Category: SundayGospel

Lent is the love & mercy of God in me

40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Sunday Recipe for the Soul, Lent IV-B, 10 March 2024
2 Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23 ><}}}}*> Ephesians 2:4-10 ><}}}}*> John 3:14-21
Photo of pink convolvulus from the Botanical Gardens of Jerusalem, flora.org.il.

Many times during prayer periods I banter with God especially when I feel overwhelmed by his kindness and love. Like last Thursday on my way to the adoration chapel when I passed by a row of banks.

As I knelt before the Blessed Sacrament to pray, I just felt like asking God: “BDO (Banco De Oro) ka ba, Lord? Kasi…you always find ways.”

That, for me, my dear friends is the meaning of this fourth Sunday in Lent – God never stops in finding ways to reach out to us, to be with us, to make us experience his love and mercy, kindness and forgiveness despite the hardness of our hearts.

Photo by author, 2019.

Our altars burst in shades of pink this Sunday called Laetare (Latin, rejoice) Sunday from the entrance antiphon that says, “Rejoice, Jerusalem, and all who love her. Be joyful, all who were in mourning; exult and be satisfied at her consoling breast.”

It is a misconception to see Lent as dull and drab due to its penitential nature; while there is the sober tone in our liturgy, let us keep in mind that it is also a season filled with joy and excitement for the coming Easter, the mother of all feasts in the Church.

And today we rightly rejoice because John reminds us in our gospel scene only him narrates – Nicodemus meeting with Jesus in the cover of the darkness of the night – of God’s immense love for us manifested in the dying of Jesus on the Cross.

Jesus said to Nicodemus: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”

John 3:14-16
“Nicodemus and Jesus” painting by James Tissot (1836-1902) from SuperStock/GettyImages via learnreligions.com.

John saw a deeper meaning, of a sign pointing to Jesus as the Christ in this conversation with Nicodemus at night. Nicodemus was a Pharisee afraid to come out in the open to show his admiration and belief in Jesus. He eventually joined the disciples on Good Friday with another Pharisee, Joseph of Arimathea when they buried Jesus in a tomb.

See the deep perception of John in this recalling by Jesus to Nicodemus of the bronze serpent raised by Moses in the wilderness (see Num. 21:4-9) as a prefiguration of his own crucifixion.

In the gospel of John, the “lifting up” of the Son of Man refers to Jesus on the Cross. After that scene with the woman caught committing adultery, Jesus declared, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM…” (Jn.8:28). Then on Palm Sunday while in the temple area, Jesus told the crowd “‘And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.’ He said this indicating the kind of death he would die” (Jn.12:32-33).

John’s gospel teems with other similar passages showing the inseparability of Christ’s Cross and glory. And so with our life, that is why in the middle of Lent, we rejoice this Sunday!

Photo by author in Petra, Jordan, May 2019.

Like last Sunday, here we find again early in the gospel of John how Jesus laid his vision-mission statement of coming to save us by dying on the Cross during his conversation with Nicodemus that night.

Jesus assured Nicodemus and us today that even while we are in the darkness of life’s many confusions and fears, problems and sufferings, we just have look up to him crucified lighting up our way to life and salvation. That night in their conversation, Jesus assured Nicodemus and us today that even in the worst situations in life when “darkness is our only light and hopelessness is our only hope” as T.S. Eliot wrote in his Four Quartets, God is in us, with us and for us in Christ. Just as when the world was covered in darkness on Good Friday when Jesus died on the Cross, it was the precise moment too of Christ’s glory when he conquered death and sin in obedience to the Father.

Yes, it is true these things are easier said than done but like Nicodemus, even in the darkness of the night we have to dare come close to Jesus, to speak to him and most of all, to hear and listen to him. As one poet had said, “only the brave who walk the darkness of the night shall see the brightness of the stars above.” Most of all, Jesus calls us today to be his love and mercy, his joy and light to the many other Nicodemus groping in the darkness of sin and evil.

From https://www.wildflowersprovence.fr/plant/convolvulus-lanuginosus/

In my three years as chaplain in a hospital, I have experienced personally and through others that truth so clear as crystal of God most closest with us in the worst days of our lives. Sometimes, we just sigh deeply as we feel him inside us, assuring us how everything is taken cared of, that everything would be fine.

Like the Israelites in the first reading, we too have to go through an “exile”, a kind of “punishment” not from God but as a result of own our sins and wrongdoing. Many times God let bad things happen to us because we insist on our ways; as God retreats to the back or sides of our lives, he never stops finding ways to save us, even “extricate” us from our imprisonment to sin and sufferings!

Indeed, as St. Paul had said in our second reading today, God is “rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us” (Eph.2:4). Let us not waste that gift. Even though God forgives every sin no matter how bad it may be, do not forget some of our sins have irreversible consequences we shall face and suffer. Of course, God would still be there to help and guide us but, why wait for that to happen?

There lies the joy and grace – and challenge – of this fourth Sunday in Lent: even while we are in our worst situations in life, in our darkest nights, Jesus is always there for us, in fact, the first to have suffered and died for us so that with him on Easter, we may rise again to new life.

Be the sower of his love and mercy. Be his presence. Be another Nicodemus in the night leading others to the light of Jesus. Let us, therefore, rejoice in the Lord as we pray:

Praise and glory to you,
dearest Father 
in giving us your Son 
Jesus Christ our Lord,
our light,
our life,
our joy;
make us, O Lord,
your love and mercy
in this world 
so everyone may experience
that indeed, God loves the world
that He gives us Jesus through me;
let your Holy Sprit enlighten 
my mind and my heart
like Nicodemus 
leading those in darkness
into the light of Christ.
Amen.

A joyful week to everyone!

From https://www.wildflowersprovence.fr/plant/convolvulus-lanuginosus/

“You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'” by The Righteous Brothers (1964)

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 03 March 2024
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 2018.

Our 40-day Lenten journey gets more intense this Sunday with the gospel scene where Jesus cleansed the Temple in Jerusalem to signify the need for us to recover our zeal for God who is also our first love (https://lordmychef.com/2024/03/02/lent-is-the-zeal-of-jesus/).

In a similar manner, we picked the intensely passionate 1964 hit You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ by The Righteous Brothers matching today’s Sunday gospel as it tells us the similar teaching of Jesus Christ, of how we have lost our zeal for God and the need to bring it back for our own good.

Of course, You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ is a love song with its usual sprinklings of sensuality but its sublimity and accuracy in describing the common experiences of love going bad have made it as the most-played song in American radio and television – perhaps even the world – in the 20th century. It is also the most successfully covered song by artists, including by our favorite Hall & Oates who must literally heed the song’s message after their falling apart as musicdom’s dynamic duo of all time.

Written by music producer Phil Spector with some help from Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ as a ballad is soulfully penetrating with the contrasting vocal ranges of Bill Medley’s bass-baritone voice and Bobby Hatfield’s tenor that enabled them to create a distinctive sound as a duet.

This perfect blending of their voices is felt, not just heard in You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ that is a kind of music that can disturb and awaken one’s callous conscience to put it in order. Or have it cleansed as Jesus did in the Temple when he drove out the oxen and sheep, overturned the tables of money changers and drove the doves away being sold.

Notable also is the song’s slow opening – and video – with Medley’s deep voice so hauntingly cool but not scary at all but simply disarming, making it perhaps the most coveted style in singing.

You never close your eyes anymore when I kiss your lips
And there’s no tenderness like before in your fingertips
You’re trying hard not to show it
But baby, baby I know it

You lost that lovin’ feelin’
Whoa, that lovin’ feelin’
You lost that lovin’ feelin’
Now it’s gone, gone, gone, whoa-oh

All in all, here is a most beautiful music, so universal as a language in its melody and lyrics that reminds us that love is not everything; love is more than a feeling but a decision we have to nurture and deepen in order to grow and mature. And bloom.

Most of all, to remain rooted in our first love of all, in God who gives us the zeal, the spark to keep it burning. Have lovin’ week ahead, everyone.

From YouTube.com

Lent is the zeal of Jesus

40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Sunday Recipe for the Soul, Lent III-B, 03 March 2024
Exodus 20:1-17 ><}}}*> 1 Corinthians 1:22-25 ><}}}*> John 2:13-25
Photo by author, 2019,

It has been 19 days since we started this 40-day journey of Lent as an internal pilgrimage to God our first love. Since the first Sunday of Lent, Mark guided us to Jesus as we joined him in the desert of our poverty and sinfulness to the heights of his transfiguration through the many trials and sufferings we have gone through in life.

Beginning this third Sunday in Lent until the fifth Sunday, all our gospel readings are taken from John as we come closer with God who dwells right in our hearts, his temple within us. Keep in mind that our Lenten itinerary is actually symbolic and theological in nature than an actual road map to follow; hence, our shift to the fourth gospel that is so rich in its narration of the events leading to the Holy Week.

Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well the moneychangers seated there. He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the moneychangers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said, “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” His disciples recalled the words of the Scripture, Zeal for your house will consume me.

John 2:13-17
Photo by author, Jerusalem, 2017.

In the Bible, the Temple is the sign of God’s presence. That is how central is the Temple of Jerusalem for the Jews even until now. And John deepens this sign of the Temple for us with his most unique narration of its cleansing by Jesus in preparation for its new meaning found in Christ when he died on the Cross.

Only John noted how the disciples recalled after Easter this episode of Jesus cleansing the Temple, linking it with that line from the Passion Psalm, “His disciples recalled the words of the Scripture, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me'”. Matthew, Mark, and Luke in their accounts identically quoted Jesus citing Isaiah 56:7 when he said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer but you have made it into a den of thieves” (Mt. 21:13; Mk. 11:17; Lk.19:46).

Here, John is reminding us – like when the Apostles remembered after Easter – that Jesus is the “just man”, the promised Messiah who not only prayed but embodied this psalm that led him to his Passion and Death on Good Friday.

Save me, God, for the waters have reached my neck. For your sake I bear insult, shame covers my face. Because zeal for your house consumes me, I am scorned by those who scorn you.

Psalm 69:2, 8, 10
Photo by author, Jerusalem, 2017.

That “zeal” of Jesus for the Temple and everything it stood for that consumed him was the zeal of his self-giving love on the Cross that we find in the following conversation he had with the Jews.

At this the Jews answered and said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. Therefore, when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they came to believe the Scripture and the word Jesus had spoken.

John 2:18-22

So beautiful! Everything now becomes so clear that Jesus is the new Temple; his cleansing of the temple in Jerusalem was a declaration of his “vision-mission” right at the start of his ministry in John’s gospel (experts say John’s narration of events in Christ’s life was more of theology than chronology).

At his Crucifixion, Jesus Christ had replaced the Temple worship with “worship in Spirit and truth” (Jn.4:23) as he had told the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well (Third Sunday Lent-A). The synoptic gospels attest to this same view of John in their accounts that upon Christ’s death, “the veil of the sanctuary was torn from top to bottom” (Mt.27:51; Mk.15:38; Lk.23:45) that signaled the end of temple worship in Jesus Christ as the new Temple of God.

Therefore, this “zeal” of Jesus for the Temple symbolizing the Father is the same zeal every disciple must have for God, for others and his Church. It is the very same zeal laid out by God to Moses at Sinai in the Ten Commandments calling on everyone to be fair and just with each other regardless of age, color, sex, and belief. The first three commandments call us for a zeal in loving God above all expressed in the same zeal we must have in the remaining commandments for our neighbors.

Photo by author, temple of Jerusalem, 2017.

After the success of the movie The Ten Commandments in 1956, reporters asked its director Cecil B. DeMilled which of the Ten Commandments of God we often violate or disobey? DeMille said it is the first commandment because every time we commit a sin, that is when we have other gods besides our one, true God.

Very true!

This is the grace of this third Sunday in Lent as we continue this internal pilgrimage to God: that we also cleanse our hearts by examining our zeal for God and for others. The other word for “zeal” is “enthusiasm” which literally means in Greek as “to be filled with God” (from en theos). To be filled with God, to be with his zeal means to be empty of ourselves first by becoming like Jesus Christ. But, how can we proclaim Christ crucified as St. Paul asserted in the second reading when we are more concerned with money and trade, fame and prestige, especially in the Church? How can we proclaim Christ crucified when we avoid his Cross, always seeking shortcuts and instants in everything? How can we be more loving like Christ crucified when we do not have the zeal for others?

Let us pray.

Lord Jesus, 
"overturn" our many excuses 
and alibis of being so concerned
 with things of the world
 pretending we do them in the name
 of God and of our family and loved ones;  
"overturn" our many justifications
 for not going to Mass,
 for not receiving the Sacraments,
 for not making time
 with our family and loved ones;
set us free, Jesus,
from our many addictions
 that have cut off our ties
 and relationships with You
 and real persons 
like our family and friends.
Fill us, Jesus, with your zeal
 for the Father through the Church 
and everyone we meet. 
 Amen.
From Google.

“Yesterday” by the Beatles (1965)

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 25 February 2024
Photo from petalrepublic.com.

It is the last Sunday in February, the second in the Season of Lent and most likely, everybody is feeling like “suddenly” the month is over with everything happening so fast just like in the song Yesterday by the Beatles.

Released in 1965 from their album Help!, Yesterday was actually written by Paul McCartney after a dream while staying with his former girlfriend, Jane Asher. It is a sad love song that speaks, as usual, of break-up.

The lyrics and music are simple that McCartney had to research for sometime if he had copied its melody from an existing music at that time. But, its simplicity and eloquence caught so many generations then and now as the song speaks so well of everyone’s experience. Yesterday one of the most covered songs of all time, being interpreted by almost every artist in all continents over 2000 times since its release!

You may check our Sunday blog today on the correlation of Yesterday with the transfiguration of Jesus (https://lordmychef.com/2024/02/24/troubles-on-the-road-to-easter/).

What I wish to share with you this lovely Sunday is my realization that aside from old music getting better with age as it takes on a life of its own, there is also a simultaneous change and maturity among us listeners and fans of our favorite artists and bands of their music.

I practically grew up listening to the music of the Beatles, being born in 1965, the same year Yesterday was released. I have never understood all their songs but growing up at that time surrounded by their music, I have also fallen in love with the sound of Beatles like most of my generation.

And now, I just felt everything so “suddenly” too, of how fast time flies that indeed, “I’m not half the man I used to be”! 

Yesterday all my trouble seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they're here to stay
Oh I believe in yesterday

Suddenly I'm not half the man I used to be
There's a shadow hanging over me
Oh yesterday came suddenly

It was that line that actually moved me to link Yesterday with the transfiguration of Jesus, “Suddenly I’m not half the man I used to be.”

The lesson is very simple but many times, it could take us a lifetime learning or realizing. Most of all, accepting and owning.

Like the road to Easter, our lives are always marked with so many light and darkness, failures and triumphs, tears and laughter, even little deaths. Jesus tells us in his transfiguration that the scandal of the Cross cannot be removed from the glory of his Resurrection. There can be no Easter Sunday without Good Friday.

The good news is that in every passages in life we go through, every difficulty we hurdle, every pain and sufferings we endure, we always emerge a different person after – not half the man I used to be.

Of course, it still depends on us if we become better or bitter with every pain we go through. But, like the song Yesterday that went through a long process of ups and downs even before being recorded and released, it had emerged a very great music, a classic in our own time.

How consoling to think that great men and women, like McCartney and all the other artists we look up to went through a lot of troubles in life and have emerged better and wiser as persons.

And that’s because Jesus Christ was there first to suffer and die for us so that when he rose again from the dead, we too shall rise with him. Have a blessed week ahead, folks!

From YouTube.com.

“A Horse With No Name” by America (1971)

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 18 February 2024
Photo by author, view of Israel from side of Jordan, May 2019.

It is the first week of Lent where the gospel is always about the temptation of Jesus by the devil in the desert. Naturally, the other thing that came to our mind while praying was the song A Horse With No Name by three young Americans who called themselves “America”.

It was still the great heydays of rock n’ roll and even though we were still too young at the time when this was playing on the airwaves, we just knew it was a great music especially when every grown up man was listening to it, humming it and even plucking its chords in their guitars. At that time, we just loved the melody and poetry of the lyrics, beginning with the unusual title A Horse With No Name with its very propitious guitars that kicked our imaginations of a far away journey in the desert.

On the first part of the journey
I was looking at all the life
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
There was sand and hills and rings
The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz
And the sky with no clouds
The heat was hot and the ground was dry
But the air was full of sound
I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can’t remember your name
‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain
La la la la la la…

The desert is more than a place in the Bible. It was more of a setting for meeting and experiencing God amid its dryness and wilderness. Every great prophet in the Old Testament went to the desert to pray and meet God; hence, in the New Testament, Jesus was shown as going first to the desert before launching his mission.

How ironic yet amazing that it is in the desert of our life’s poverty and limitations, sickness and weakness, dryness and weariness when we actually meet God, when we experience fulfillment and meaning in life (https://lordmychef.com/2024/02/17/lent-a-pilgrimage-to-god/). This biblical meaning of the desert was not far from the views of the song’s composer, Dewel Bunnell who explained later that A Horse With No Name was “a metaphor for a vehicle to get away from life’s confusion into a quiet, peaceful place” (from Wikipedia).

However, we remember too how when we were in high school (early 80’s) while listening to “American Top 40” on 99.5RT-FM when Casey Kasem claimed Bunnell saying that they were simply playing with words and chords when they came up with A Horse With No Name!

Whatever… but the music has become a classic because of its sincere message about life as a mystery not meant to be solved at all (because it is unsolvable!). For five decades since releasing A Horse With No Name, the trio of America had taught us how to deal with life’s mysteries by simply allowing ourselves to be wrapped by these mysteries, keeping our hearts and minds open in awaiting new revelations unfolding before us daily. Don’t forget too to have that sense of awe while being wrapped by life’s mysteries which is actually what Lent is asking us during this season as we return to God, our very root and grounding in order to find ourselves anew who are so lost in this world of so many disguises.

After nine days I let the horse run free
‘Cause the desert had turned to sea
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
There was sand and hills and rings
The ocean is a desert with its life underground
And a perfect disguise above
Under the cities lies a heart made of ground
But the humans will give no love

Here’s America with their first hit A Horse With No Name. Sing along, reflect and, pray. Have a blessed week ahead in this desert of life!

From YoutTube.com

Approaching Jesus, approachable like Jesus

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B, 11 February 2024
Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46 ><}}}}*> 1 Corinthian 10:31-11:1 ><}}}}*> Mark 1:40-45
Photo by Ms. Analyn Dela Torre in Caypombo, Santa Maria, Bulacan, 04 February 2024.

We have seen these past two Sundays Jesus Christ’s personal manner of relating with everyone. It had always been Jesus coming, touching, and speaking directly to the man possessed with unclean spirit at the synagogue in Capernaum on a sabbath and later the sick mother-in-law of Simon Peter at home.

Jesus has always been coming to everyone – to us – in the most personal manner. And he would always ensure all “barriers are down” around him so that we too can approach him like in our gospel this Sunday when a leper came to him for healing.

A leper came to Jesus and kneeling down begged him and said, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, “I do will it. Be made clean.” The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean.

Mark 1:40-42
From vaticannews.va

For the third consecutive Sunday, Mark tells us another healing by Jesus at the start of his ministry in Galilee. This is the last in the series but this is so unique because it was the sick who approached Jesus. 

Most of all, that sick was afflicted with leprosy, the worst disease considered at that time when people believed (until now) that any sickness and handicap was a punishment from God for sins committed. Leprosy was the worst because it reminded them of the boils God inflicted on the Egyptians when the pharaoh refused to let them go home to their Promised Land with Moses as leader.

More than the ugly sight of the disease, leprosy became the perfect metaphor for sin and punishment. That is why God himself in the first reading personally issued the health guidelines for anyone with leprosy and similar diseases of the skin. Though God’s prescriptions were more of hygienic purposes, these took on a deeper spiritual meaning for the Israelites especially when lepers have to be separated from the community that it seemed for them, it was indeed a punishment for a grave sin.

Jesus radically changed that perception in this healing of the leper who had approached him.

A leper came to Jesus...
From wikipedia.commons.

Inasmuch as Jesus comes to us everyday as we have seen these past two Sundays, Jesus assures us today that we can always come to him like that leper.

See how this scene was unimaginable because lepers were given strict orders at that time to never approach anyone while people were supposed to drive them away. Where were the four disciples supposed to be following Jesus? And, wasn’t anyone there to restrain that leper from getting close to Jesus?

It seemed Jesus was by himself when the leper approached him as Mark never bothered to tell us of any witnesses at all nor the exact time and location of this incident because this scene happens everyday in our lives. The fact that the leper was able to get near Jesus who welcomed him warmly that day is actually the good news today - Jesus wants us to leave our comfort zones to join him in the middle of the street of his journeys! 

Jesus comes to us in the most personal way everyday. And the good news is, nothing can keep us away from Jesus, even our sins which leprosy signified in this story. All barriers are down when Jesus comes and calls us to approach him. No restrictions nor appointments needed to see Jesus who simply wants us to get closest with him like when he “indignantly” told the disciples to let the children come to him (Feast of Sto. Niño, Jan. 21, 2024, Mk. 10:14). 

What prevents you or keeps you away from approaching Jesus who passes by everyday?

"I do will it. Be made clean."
Painting by James Tissot (1836-1902) of “Healing of Lepers of Capernaum” from catholic-resources.org.

In his healings these past two Sundays, recall how Mark presented them to us who seemed detached or far from Jesus like spectators watching, astonished and amazed with his authority as the Son of God, all-powerful and beyond us.

This Sunday, Mark shatters all those feelings within us, telling us to dismiss all those thoughts of Jesus being hard to reach when a leper came to Jesus and kneeling down begged him and said, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, “I do will it. Be made clean.”

Imagine Jesus and you as the leper in this beautiful scene, experiencing the power of his words and hands together!

The words, “I do will it. Be made clean” shows us again the authority of Jesus in his words being sufficient to effect healing like when the Roman centurion declared to him, “only say the word and my servant will be healed” (Mt. 8:8/Lk. 7:7) or when he told the unclean spirit in the man in a synagogue, “Quiet! Come out of him!” (Mk. 1:25).

What is most unique in this Sunday healing is how Jesus felt deep inside that strong love for the leper -for each of us today – that he was filled with compassion to be “Moved with pity”. It was more than an emotion or a feeling within. To be moved with pity is to have one’s heart stirred or disturbed – the literal meaning of the Latin misericordia or mercy. See now the progression from the heart of Jesus, in his compassion and mercy, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, “I do will it. Be made clean.”

So beautiful! And that happens everyday if we approach Jesus no matter how dark our sins are, no matter how sad we may be or even devastated. Come to your worst like that leper and Jesus will gladly welcome you, heal you, forgive you because he loves you so much!

Photo by Ms. Analyn Dela Torre in Caypombo, Santa Maria, Bulacan, 04 February 2024.
"Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ."
(1 Corinthians 11:1)

Oh, how easy it is to approach Jesus for sinners and weak people like us but is there anyone like Jesus who puts all barriers down to be approachable through our parents and siblings, teachers and friends, and priests to express what’s deepest in our hearts?

Is there still a St. Paul among us who can humbly declare, “Be imitators of me, as I am an imitator of Christ” who welcomes modern lepers getting near for love and affection, even company?

St. Paul may seem to be boasting to us modern people these days but if we try to understand the context of our second reading, we realize the great apostle was simply being humbly honest and true. The Christians at Corinth never saw Jesus like St. Paul. They needed a model to imitate Christ which St. Paul ably provided them with. After all, St. Paul had truly conformed himself to the crucified Christ (Gal. 2:19) as attested by the early Christians.

And while it is true we are all called to imitate Jesus, we priests are expected to be more like the Crucified Christ – approachable especially by the sick and the poor. How sad when we priests are more seen with the rich and powerful, in all their lavish parties but never or rarely with the poor. The same is true with church workers and volunteers when those at the margins find them difficult to approach. Something is gravely wrong with us if people find us priests and lay Christians difficult to approach because, clearly, we are not imitators of Christ. Have a blessed week ahead as we approach Jesus this Ash Wednesday for the 40-day journey towards Easter. Amen.

Real power empowers

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B, 04 February 2024
Job 7:1-4, 6-7 ><}}}}*> 1 Corinthians 9:16-19, 22-23 ><}}}}*> Mark 1:29-39
Photo by The Good Brigade/Digital Vision/Getty Images via cnn.com.

There’s another “war” happening that had actually started a long time ago but only now recognized by the powerful US Senate in Washington DC when they summoned last week the owners of big tech companies to a hearing on the harmful effects of social media.

It is a war that at first seemed to have been neglected or even unrecognized when parents and experts have long been complaining about the ill effects of social media. Finally, authorities are doing something about it. 

“Great power comes with great responsibilities.”- Spiderman. Photo from peakpx.com.

Though the issues at hand are very contentious because of the many benefits too of social media, the US Senate hearings are a big step in demanding more social responsibilities from tech owners who have become so powerful with their products’ wide reach and influence.

Of course, much responsibilities are also in the hands of parents and users of social media but one thing has always been clear these past 20 years when experts and ordinary folks have been raising the red flag on social media being so impersonal in nature where persons are often considered as objects than subjects to be loved and respected.

Our ability to communicate is a sharing in the power of God, a sharing in his authority meant to foster union among peoples as persons. Despite the efficiency of social media, it cannot and must not replace the human person in every communication. This we have seen last Sunday when people were “astonished” and “amazed” one sabbath as Jesus spoke with authority in their synagogue in Capernaum. From there, Jesus moved into the home of Simon Peter, staying for a while in Capernaum before moving on to other locations to continue his ministry of teaching and healing.

On leaving the synagogue Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John. Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick with a fever. They immediately told him about her. He approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up. Then the fever left her and she waited on them.

Mark 1:29-31
Photo by author, ruins of the neighborhood around the synagogue of Capernaum where Jesus used to preach; underneath the Church are believed to be the ruins of the home of Simon Peter where Jesus healed his mother-in-law.

It was still the day of sabbath and we could feel the great joy and pride of the four disciples with Jesus that they “immediately told him” about Simon’s mother-in-law who “lay sick with a fever.”

Notice Mark’s detailed report on the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law by Jesus: He approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up. Then the fever left her and she waited on them. In this continuation of a slice in the life of Jesus last Sunday, Mark is presenting us again another important aspect of Christ’s authority and power that is personal which empowers others. 

To empower means to raise up a person from one’s lowliness in order to restore his/her well-being. To empower means to make a person whole again as he/she discovers and experiences anew his/her giftedness in God and as a person. 

Photo from kimaldrich.com

Now, imagine this in the light of the powers of social media made possible by the internet through various devices: Jesus could have healed anybody who was sick within a 100 or 200 meter radius from the synagogue of Capernaum with his great powers being the Son of God. He could have just sent off signals like a router to heal more sick people instead of making them flock to the home of Simon Peter. Even today, perhaps, we could just come to the church, stay in a specific spot like the confessional to get connected to Jesus and voila – get healed!

But, Jesus never did that kind of healing and would never do it. Recall how Jesus would always approach and touch, speak and meet the sick before healing them. When a woman was healed of her hemorrhages after touching his clothes while they were in a crowd, Jesus stopped and searched for her to have a personal relationship. Unlike the internet, Jesus came in order to personally connect with us and connect us with the Father in the most personal manner.

In every healing by Jesus, there is always something deeper than restoration of one’s health which is salvation, a personal encounter with the Christ who leads us to fulfillment as persons. In every healing of body, there is the forgiveness of sins in one’s soul and being. Healing is more wholistic in nature than being being relieved of headache or any discomfort. Many times, our sickness can leave us deformed, disabled and even invalid without any cure at all yet deep inside us we still experience freedom and joy. That is healing because we are assured of being loved and cared for by another person and most of all by Jesus, personally.

So unlike the powers of any human or professional nor even by the social media so much around us that may be indeed so strong and efficient with its great speed but could never uplift us or restore our well-being. For sometime, they can offer us with relief but the deep longings and emptiness within us lingers on. Why? St. Augustine expressed it perfectly when he wrote in his Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” 

From Pinterest.com

This Sunday, Mark is telling us that Jesus comes to us daily right in our hearts where our home is, always “approaching us, grasping our hands, helping us up” from all our burdens and pains, sufferings and miseries. Are we present to meet Jesus? Do we “immediately” tell him our problems like Simon Peter when his mother-in-law had fever?

The only essential and vital connection we must keep and maintain in this life is our personal connection with God in Jesus Christ who exemplified this well at the end of this Sunday’s gospel when “Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed” (Mk. 1:35).

Last Friday we celebrated the Feast of the Presentation where Simeon and Anna showed us too how they remained personally connected with God in their daily prayers and fasting at the temple so that when Joseph and Mary came with the Child Jesus, both were led by the Holy Spirit to meet them. Imagine the crowd at the temple at that time plus Simeon and Anna being both old with the usual woes but were both never distracted in their focus on God and his promise of salvation in Christ before dying.

Photo by Vigie Ongleo in Virginia, USA, 02 February 2024.

There will always be suffering in life as the first reading reminds us. Like Job, we go through many setbacks in life, making us wonder all the more at the mystery – and scandal – of human sufferings, of how it could befall us if we have a powerful and loving God. St. Paul meanwhile tells us in the second reading how imperfect our world is when we sometimes have to make sacrifices to keep the unity of our family and community.

Both Job and St. Paul in their sufferings and sacrifices remained connected with God, bore everything in silence to become “all things to all men” (omnia omnibus) by sharing God’s power and authority in their weaknesses even in death that have empowered countless men and women through the ages including us in our own time.

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus Christ,
our true healer of all sickness
in body, heart, mind and soul:
keep us connected in you
especially in moments of trials
and difficulties so that we may
be filled with your personal powers
as we too empower others
when they are weakest.
Amen.

A blessed weekend to everyone!

Authority is when we claim God whom we proclaim

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B, 28 January 2024
Deuteronomy 18:15-20 ><}}}}*> 1 Corinthians 7:32-35 ><}}}}*> Mark 1:21-28
Photo by Dra. Mylene A. Santos, MD, an orange-bellied flowerpecker (Dicaeum trigonostigma) somewhere in the Visayas, December 2023.

The gospel makes us wonder anew this Sunday on the mystery of Jesus, on what was with his person and speech. Remember how we wondered the other Sunday on what he had told Andrew and his companion who “went and see” Jesus at his dwelling at “four in the afternoon” (Jn. 1:39) that they realized he was indeed the Messiah, the Christ. 

Reading further in that portion of the fourth gospel, we find how Andrew and companion brought two others to Jesus, Simon Peter and Nathanael to become disciples too. This Sunday as we return to Mark’s gospel, the evangelist tells us the start of Jesus Christ’s public ministry on a sabbath in the synagogue of Capernaum with his first four “fishers of men”:

Then they came to Capernaum, and on the sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and taught. The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.

Mark 1:21-22
Photo by author of ruins of parts of the synagogue at Capernaum where Jesus taught, May 2017.

Every time we hear the word “authority” especially among us Filipinos, it often evokes the sense of power, of superiority over persons and things. In Tagalog, we translate it as “power” or kapangyarihan, kakayanan mapangyari ano mang bagay.

But, Jesus is now telling us something deeper about true authority. People compared his kind of authority with their scribes, men of power and authority in their time along with the priests and Pharisees who were considered experts in scriptures being learned men, highly regarded and feared. Their authority flowed only from their position and name, from the outside and not from within.

Jesus shows us today that real authority flows from within, from a person’s inner self, from one’s heart, not from designations nor positions. True authority is felt even without the titles nor any forms of externalities. True authority comes from people who “walk their talk” so to speak.

Photo by author, tourists and pilgrims at the ruins of the synagogue at Capernaum where Jesus taught, May 2017.

People of true authority “actualize” their words and their thoughts, making them a “reality” that everyone not just notices but even feels their authority. True authority creates a certain sense of aura, of positive vibes (arrive or “dating”) and a lot of mysteries that even in just reading Mark’s account of Jesus in the synagogue, we too could feel it and be astonished with the people there 2000 years ago!

What is most amazing here is that Mark did not tell us what Jesus spoke of nor what he taught nor even described how he spoke. What was so unheard of from Jesus that people and even us today are astonished with his words?

Keep in mind how Mark narrated this scene in the context of the synagogue on a sabbath – a beautiful reminder to us of Jesus continuing the Jewish tradition that had come into fulfillment in him. Recall also that at the start of Mark’s gospel After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: ”This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mk.1:14-15).

Photo by author in May 2019 of a signage at the entrance of the ruins of the synagogue in Capernaum where Jesus taught more than 2000 years ago.

In the synagogue, Jesus continued this preaching. He claimed what he proclaimed for he is in fact – his very person – is the kingdom of God who had come as we reflected last Sunday. 

People felt God in him as he spoke, very similar with the experience of the chosen people in the wilderness with Moses in the first reading. There in the synagogue on that sabbath day, Mark presents to us how Jesus is indeed the “Word who became flesh” that people felt God in him because he claimed what he proclaimed. As the first reading from Deuteronomy reminds today, the surest criterion for recognizing a prophet is being a spokesperson of God like Moses now fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

We all share in this prophetic ministry of Christ when we were baptized but, are we rooted in God’s words that we speak only God’s words like Jesus? 

Can we claim what we proclaim that after celebrating the Sunday Mass, people experience Christ’s authority within us when we go home and go back to work and school because we actualize, we make God real in ourselves in our words and deeds?

How sad that we – especially us your priests – speak more of our selves and of the world, making the Mass a videoke and a variety show rolled into one that God is hardly felt by the people except be entertained.

Photo from https://santoninodecebubasilica.org/chronicles/viva-pit-senor-viva-senor-santo-nino/

The second time Mark mentioned the people being amazed with Jesus in his speaking with authority in the synagogue on that sabbath day was when he exorcised a man with an unclean spirit.

In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit… Jesus rebuked him and… And the unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud voice came out of him. All were amazed and asked one another, “What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.” His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.

Mark 1:23, 25, 26-28

The surest sign of God speaking through us or anyone is when healing and repentance happen just like in the synagogue on that sabbath day. Notice how Mark recorded the words of the people about Jesus, “A new teaching with authority.”

In John’s gospel during the Last Supper we heard Jesus telling his disciples about his new command or teaching too which is to “love one another as I have loved you” (13:34).

True authority is about love and healing, kindness and compassion, mercy and forgiveness. Definitely not about subjugation nor manipulation nor use of force as we always experience from those with authority who display their powers and literally throw their weight around even amid heavy traffic with their security escorts blaring with sirens.

People were amazed at Jesus in healing the man with unclean spirit and called it a new teaching with authority because they felt God present among them because there was healing and exorcism which only God can do.

Most of all, the people in the synagogue felt God with them because Jesus was one of them unlike the scribes and other people of authority who were above them, detached from them. 

The same thing is most true with us these days. Whatever authority we have is to help and comfort people, not to scare them nor burden them. We are most moved by people in authority – whether at home or in school, at work or in the community and in the church – when they are kind and approachable, caring and understanding. 

Photo by author at the shore of the Lake of Galilee in Capernaum, Israel, May 2017.

Jesus teaches us today that true authority is making God present in us by offering comfort and consolation to those suffering like the poor and the weak who merely survive as they try to make ends meet daily. 

True authority is being prophetic, making God and his words our very own, becoming ourselves his presence and his healing hands with our loving service to everyone, offering hope and inspiration to those down in sins and miseries. 

True authority leads to salvation and liberation from sins. This begins with our communion in God through Jesus Christ in our personal and communal prayers, especially the Sunday Mass. 

We are all blessed with the same kind of authority of Jesus Christ. Let us claim it by being free from all anxieties in this life (second reading) by joining Jesus in his journeys like the four disciples with him in the synagogue in Capernaum. Amen. Have a blessed week ahead.

God’s Kingdom is for children

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Feast of the Sto. Niño, Cycle B, 21 January 2024
Isaiah 9:1-6 ><}}}*> Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-18 ><}}}*> Mark 10:13-16
Photo by Ms. Anne Ramos, 22 March 2020 in Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria,Bulacan during our “libot” of the Blessed Sacrament at the start of the COVID-19 lockdown.

Our Lord Jesus Christ’s attitude to children is perfectly clear in our gospel this Sunday, “Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it” (Mk 10:15).

Being like a child is actually the main teaching of Jesus Christ who came to us precisely as one. Right at his infancy like most babies these days, Jesus faced a lot of great risks of being harmed or even getting killed.

See how Jesus insisted in all his teachings on this need to become like a child, to go back to one’s beginnings in order to get into God’s kingdom which is actually him, his very person. Keep in mind that the kingdom of God is not a territorial domain but the very person of Jesus Christ himself. It is from this fact we realize that being a child as taught by Jesus is a mystery that can never be explained nor solved in our minds and mental faculties. This we find in that occasion when Nicodemus, a Pharisee, came to Jesus hiding in the darkness of the night to discuss the kingdom of God. When Jesus told him of the need to be born from above (or, be born again in earlier translations) which is to become like a child, he thought it to be in the literal manner.

Jesus chided Nicodemus by saying, “You are the teacher of Israel and you do not understand this?” (Jn. 3:9-10). It was not sarcasm nor an insult by Jesus but a clarification to everyone including us today that being a child to enter the kingdom of God is a mystery we have to embrace and experience and feel in the heart not deduced in the mind.

And this is exactly what the Feast of the Sto. Niño is all about that we celebrate every third Sunday in January.

The Vatican has given us this special celebration as an extension of the Christmas season in recognition of the great role played by the image of Sto. Niño Magellan gifted Queen Juana of Cebu in 1521.

After leaving our shores after Magellan was killed in Mactan, the Spaniards returned in 1565 under Miguel Lopez de Legazpi to claim our islands for the King of Spain. Upon their arrival in Cebu, they found the Sto. Niño enshrined in a house of worship prominently displayed as the main God of the natives along with their other idols and gods. Historians say the people of Cebu during those years between 1521 to 1565 have found the Sto. Niño as the most powerful and effective in granting their prayers for children (fertility), rains and bountiful harvests that rightly it was the Sto. Niño who actually conquered the Philippines that we have become the only Christian nation in this part of the world. In those 44 years after Magellan and his men left the Philippines, the Sto. Niño had remained and stayed with the natives keeping them safe and secured all those years until the Spaniards returned to be colonized through Legazpi.

What a beautiful imagery of the Sto. Niño staying behind with our forefathers conquering them not with swords nor force but with love and mercy, and youthfulness of the Child Jesus! 

Photo from https://santoninodecebubasilica.org/chronicles/viva-pit-senor-viva-senor-santo-nino/

Recall how last Sunday we have reflected the words stay and remain when Andrew asked Jesus where he was staying: to stay, to dwell mean more than its spatial nature as a place or location but also in a deeper sense, a communion. It is in dwelling in Jesus who is the kingdom of God that we belong, we become a part of that kingdom.

When Jesus spoke of “being born from above” to Nicodemus, he was not only referring to the Sacrament of Baptism but to the very fact how he as the Christ from the very start has always dwelled and remained in the Father. 

Three days after being found in the temple in Jerusalem when Jesus was 12 years old, he told Mary his Mother, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”(Lk.2:49). What a beautiful expression of that union in “being in my Father’s house” to show us this mystery of Jesus being like a child, the Son of God who has remained the Father’s beloved One into his adulthood because he had always been in union with the Father. Jesus is inseparable from the Father because he himself takes abode and dwelling in God.

“The Finding of the Savior at the Temple” painting by William Holman Hunt (1860) from en.wikipedia.org.

When Jesus was approaching his Passion and Death, he repeatedly told everyone how everything he had said and done were not his but his Father’s to indicate his communion and union in him. Ultimately there on the Cross, his final words expressed the same truth that he is the Son of God obedient unto death especially when he called out, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Lk.23:46).

Therefore, to accept and welcome a child in Jesus’ name is not just an act of charity nor of a simple finding of Jesus among children. It is ultimately being one, of remaining in the Father because Jesus also said “whoever welcomes such a child in my name, welcomes me” (Mt 18:5).

Photo by author, 2022.

That is why the kingdom of God is for those who are like children always one with God like Jesus.

To be a child is to remain in God, to always love expressed in kindness and care for others especially the weak, being forgiving and merciful and compassionate with those lost like the Father.

To be like a child is being a light who brightens the life of others just like a babies whose very sight and smiles can ease our pains and sorrows, giving us the much needed boost to forge on in life. We are filled with hope whenever we encounter or see infants because they remind us too of God dwelling in them, of a God who assures and ensures us with s bright future.

This the reason we have in our first reading that part of the Book of Isaiah we heard proclaimed on Christmas day to remind us that Jesus is the light born on the darkest night of the year to illumine our lives and the world darkened by sins and evil like wars, poverty, and diseases. We see light in being like a child because that is when we are one in the Father too in being like a child.

Let me cite again that beautiful movie Firefly where the main character, the child named Tonton loved his mother so much that he totally believed her stories that sent him into a journey to search for the magical island filled with fireflies. Tonton dwelled in his mother’s love that he eventually found the magical island with the many fireflies that in the process also brought light into the darkness within the three adults he befriended in the bus going to Bicol.

Many times in my ministry as chaplain in our hospital, I have seen the great powers within every child – of how a sick baby, a sick child could send his/her parents to summon all their faith in God to heal them, to save them. 

Listen to the stories of those who join the Traslacion every year in Quiapo: most of them had their panata borne out of answered prayers for their sick children. Every parent knows it so well how they have moved mountains and did the most extraordinary for the sake of their infants and children.

That is the mystery of the kingdom of God belonging to children when God gives us every spiritual blessing we need to achieve the impossible (second reading) to become like children by remaining in God as the only power and salvation in this life.

Be with a child, stay with a child and you shall find God’s kingdom.

Be like a child and you shall experience the kingdom of God! Amen. Have a blessed week ahead!

Photo by Mr. Jim Marpa, 2018.

“Waiting for Love” by Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’77 (1974)

The Lord My Chef Sunday Music by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 07 January 2024
Photo by Dra. Mylene A. Santos, MD, in Tagalag, Valenzuela City, 13 September 2023.

It’s the first Sunday of 2024 and we are celebrating in the Church today the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord used to be known as Feast of the Three Kings.  Today is the final Sunday of the Christmas season which closes tomorrow with the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus before we go into the Ordinary Time the following Tuesday.

From the Greek word epiphanes that means appearance or manifestation, today’s celebration reminds us that Jesus came for everyone especially those forgotten and unloved, the poor and marginalized, the sinner and those lost. 

Most of all, Christ became human like us except in sin so that it would be easier for us to find God who loves us so much without any reservations.  In fact, it is actually God who searches for us and always finds us.  Whenever we think we are looking for God and have found Him, it was actually God who first sought us and found us. 

It was God who moved the magi from the East to search for Jesus Christ born in Bethlehem and they found him. Ironically, it was the people of Jerusalem, especially King Herod along with the scribes and priests who knew where the Christ would be born were the ones who did not find him because they were not really interested in finding Jesus.

Christmas is being “out” with Christ when we think less of ourselves within like the magi from the East who went out of their ways, of their comfort zones and even ivory towers to find Jesus in Bethlehem… Yes, Jesus is out there, manifesting himself daily in so many ways but we could not recognize him because we are locked inside our own beliefs of the Christ, held captive by our many fears like King Herod and the people of Jerusalem.

https://lordmychef.com/2024/01/06/our-questions-our-epiphanies/

This is the second time we are featuring on Epiphany Sunday Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’77’s classic “Waiting for Love” composed by Randy McNeill from their 1974 album Vintage 74. One good thing with social media today is how we are able to unearth or discover so many wonderful things about our music in the past like the impressive talents behind this lovely song with vocals from the lovely Bonnie Bowden who collaborated with many other albums later with Mr. Mendes as well as Jazz artist George Duke. Jazz legend Dave Grusin was the conductor and arranger for the orchestra music of the album with some acoustic guitar renditions by another legend Antonio Carlos Jobim.

What we like most with Waiting for Love that rings true to everyone of us is the fact how very often we are so locked inside – with our past pains and hurts, even sins and failures as well as presumptions on everyone and everything that we could not find Jesus and love itself outside in other people. 

Was it something in the rain
Or a chance of love again
That made me explain
The secrets of my soul
I guess I only needed
Someone to hold

But I was gone without a trace
And the rain blew away

And it seems I've spent my whole life
Waiting for love
And when it comes
I always run away

Was it something on a dream
That touched my memory
Or a picture I didn't know I'd seen
That made me stop and stare
And then I lost him,
If he was ever there

Waiting for Love challenges us like the Epiphany to be wise like the magi to recognize and follow Jesus appearing daily in our lives in many occasions and circumstances. Surely, there were other people who have seen the bright star of Bethlehem when Christ was born but why only the three magi from the East came to follow it and search for Jesus? 

This 2024, stop being “afraid of being close where I need to be the most”to start following and believing in the bright star of Jesus Christ found in people who come to us daily. Cheers to more love this 2024!

Here is Sergio Mendes and Brazil ’77…

From YouTube.com