Category: Spiritual Life

Let nothing disturb you…

Quiet Storm by Nick F. Lalog II, 15 October 2019

Photo by Mr. Jim Marpa at Panglao, Bohol, September 2019.

Which is more difficult to confront, the fact of dying or that of suffering through a serious sickness? I have been thinking these for the past couple of days following my recent visitations of sick parishioners.

Today I visited a parishioner sick for the past three months with a lung disease. She’s 76 years old.

Right upon seeing me, Lola Milagros cried, telling me to ask God to take her because she’s so tired of suffering and waiting for death.

I just let her cry, holding her hands, as I listened to her pouring out of her aches and pains.

After that, I whispered to her the words of St. Teresa de Avila whose feast we are also celebrating today:

Nada te turbe… Solo Dios basta! (Let nothing disturb you… only God suffices!)

St. Teresa De Avila

So beautiful to hear and yes, easier said than done.

Can anybody with a serious ailment be not disturbed?

Been asking myself the same questions too. It is difficult not to be disturbed when one is sick. Aside from the costs of treatment are the enormous pains and sufferings one has to go through with the medical procedures and its many effects to the patient, who eventually would die.

It is a reality getting closer to home with me and I must confess, I am disturbed. Worried. And afraid.

Photo by Essow Kedelina on Pexels.com

The other week I visited another sick parishioner named Charlie, a former cook paralysed waist down due to a spine injury. He is only in his early 50’s.

What struck me when I saw him were the ropes tied to his both feet. I could not figure out how he could be restless when he is paralysed that his feet have to be tied?

He explained, “Father, I pity my wife when I have to wake her up every night just to move my legs. So, I improvised these ropes tied to my feet so I can just pull them with my hands in case I have to change positions even at night.”

Oh God! What a great love of a man to his wife!

Charlie loves his wife so much that he does not want her to be disturbed with his ailment and condition.

When there is love, we are not disturbed. And the only true love that can make us undisturbed is the love of Jesus Christ, the only perfect love we can have and find.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Whenever we think of Christ we should recall the love that led him to bestow on us so many graces and favors, and also the great love God showed in giving us in Christ a pledge of his love; for love calls for love in return. Let us strive to keep this always before our eyes and to rouse ourselves to love him. For if at some time the Lord should grant us the grace of impressing his love on our hearts, all will become easy for us and we shall accomplish great things quickly and without effort.

St. Teresa de Avila

“Love calls for love in return.”

So beautiful words by St. Teresa de Avila.

We can only truly feel that personal love of Jesus if we are also personally in love with him.

We are disturbed with so many things in life when there is not enough love in our hearts, when we have not felt loved enough by others too.

Without love, we would always be disturbed.

I told Lola Milagros this morning to thank God for the gift of tears because they are prayers coming straight from her heart. That God knows very well all her pains and sufferings. Most of all, I told her tears are clear signs of love in her heart.

Later on my way home, Lola Milagros’ daughter was also teary-eyed as she told me she was so glad to see her mother cried. According to her, Lola Milagros is a very tough woman of the “old school” who tried to bear everything and even hide what’s inside her so as not to disturb them. She always wanted them to be assured all’s fine.

Lola Milagros and Charlie do not want to disturb their respective family because they love them. It is love that moves the sick not to disturb others and it is also love that enables us to assure them not to be disturbed.

The challenge therefore is not to reflect on whether to die instantly or slowly but to always love truly!

Sacred Heart Novitiate (Novaliches), 2017.

Human love is always imperfect. Only God can love us perfectly. This he did exactly to us when he sent us Jesus Christ who died on the Cross for us.

To love truly is be personally one in Jesus Christ. When we were still seminarians, Fr. Memeng used to tell us in our class “Priestly Spirituality” that “if we can really cultivate a deep prayer life, we can also experience Jesus Christ in the most personal way.” It is the experience of St. Teresa de Avila and all the other saints.

Nothing can disturb us in this life when our love is borne out of a personal relationship with Jesus in prayer.

Prayer life is more than reciting prayers by following a schedule. Prayer life is a relationship, a communing with God, of being our true selves before him, seeing ourselves as he sees us. And because of this assurance of his love despite our many sins and flaws, that is when we are not disturbed because God loves us no matter what.

When we are not disturbed, then we become silent. Presence is more than enough to share and experience God’s love. St. Paul said “love is not pompous” because true love is always silent, more on deeds than on words.

One thing amusing with death is that it always comes in silence, when we least expect it. Whether we die instantly or slowly, it always happens in silence. And that is also why many are disturbed of dying.

But, if we love patiently our self, others and God, nothing can ever disturb us because when we love, we are already in God. That is when we realize too the wisdom and truth of St. Teresa’s contemporary who claimed that

A soul that walks in love is neither tired nor gets tired.

San Juan dela Cruz
From Google.

Let us love, love, and love until the end onto eternity.

Only God suffices because God is love. Amen.

Hope for our difficult personality

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Monday, Memorial of St. Jerome, 30 September 2019

Zechariah 8:1-8 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Luke 9:46-50

St. Jerome painting by El Greco portrayed as wearing the Cardinal’s robe to represent his highly esteemed works and contributions to the Church as one of the Four Western Fathers along with St. Augustine, St. Ambrose of Milan, and St. Gregory the Great. Photo from Google.

Praise and glory to you, God our loving Father! Thank you very much for giving us saints, men and women like us who were sinners with so many weaknesses but through your grace were able to lead holy lives.

Through your saints, you give us so much hope to be become better persons despite our many imperfections like our great Doctor of the Church, St. Jerome, the Father of Catholic biblical studies who immersed himself in the study and prayer of the Sacred Writings right in the Holy Land.

Considered as one of the great theologians of the Church, St. Jerome is said to be approachable but notorious for being a difficult person too due to his temper as well as sarcasm and being argumentative at times.

I confess, O God, that I am exactly the opposite of the kind of person Jesus Christ is telling us to be like – a child. Instead of being childlike, many times I have become childish, difficult to handle with my burst of temper and sometimes annoying sarcasm.

Like St. Jerome, fill me with your grace, with courage and willpower to conquer my irascibility and direct all my negative energies in pursuing you in prayers and good works.

Help me to follow St. Jerome in his call to “let us translate the words of the Scriptures into deeds.”

Fill me with your words, O Lord, cleanse me of my sins and iniquities so that your Holy Spirit may dwell in me, suffuse me with your holiness. Amen.

My favorite depiction of St. Jerome by Italian painter Antonello da Messina (c.1430-79), “St. Jerome in his Study.” Again, we see St. Jerome in red robe and hat like a Cardinal at his study desk with his faithful lion in the background which tradition says he had helped in the forest by removing a thorn in its paw. At the foreground are two birds: a peacock which is an ancient Christian symbol of eternal life that our saint meditated often (reason why he always has a skull in other paintings), and a partridge, a reference to St. Jerome’s notorious temper as the bird often represents jealous rage. Photo from Google.

Arising in Christ

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Wednesday, Week XXIII, Year I, 11 September 2019

Colossians 3:1-11 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Luke 6:20-26

Petra in Jordan. Photo by author, May 2019.

Lord Jesus Christ, today your apostle Paul calls us to “Think of what is above, not of what is on earth” (Col. 3: 2).

Then, in the gospel also today, you raised your eyes toward your disciples and began your “sermon on the plain” (Lk. 6:20)

What is up there, Lord Jesus, that we have to look up, that you have to raise your eyes looking at us?

When I was young, I was so afraid of heights but I have always wanted to be on top to see the beautiful sights that I did my best climbing trees and walls, even rooftops.

Now I am older, I still yearn to be on top to enjoy the sights but too weak to climb even the stairs.

All I can do now Lord is raise my eyes up to the skies, to treetops and mountains to enjoy the moments of looking up, and most of all, wondering at all your wonderful blessings to me — right here in my heart to find you and see you looking up at me!

What a beautiful lesson today of looking up, of seeing ourselves exalted by you despite our weaknesses and sinfulness. What a wonderful teaching about our new stature as your brothers and sisters, O Jesus, redeemed and loved. What a way of teaching us of our new life in you, dearest Christ and of the need to live accordingly as Christians!

So many times, we look down at ourselves, Lord, forgetting our blessedness in being poor and hungry, weeping and rejected in the name of your love and mercy.

Teach us to realise and value our being blessed in you so that our lives and actions may conform to your beatitudes. Amen.

Prayer for knowledge

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Thursday, Week XXII, Year I, 05 September 2019

Colossians 1:9-14 ><}}}*> ><}}}*> Luke 5:1-11

Photo by Ms. Jo Villafuerte, Atok, Benguet, 01 September 2019.

Brothers and sisters: From the day we heard this, we do not cease praying for you and asking you that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, so as to be fully pleasing, in every good work bearing fruit and growing in the knowledge of God.

Colossians 1:9-10

Once again, you struck me today Lord through St. Paul’s letter to pray for another important grace we badly need these days — “knowledge”.

In this age of Google and Wikipedia, we have taken the gift of knowledge for granted, confusing it with information that often has no meaning and depth. As a result, we have “smart phones” and stupid people who justify everything without any qualms and sense of self-respect and decency!

Remind us, Lord, that knowledge is more than being reasonable and logical; knowledge is embracing the truths of faith, of seeing you in everything.

Like Simon Peter, bless us Lord with the gift of knowledge to enable us to make right judgments regarding earthly things and how they are related with eternal life and holiness.

Like Simon Peter, may we learn to set aside our human knowledge and expertise to take the leap of faith in casting the net into the deep upon your instructions after a night of catching nothing.

What a great gift of knowledge you have given Simon that day when he realised you are “Lord” and he is a “sinful man” (Lk. 5:8). Most of all, in obeying instructions from a carpenter like you, Lord!

Fill us with your knowledge, Lord, to realise the truth of Albert Einstein’s words that “everything in this life is a miracle”! Amen.

True greatness

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul
Tuesday, Memorial of St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus, 13 August 2019
Deuteronomy 31:1-8 >< )))*> <*((( >< Matthew 18:1-5. 10. 12-14
Photo by Jim Marpa, 2018.

The disciples approached Jesus and said, “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?” He called a child over, placed it in their midst and said, “Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 18:1-4

I must confess to you, O Lord Jesus Christ, that so often I act and think like your disciples, asking you “who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?”

And it is not really to know who that person is or what kind of a person is that.

It is more about me – I want to be the greatest and be looked up to. Or, be affirmed and accepted. Especially by you.

When you called that child, you showed me how you have remained a Son of the Father, always humble and open to instructions from the Father above. Most of all, obedient to the Father’s will.

True greatness indeed is in becoming like a child, always young and willing to learn new things, raring to go and follow those above for new adventures in life like Moses and Joshua in the first reading and, St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus whose martyrdom we celebrate today.

As I prayed on that scene at Jordan where the Israelites prepared to enter the Promised Land, the imagery of Moses and Joshua came to me like children ready to take on new tasks and directions in their lives from God as Father.

The same imagery of little children submitting themselves to you, O Lord, despite their old age I have found in St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus who were both greatly at odds with each other at the beginning.

St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus. From Google.

As Pope, St. Pontian was lenient in readmitting Christians who have turned away from the faith during persecution; St. Hippolytus strongly opposed it that later he broke away from Rome to become an anti-pope as he refused to relax his rigid views of the faith.

But you found ways of bringing them together, Lord, as exiles at the island of Sardinia.

In the midst of harsh labor, the fatherly St. Pontian was able to bring back into the Church the rigorist St. Hippolytus.

Help us to keep in mind, Lord, that age is just a number, that we are forever young like children when we humbly abandon ourselves to you, holding on to these words by Moses:

It is the Lord who marches before you; he will be with you and will never fail you or forsake you. So do not fear or be dismayed.

Deuteronomy 31:8

Let me remain as your faithful and trusting child, O loving God our Father. Amen.

Shock preaching the plain truth

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul, Wk. XVIII-C, 04 August 2019
Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21-23 >< }}}*> Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11 >< }}}*> Luke 12:13-21
Mount of Olives Jewish Cemetery

Outside Jerusalem is the Mount of Olives Jewish Cemetery. It is one of the world’s oldest, existing for over 3000 years. It is also one of the most expensive cemetery in the world for having the choicest spot to be buried in the planet as it faces the Eastern Gate of Jerusalem where the bible tells us the Messiah would be coming through. Hence, all tombs at the Mount of Olives Cemetery point to that direction so that all those buried there would be the first to rise again to life and welcome the Messiah when he comes.

Of course, we Christians believe Jesus is the Messiah or the Christ who in fact came through that Eastern Gate on Palm Sunday when he entered Jerusalem over 2000 years ago to offer his life for our salvation on Good Friday, resurrecting on Easter Sunday!

And while the Jews await the Messiah and we Christians affirm he has come in Jesus, our Moslem brothers and sisters sealed the Eastern Gate during the Middle Ages that since then, no one could pass through it except literally face a blank wall.

I love telling this amusing story to fellow pilgrims to the Holy Land but find it today as a beautiful springboard for reflection to balance our Sunday gospel that sounds like a “shock preaching” by Jesus Christ.

Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.” He replied to him, “Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?” Then he said to the crowd, “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.” Then he told them a parable… “Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God.”

Luke 12:13-16, 21

Beginning this Sunday until the next three weeks, we’ll hear Jesus Christ “shock preaching” us the plain truth we always forget or even disregard: that we all die and what really matters most in life are the good deeds we have done. All our cherished possessions, everything we have labored so hard in this life we shall leave behind when we die because as the Lord had said, “life does not consist of possessions”.

We have known this all along but we rarely realize its full impact until we come face to face with death due to an illness, retirement, or situations when we existentially feel we are mortals after all, contrary to what we have felt and held when we were younger.

So, why wait until it is too late? Start considering now in everything of what will remain after our death.

And if you find this shocking, see also how Jesus coldly refused the man’s plea for his intervention to have his share of inheritance that is rightly his: “Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?” What had happened to his teachings last week about prayer, of God giving what is best for us like our sinful parents?

Here we find the value of Christ’s shock preaching: his response was not only directed to the man but to us all who always pray to him, asking him for so many things when we forget the more essential, God. As we have reflected last Sunday, we pray to have God because when we have him, we have everything! Jesus is redirecting our attention and focus on things that last even after our death, on “being rich in what matters to God.”

After my father had retired, he was diagnosed with glaucoma. While driving for him on our way home from the hospital, he told me how he had realized that God is not really so concerned about our temporal affairs like wealth. He claimed that everything he had prayed for was granted by God except only that one thing of being rich.

I totally agree with my Dad and that is why I do not pray for any material thing for myself since 1995 while a seminarian until now that I am a priest for 21 years. I do pray for the material well-being of my family, relatives and friends because when they are financially stable, I know they would take care of me and of my needs just like last week when a relative gave me a brand new laptop (a Mac, in fact). I do not pray for things because I am so convinced that whatever I need, God will give me. The only thing I pray for myself is that when I die, God brings me to heaven.

When we try to pray deeper, we also realize that in whatever problem we find ourselves confronted with especially with those pertaining to material things like money, cars, house, and gadgets, Jesus always responds in the same manner he did with that man who requested him on his way to Jerusalem. That is because Jesus came not to be a judge and arbitrator of our inheritance and assets. Jesus came for the salvation of our souls, for the fulfillment of our lives that can never be achieved with money and wealth or power and fame.

Jesus came for us, for you and me. Personally. He wants us to focus more on “what matters to God” like love and mercy, kindness and generosity with others which he lavishly gives us. When we are rich with these gifts that matter to God, we also find ourselves desiring less material things, being more fair and just in our dealing with others. No stealing, no cheating, no character assassination. When we have more of spiritual goods, we have more joy within, more peace and contentment. But when we have more of material goods, we feel more uneasy and most prone to sin.

Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth, vanity of vanities. All things are vanity! For what profit comes to a man from all the toil and anxiety of heart with which he labored under the sun? All his days sorrow and grief is his occupation; even at night his mind is not at rest. This is also vanity.

Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:22-23
Women pose for photos near a homeless man during the New York Fashion Week , October 2012. Photo by Reuters via The Economist Magazine.

Qoheleth is no “killjoy” but merely telling us that everything on earth vanishes like thin air. Only God lasts for all eternity. And that is also the whole point of St. Paul in the second reading.

Brothers and sisters: If you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Colossians 3:1-3

Sometimes in life, we need to be shocked and shaken of the simple facts we take for granted like our relationships with God and with others. Here we find that fear can sometimes be good. In fact, it was our fear of death that led mankind to many medical and scientific breakthroughs in history that have made life today better and safer, and yes, easier. It was also this fear of death that had enabled man to discover new lands to inhabit and is now pushing us to explore the universe.

But most of all, this fear of death can also be holy and blessed too because when we become conscious of our own end in life, that is when we start living authentically in the hope of eternal life in God. A blessed Sunday to you! Amen.

A spiritual exercise

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul
Wednesday, Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, 31 July 2019
Exodus 34:29-35 >< )))*> <*((( >< Matthew 13:44-46
Lake Tiberias in Galilee, May 2017.

Dearest Lord:

Please teach us to be generous like your servant St. Ignatius of Loyola whose feast we celebrate today.

Teach us to be generous in examining our conscience so we may readily confess our sins to you each day.

Likewise, teach us Lord to be generous in examining our consciousness too so that we may gratefully acknowledge the good things we have done each day through you.

Most of all, teach us to be generous in being with you in prayers, in seeking your holy will so that like Moses in the first reading, your light may shine on us as we proclaim your greater glory with our words and works.

Let us zealously seek your kingdom like a buried treasure or a precious pearl that once found we may joyfully and lovingly share with others.

St. Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us! Amen.

In the light of the gospel

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul, Tuesday, Wk. XI, Yr. I, 18 June 2019
2 Corinthians 8:1-9 >< )))*> >< )))*> >< )))*> Matthew 5:43-48
Ceiling of the altar of the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, Malolos City. Photo by Lorenzo Atienza, 12 June 2019.

How great and deeply spiritual is your servant St. Paul, Lord Jesus Christ! No problem is too ordinary for him as he resolves them in the light of the gospel. He shows us in so many instances like in our first reading today how the gospel sheds light on seemingly secular matters like sharing treasures.

Now as you excel in every respect, in faith, discourse, knowledge, all earnestness, and in the love we have for you, may you excel in this gracious act also. I say this not by way of command, but to test the genuineness of your love by your concern for others. For you know the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that for your sake he became poor although he was rich, so that by his poverty you might become rich.

2 Corinthians 8:7-9

Here in St. Paul is the answer to our perennial question to your gospel teaching of how can we “love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us”? (Mt.5:44)

First, dispose us always to prayer, to communing in you and with you. Detach us from this world once in a while in silence and hiddeness. Just be with you. Alone. Listening to you, feeling you.

Then, open our hearts and minds to your words. Enflesh your words in us, through us and with us.

Once we have been emtpied of ourselves and filled with your words and spirit, move us, guide us, O Lord, to your will and direction like St. Paul. Make us your instrument in doing charity for others.

Cleanse our hearts and our lips that we may worthily proclaim your gospel in words and in deeds. Amen.

Rev. Bp. Jesse Mercado of Paranaque blessing the people with the Gospel book during a Mass. Photo by Lorenzo Atienza.

Losing our head in prayer

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul, Wednesday, Easter Wk. VI, 29 May 2019
Acts 17:15,22-18:1 >< }}}*> John 16:12-15 >< }}}*>

My dearest Lord Jesus: As I prayed last night, I cannot remove from my mind that beautiful sight of a man in a chapel, so absorbed in conversing with you, that he seemed to have lost his head in prayer.

Photo by JJ Jimeno of GMA News, UP Chapel, 27 May 2019.

Today our readings speak of the need to lose our selves in you.

St. Paul tried to win over the people of Athens at the Areopagus, proclaiming your Gospel without condemning or attacking their religion. He even cited their shrine “To An Unknown God” (Acts 17:23) as a step closer to discovering you and following you as the true God.

He never lost his cool even when people did not believe his teachings of your resurrection from the dead. He simply had himself lost to your will and left Athens to proceed to Corinth where you have prepared great things for his ministry.

Lord, so many times, we cannot let go of our heads, of our know-it-all-attitude in life that we cannot let go and let God.

Let us always remember your words during the Last Supper, “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now” (Jn.16:12).

Let us be patient, waiting for your Holy Spirit to come to us, to fill us with your wisdom, to remind us of your teachings and to guide us in doing your work.

Let us lose not only our heads but our very selves to you so we may do your work in the way you would want it be done. Amen.

Photo by the author, parish sacristy, 10 March 2019.
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Lent is always a fresh start, a coming home

40 Shades of Lent, Monday, Week IV, 01 April 2019
Isaiah 65:17-21///John 4:43-54
From Google.

Good morning, Lord! Thank you very much for this Monday, the first day of the brand new month of April. A new beginning, a fresh start. Help us to make it a good one.

Make true your promise to us, O God, through your prophet that…

“…no longer shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does round out his full lifetime; he dies a mere youth who reaches but a hundred years, and he who fails of a hundred shall be thought accursed.”

Isaiah 65:20

Our lives have no meaning at all without you, when we are separated from you. Without you, O God, life is measured in time as an age that is merely a number; but, with you, life is about finding meaning, having its fullness in you regardless we lead short or long lives.

When Jesus Christ healed the son of a royal official from Capernaum while in Cana, Galilee with the words “your son will live”, it was more than escaping death and living for more years in his life. It was more of living meaningfully, of finding you in our lives.

It has been four weeks since we started this Lenten journey. Continue to lead me back home into you, O God. Help me find my way back home to you especially in those moments I am lost and separated from you. Most especially, help me find your Holy Will O Lord that I may always fulfill it because of love and nothing else. Amen.

Early morning at the Assumption Sabbath Retreat House in Baguio City, January 2019.