your solemnities… Away with your noisy songs! I will not listen to the melodies of your harps. But if you would offer me burnt offerings, then let justice surge like water, and goodness like an unfailing stream.

Amos 5:14, 21, 23-24

Most of all, through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, it is our hope O merciful Father that beginning today we start to reject and shake off evil from our lives, from our very selves.

We have not only sinned, O sweet Jesus; worst part of our sinfulness is how we have accepted sin and evil as a way of life, as a part of life itself with our usual excuses and arguments “wala nang magagawa, nariyan na yan, hayaan na lang” (there’s nothing that can be done, just accept it).

We have got so used to immoralities and lies that we simply accept them as facts of life.

Like those people at Gadarenes where two demoniacs have terrorized them for some time that “no one could travel by that road” (Mt.8:28).

But when you came, Lord Jesus and drove the demons into entering the herd of swine that jumped and drowned into the sea, the whole town came out to meet you and begged you to leave their district!

Instead of being thankful, they begged you to leave, Lord, because you have disturbed their lives so used to the demons. They have failed to see how two people were finally healed and exorcised. Most of all, they have refused to accept the new order in their place.

What a silly turn of events that continues to happen day when people have grown so used to evil and sin, refusing changes and conversion.

How sad that whenever we make a stand for what is right and good, what is true and just, we are the ones made to suffer, even persecuted for bringing order because we have disturbed the evil that people have been used to.

We pray for those who continue to fight injustice and immoralities in our communities, in our church that they may always be guided and strengthened by the Holy Spirit.

And we pray for those among us who have lost the sense of sinfulness, of living with sin and evil and yet continue to worship and praise you O God. Amen.

Photo by Gelo Nicolas Carpio, June 2020.

God our foundation

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thursday, Week XII, Year II in Ordinary Time, 25 June 2020
2 Kings 24:8-17 <*(((>< ><)))*> <*(((>< ><)))*> Matthew 7:21-29
Photo by author, the Walls of Jerusalem, May 2019.

Your words today, O Lord, are so graphic and chilling about the nature of sin that unfortunately, we continue to take for granted.

Jesus said to his disciples: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”

Matthew 7:21

Forgive us Jesus when we are so complacent with our prayers and words to you that remain only in our mouths and lips, but never coming from our hearts and most of all far from our actions.

Forgive us Lord for the great divide within us, between our words and our actions, of what we believe and what we live.

Give us the grace to be rooted in you always, to have you as our foundation.

Your words are so true, Lord, that so often our lives collapse like Jerusalem in the Old Testament, like the house built on sand in your parable because we live far from you.

Help us to take these lessons into our hearts, that whatever bad befalls us is never your punishment but the result of our sins, when everything collapses in us and starts to breakdown.

May we hold on fast to your words and examples in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Photo by author, Church of the Holy Family, Taipei, Taiwan, 2019.

How ugly sin can be

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Tuesday, Week XI, Year II in Ordinary Time, 16 June 2020
1 Kings 21:17-29 <*(((>< <*(((>< ><)))*> ><)))*> Matthew 5:43-48
Photo from Google.

O God our heavenly Father, we come to you today begging for your mercy, for more enlightenment, for prudence and for self-control amid all the things going on in our land and elsewhere abroad while still under threats with this COVID-19 pandemic.

Every day we are beginning to see how ugly sin can be, often expressed in so many forms of injustice to one another; its ugliness can be seen in the “punishments” King Ahab shall suffer following the death of Naboth whose vineyard he had so desired to own.

Ahab said to Elijah, “Have you found me out, my enemy?” “Yes,” he answered. “Because you have given yourself up to doing evil in the Lord’s sight, I am bringing evil upon you: I will destroy you and will cut off every male in Ahab’s line, whether slave or freeman, in Israel. When one of Ahab’s line dies in the city, dogs will devour him; when one of them dies in the field, the birds of the sky will devour him.”

1 Kings 21:20-21, 24

Help us to turn away from sins, Lord, and cleanse our hearts and our hands of our many sins of dishonesty and insincerity, of lies and injustices, of pride and power tripping.

All these things happening to us today are largely due to our past sins that until now we refuse to admit and confess to you.

Give us the grace of honesty within, of confronting our true selves and admit our guilt, confess our sins to you to start anew like King Ahab towards the end that moved you, merciful God, to let go of your wrath in him.

May we find the wisdom and the immense beauty and power of your love as preached by Jesus to us in the gospel today.

Inspire us to be perfect, to be holy today just like you, our Father, is holy, perfect, and beautiful.

Holiness is not being sinless, Lord; fill us with your Self, O God so we may be strong enough to ward off sins and evil and be truly a reflection of your image and likeness in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Photo by author, January 2020, Pulilan, Bulacan.

Scoundrels are we?

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Monday, Week XI, Year II in Ordinary Time, 15 June 2020
1 Kings 21:1-16 ><)))*> ><)))*> <*(((>< <*(((>< Matthew 5:38-42
Photo by Mr. Raffy Tima of GMA-7 News, stranded people staying at the underpass near the NAIA after waiting for so long to catch their flights back to their provinces since March.

So many times in life, O God our Father, we hear so many stories of injustice, of how our neighbors are treated so badly that we feel so disgusted at how it could happen at all.

Like all these stories of people stranded in Metro Manila, of the lowly income earners who have to walk for hours just to get to work because there are not enough public transport system allowed to operate.

Of those made to suffer the strict quarantine rules when police officials and politicians were allowed to get off the hook or, the arrest and incarceration of a poor, elderly jeepney driver who had joined a protest rally while the former First Lady who was convicted of corruption charges two years ago was spared of any jail term because of her age.

So much inequalities happening shamelessly, with much impunity by those in power, O Lord!

Exactly like the evil Queen Jezebel who instructed her people to find two scoundrels to testify against Naboth so she could take his vineyard so desired by her husband King Ahab.

Two scoundrels came in and confronted him with the accusation, “Naboth has cursed God and king.” And they led him out of the city and stoned him to death. When Jezebel learned that Naboth had been stoned to death, she said to Ahab, “Go on, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite which he refused to sell you, because Naboth is nbot alive, but dead.” On hearing that Naboth was dead, Ahab started off on his way down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it.

1 Kings 21:13-16

Such stories are so revulsive, O God, not only of their nature but more because partly to be blamed is us — when we have refused to do anything good in fighting evil. Indeed, the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

Yes, O God, we are ashamed because we have unconsciously sided with the scoundrels when we chose to “see nothing, hear nothing, and say nothing” of their lies, their harsh words and vulgarities, and their systematic killing sprees to solve the problems of the society.

We have misread the words of your Son Jesus Christ by becoming passive in the face of evil.

Jesus said to his disciples: “You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles.”

Matthew 5:38-39, 41

Give us the wisdom and courage to turn our other cheek, to go the extra mile in asserting to evil doers that we are all brothers and sisters in Christ who must treat one another with respect and equal dignity as a person created in your image and likeness, God our Father.

Inspire us, O God, especially our leaders in the Church who have gone so timid and silent except for a very few on how we can be more prophetic in this time of crisis under an unfriendly government. Amen.

A view from Tagaytay by the author, October 2019.