The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Monday, Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 31 May 2021
Romans 12:9-16 ><}}}'> + ><}}}'> + ><}}}'> Luke 1:39-56
Photo by author, bronze statues of Mary and Elizabeth at the patio of the Church of the Visitation at Ein-Karem in Judah, 2017.
When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting,
the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth,
filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice
and said, "Most blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
And how does this happen to me,
that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"
(Luke 1:41-43)
In this time of the pandemic with threats of COVID-19 still prevalent, we feel exactly like St. Elizabeth, O God our loving Father, asking, “how does this happen that you O Lord, should come to us?” But that is how great and tender is your mercy for us, Father!
How great indeed is your goodness and mercy for us, Father, that your ways are always so different from our own ways like with the story of the cousins Elizabeth and Mary: ideally, it should have been the elder Elizabeth who visited Mary for she was bearing your Son Jesus Christ. That early, Jesus had shown us the nature of his mission here on earth, that he had come to serve and not to be served.
You know how much we miss one another so much these days, heavenly Father. We are getting tired of being kept at home and not able to visit or even receive visitors from family and friends for fear of getting sick.
Come and send us again Jesus your Son to visit us anew like what you did when Mary visited Elizabeth.
Increase our faith, let us believe like Mary that your words would be fulfilled as you have promised.
Keep our hope aglow like Elizabeth who, despite her old age and barrenness, joyfully received the gift of motherhood to the future John the Baptist.
Photo by author, Church of the Visitation, Holy Land, 2017.
Most of all, keep us humble and lowly before you, dear God, like Mary, hungry and thirsty for your words so we may have a space to receive and share Jesus with others, unlike the rich and powerful so filled with their pride and ego who could not welcome Jesus Christ’s coming.
Grant us courage, Lord, so we may heed and live out the words of St. Paul today so that like Mary and Elizabeth we may live in mutual love with one another, making you present among us. How unfortunate that we cannot see your coming to us in this time of crisis because we are so filled with arrogance and pride, of our lack of love and respect for one another.
Let love be sincere; hate what is evil, hold on to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; anticipate one another in showing honor.
Romans 12:9-10
We pray for those who dwell on their evil and malicious thoughts in taking advantage of others especially the poor and powerless in this time of crisis. Please visit our political leaders, bring back their shame and sense of patriotism so they may think more of the suffering people than of their selfish motives and interests. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Solemnity of the Holy Trinity-B, 30 May 2021
Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40 ><}}}'> Romans 8:14-17 ><}}}'> Matthew 28:16-20
From Pinterest.com
If there is anything most difficult and frustrating next to COVID-19 these days, it must be having your internet going “off line” as you lose “connections” with family and friends – and NETFLIX – while isolated in your home due to the pandemic. Making it worst is when it happens on a Saturday evening with no one to even answer your calls at the supposed to be 24/7 hotlines of internet providers that we were flooded with complaints and queries as we could not air our online Masses last Sunday.
As we went back to “stone age” without any internet signal for almost a week, I realized some beautiful things this modern lifestyle we all enjoy with a lot of great patience courtesy of our unreliable telcos. See the terms we use these days that speak of our modern life but at the same time reveal to us something so ancient, so true, and so basic that we take for granted or even disregard – GOD.
Unlike the internet that can be cut off for many reasons,
our connection with God is permanent ---
upgraded to the highest level more than 2000 years ago
in the coming of Jesus Christ and the sending of the Holy Spirit!
God is the original internet, the very first Wi-Fi! He cannot be seen but can be strongly felt. Most of all, God is always around, never goes off line. All we need is make the effort to connect. He has created the whole world and universe as his “Wi-Fi Zone” where we are all interconnected in time and space that we can go back to our past and be healed in him or look into the future and be assured with all of his support.
Unlike the internet that can be cut off for many reasons, our connection with God is permanent — upgraded to the highest level more than 2000 years ago in the coming of Jesus Christ and the sending of the Holy Spirit!
It is in this light that I wish to invite you to join me in reflecting the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity we are celebrating on this first Sunday of the resumption of Ordinary Time.
From shutterstock.com via Aletheia.com
God in our midst
The challenge is not to explain fully
the mystery of the Trinity,
of the three Persons in one God
but how we make that mystery
a living reality in us and among us.
Before the people of the Bible reflected and wrote about the origins of the world and the universe, they were first preoccupied with their long experience with God. They have felt and have wondered how somebody bigger than them, more powerful yet so loving and caring related with them in a personal way in the many events of their lives employing various signs and wonders that instilled the whole spectrum of feelings like joy and fear, guilt and thanksgiving, commitment and love, and all the other emotions we also go through in our own experiences of him!
And that is the most amazing about his total mystery: we cannot fully know and understand God but we know deep inside us he is true, he is real, he exists. We can prove beyond doubt his very existence and use so many illustrations to explain him but will never be enough.
What matters most is that we “know” him, that he is real, that he is true.
To know in the Jewish thought is not only an intellectual assent but more of a relationship: to know a person is to have a relationship with that person. Hence, every knowledge and recognition of God implies a lifelong commitment and relationship with him!
Moses said to the people: “Ask now of the days of old, before your time, ever since God created man upon the earth; ask from one end of the sky to the other: Did anything so great ever happen before? Was it ever heard of? Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live? This is why you must now know, and fix in your heart, that the Lord is God in the heavens above and on earth below, and that there is no other”
Deuteronomy 4:32-33, 39
Beyond doubt, God is always present, the perfect present in fact as he told Moses at the burning bush, “I Am Who Am” (Ex.3:14) that to say the very word GOD means he exists, a foolishness to claim that “there is no god” (Ps.14:1).
We have come to know him in our many experiences, giving us a sense of “belonging”, of being linked and interconnected like Wi-Fi that we do not see and for all we know, has always been there present in the airwaves, in the atmosphere tapped only recently through our modern communications technology.
The challenge is not to explain fully the mystery of the Trinity, of the three Persons in one God but how we make that mystery a living reality in us and among us.
Photo from kimaldrich.com
To be wrapped by – not to grasp – the mystery
Unlike the internet signals we have discovered only lately in history, God as a reality revealed himself to us in his relationships in the past, reaching its highest point in Christ’s coming that was affirmed and enlightened to the Apostles at the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost in Jerusalem which continues to our time.
For this Sunday, we use the majestic conclusion of the Gospel according to St. Matthew that has a very strong Trinitarian flavor with the Lord’s command before ascending into heaven.
The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them. When they saw him, they worshipped, but they doubted. Then Jesus approached, and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
Matthew 28:16-20
Last Thursday after Pentecost we celebrated the new Feast of Jesus Christ, the Eternal Priest to remind us of our sharing in the priestly ministry of Jesus when we were baptized. That is, to adore, honor, praise and thank the supreme majesty of God in our prayers. We see this exercise of our common priesthood in Christ in this gospel we have heard: the disciples went to a mountain in Galilee as ordered by Jesus. The mountain indicates the presence of God, conveying a message of praying and coming to him.
The Sign of the Cross is essentially an ascent to a mountain, a prayer in itself to God in the Holy Trinity. When we make the Sign of the Cross, we become the embodiment of God’s mysterious threeness of persons in one God. We affirm his reality as we enter into his mystery of the Trinity by fulfilling Christ’s triple mission given to the apostles.
“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations.” To truly experience the mystery of the Trinity is to lose one’s self in Christ as his disciple. In his teachings and very life, Jesus had shown us the importance of forgetting one’s self as his follower, of becoming like a child that whoever wants to be the greatest must be the least and servant of all. The mystery of God is not something we grasp but something we allow to envelop us to be covered with his transcendence in order share in Christ’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection. Remember that it is not difficult to find God who reveals himself to those truly seeking him by following Jesus on the Cross.
“Baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” We have seen how since the start of the Church after Pentecost, baptism has been conferred to those who welcomed the Gospel of salvation from Jesus Christ. Through him, with him, and in him, every baptized person is born into God’s life in his Holy Trinity as beloved children of the Father and coheirs of his kingdom in heaven, as brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, and as the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Thus, we become a holy people to God, one again in him as he had deemed since the beginning that was fulfilled in Jesus our Eternal High Priest at the last supper and Good Friday.
“Teach them to observe all I have commanded you.” St. Matthew has been very particular in this aspect in his entire gospel account, of the need to put into practice the Lord’s teachings. It is not enough that people are baptized, that they welcome in faith Christ’s commandment to love: they have to live it up! That is when the Trinity becomes so real and true in us when we live in love, when we are willing to give ourselves in love for others.
In this world that has become so highly sophisticated and complicated as well, when what matters most are fame and popularity, connections that do not last at all, always erratic, never contented with what is most essential like value of persons and life, it is no wonder that even God is slowly being removed from the daily equation of life.
Photo by author, Bangui Windmill, Ilocos Norte, 2011.
This is most especially true in this post-modern generation without absolutes, when anything goes as everything is relative; and worst, when something that cannot be proven as tangibly present and real, then the mystery of the Trinity is even pushed even to the back seats of our lives.
See how so many people are so ashamed of even doing the Sign of the Cross in public!
This solemnity of the Trinity that we celebrate on the first Sunday at the resumption of Ordinary Time reminds us of the daily coming of God into our lives, of his personal relationship with us that is being challenged strongly by the ways of the world that is opposite his ways of love and kindness, mercy and forgiveness, simplicity and humility.
Let us ask the help of the Holy Spirit to lead us as “children of God, not slaves” of the world’s selfish ways (Rom. 8:14-17) so we may maintain that strong connections in the Father through Jesus Christ. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Saturday in the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time, 29 May 2021
Sirach 51:12-20 <*(((>< + ><)))*> Mark 11:27-33
Photo by author, Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto chapel, Baguio City, 2019.
Let me join Ben Sirach in praising you today, O God our loving Father as I take his parting words in his beautiful book as my prayer to you too on this blessed and beautiful Saturday:
I thank the Lord and I praise him;
I bless the name of the Lord.
When I was young and innocent,
I sought wisdom openly in my prayer.
I prayed for her before the temple,
and I will seek her until the end...
In the short time I paid heed,
I met with great instruction.
Since in this way I have profited,
I will give my teacher grateful praise.
(Sirach 51:12-14, 16-17)
O dear God, how sad at how so many people these days seek wisdom and knowledge outside of you. They think you have nothing to do with it, without realizing you are all-knowing and truly the fount of wisdom and knowledge.
May we imitate Ben Sirach and all the saints and wise men of the world who found and learned much wisdom and knowledge from you in prayers.
How sad at how some people supposed to be learned and yet still blind to the reality that so many times in this life, not everything can be planned nor calculated nor be fool proof. There are so many other things that can happen in our lives, for better or for worst, without us really knowing and so prepared how to deal with the severe blows and beatings we receive especially from others whom we trust and expect so much.
It is only your Divine wisdom that can truly teach us how to deal and go on with life’s many questions and difficulties we might never answer nor understand.
Give us the grace of humility to come to you through Jesus Christ your Son in our prayers to cultivate a spiritual life which is a relationship centered on you, not on us or anybody else. Give us the grace of humility most especially to keep our eyes wide-opened to your coming, to your prodding, and to your words of wisdom that run contrary to what we think and believe as true.
Help us not to fall into the shameful errors of the chief priests, the scribes and the elders of Jerusalem who were so blinded with pride and intellectual arrogance that they have refused to open their eyes to your working and coming in John the Baptist and Jesus Christ.
Jesus said to them, “I shall ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Was John’s baptism of heavenly or of human origin? Answer me.” They discussed this among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘Of heavenly origin,’ he will say, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ But shall we say, ‘Of human origin’?” — they feared the crowd, for they all thought John really was a prophet. So they said to Jesus in reply, “We do not know.” Then Jesus said to them, “Neither shall I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
Mark 11:29-33
Have mercy on us, dear God especially on those who continue to insist on their arrogance and pride because their ego have been badly hurt and bruised that no light of reason can open their eyes to see the bigger beauty of life you offer in following your “unconventional wisdom”. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday in the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time, 28 May 2021
Sirach 44:1,9-13 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Mark 11:11-25
Photo by Dr. Mylene A. Santos, MD, 2020.
Now I will praise those godly men,
our ancestors, each in his own time.
And for all time their progeny will endure,
their glory will never be blotted out.
(Sirach 44:1,13)
So many times, O Lord, I have heard the same words by your sage Ben Sirach, of how so many people who have gone ahead of us are hardly known nor remembered at all not because they are irrelevant or have not left no impact to anyone and this world.
There have been so many people ahead of us and still more living among us that surely much more would still come in the future after we are gone.
But life and living is not about being remembered for whatever reason.
Life and living is always about being good and holy, of being fully alive, living in you, O God our Father through Jesus Christ your Son.
That is why Ben Sirach praised both the known and unknown men who have gone ahead of him, especially the unknown ones because though there is “no memory of them for they have ceased” (v.9) they continue to exist, they are still relevant and in a sense “remembered” by their progeny because of their goodness and holiness.
How wonderful it is to dwell on this ending words of Ben Sirach in his book that remind us that nothing is lost, everything is gained and kept when we live in goodness and kindness.
Help us, O God, to make good of all your gifts to us lest we become like that fig tree Jesus cursed at Bethany along with the priests and merchants he had scolded when they turned your temple in Jerusalem into a marketplace.
Early in the morning,
as they were walking along,
they saw the fig tree withered to its roots.
Peter remembered and said to him,
"Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed
has withered."
(Mark 11:20-21)
Photo by author, 2019.
So many times in life, we keep on trying to make and achieve so many things for the wrong reason of being relevant, of being remembered without realizing that simply being good ensures us of never being lost and forgotten.
It is in our personal pursuits of fame, of immortality when – sadly – all is lost.
We pray today, Lord Jesus Christ, for those who are always worried of so many things that past and non-essential, of how they look like, of how they will be remembered.
Give us that true faith in you to always experience your presence especially in cultivating a prayer life that leads to real trust and communion in you. It is in prayer when we become fruitful for that is when we become sensitive of your loving presence, of our living realities enabling us to forgive and reconcile with those who hurt us.
It is this kind of faith that produces fruit that endures and lasts forever, even if we remain unknown as Ben Sirach extolled in his teachings and prayer. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thursday after Pentecost, Memorial of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Eternal High Priest
Hebrews 10:11-18 ><}}}'> + <'{{{>< Mark 14:22-25
Photo by author, Chapel of the Holy Family, Sacred Heart Spirituality Center in Novaliches, QC, 2016.
O God our loving and merciful Father, as we move on to the Ordinary time, we celebrate on this Thursday after Pentecost Sunday the new Feast of your Son called, “Jesus Christ, the Eternal High Priest”.
What a beautiful reminder to us of how lovely and beautiful are your plans for us since the beginning, of how you have willed to create everything so there may always be that covenant, that special relationship with us your people as the crown of all your creations through your Son Jesus Christ.
How wonderful how Jesus Christ had brought to perfection that old temple worship in Jerusalem at the celebration of the Day of Atonement called Yom ha-Kippurim led by the high priest who employed the bloody offering of animals to cleanse everyone of their sins so that your people may be holy and be united with you again.
Gone were those bloody sacrifices, gone were those rites and rituals that have always remained external and empty because of the very weaknesses and sins of the high priests and people when Jesus Christ fulfilled the temple worship in his self-offering on the Cross, both as the Priest and the Victim he had enunciated so well during the last supper.
While they were eating, he took bread,
said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them,
and said, "Take it; this is my body."
Then he took a cup, gave thanks,
and gave it to them, and they all drank from it.
He said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant,
which will be shed for many."
(Mark 14:22-24)
Jesus Christ, the Word who became flesh, replaced those bloody sacrifices with his very words of the last supper that consecrated us all to you as your holy people when he died on the Cross the following day on Good Friday. This perfect offering is what we celebrate, what we remember and make present daily in the Holy Eucharist with Jesus both the gift and the giver, the priest and the victim, the offering and the altar.
Every priest stands daily at his ministry,
offering frequently those same sacrifices
that can never take away sins.
But this one offered one sacrifice for sins,
and took his seat forever at the right hand of God.
For by one offering he has made perfect forever
those who are being consecrated.
(Hebrews 10:11-12,14)
Now we have been consecrated to you as your holy people, O God, by Jesus Christ our High Priest and Victim, teach us to faithfully keep this new covenant, we ordained priests and laity alike. Especially us priests you have called to act in persona Christi!
Forgive us, O God, when it seems we have become more like priests in the old temple so concerned with our pride and positions, popularity and other perks that have come because we have demanded them. Forgive us when we look and act and speak more like managers or financiers or matinee idols than pastors of souls. Forgive us, O God, when we pursue more the limelight on the pretext of using modern social media platforms without truly spending time with you in daily prayers and meditations.
Photo by author, Dominus Flevit, the Holy Land, 2017.
Teach us your priests to be more like you, O Lord Jesus by being compassionate and trustworthy, of being one with the people in their pains and sufferings: “Because he himself was tested through what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested” (Heb.2:18).
Teach us your priests to be like you, dear Jesus, ever-living to intercede by being a bridge not a wall or a stumbling block to lead people to the Father (Heb. 7:25), not away from him!
We pray also for our lay people to keep in mind that in sharing with the Priestly ministry of Christ we have all received during our Baptism, they may have the same dispositions of Jesus of being humble in mind and in heart, offering adoration, honor, praise, praise and thanksgiving to your supreme majesty, O God while at the same time, as humanly as possible, they try to live the Gospel values of victimhood and self denial, of being one with Christ on his Cross.
Through this new Feast, may we your ordained priests and the laity who share in Christ’s universal priesthood appreciate the inner joys of our Church he had rightly established on that night of his last supper to be the visible sign of your very presence in the world, “so that from the rising of the sun to its setting, from east to west, a perfect offering may be made for you” and thus truly become our “at-one-ment” in you, our loving God and Father in Jesus through the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Wednesday, Memorial of St. Philip Neri, 26 May 2021
Philippians 4:4-9 ><}}}*> + ><}}}*> + ><}}}*> Mark 10:32-45
Photo by Mr. Jim Marpa, 2018.
Rejoice in the Lord always,
I shall say it again: rejoice!
Your kindness should be known to all.
(Philippians 4:4-5)
Thank you very much, dear God our loving Father for the gifts of joy and sense of humor. So many times we forget that we are most alive when we are laughing, when we are filled with joy in our hearts. Just like your amusing saint today, St. Philip Neri.
Give us the grace of wisdom and intelligence, simplicity and humor nurtured by a deep prayer life of St. Philip Neri who would always reserve the nights for his prayer periods especially at the catacombs of Rome where he experienced great joy that enlarged and expanded his heart that broke two of his ribs!
And always, give us some sprinklings of his sense of humor that he came to be the patron saint of joy and humor, saying that “A joyful heart is more easily made perfect than a downcast one.”
He was so filled with life in his ministry that he spent serving everyone – from the poorest of the poor including prostitutes to the men and women of power and influence in royal courts and palaces, government offices and most of all, in the Vatican as well as local churches.
Because of his great love for you, St. Philip Neri became a great patron of arts, inspiring and supporting so many artists during his time when the Reformation period was bent on attacking the many paintings that adorn our churches.
It is really amazing how St. Philip Neri without any plans of reforming the Church actually gave the human touch in the realizations of the Counter Reformation efforts by St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Charles Borromeo, and other saints.
His Congregation of Oratory proved to be so essential in the life of the Church with his priests who were more concerned with prayers, spiritual reading, and administering the sacraments than emphasizing discipline and obedience.
Teach us to imitate St. Philip Neri to take into our hearts the essence and meaning of your Son Jesus Christ’s words today:
"whoever wishes to be first among you
will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man
did not come to be served but to serve
and to give his life as a ransom for many."
(Mark 10:44-45)
We pray, O God, today for those feeling sad due to the many problems and difficulties this pandemic has caused to many of us. Give us a fresh and new perspective in life where we rely more on you than on our selves and the world, enabling us to see the light and beauty around us, especially among those the suffering we must lend our hands to.
Like St. Philip Neri, in sharing the joys and laughter of children we may become like children again. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Tuesday in the Eight Week of Ordinary Time, 25 May 2021
Sirach 35:1-12 ><)))’> + <‘(((>< Mark 10:28-31
Photo by author, St. Paul Center for Spirituality at Alfonso, Cavite 2019.
Praise and glory to you, O most loving and merciful God our Father, for you never leave us empty-handed even if we always claim to have nothing at all, to be “walang-wala” when we always have something with to offer and share, never without anything at all.
Forgive us in being so preoccupied with the “scarcity mentality” – of how little we have, of not having enough that we refuse to share and give to others, forgetting the reality that to be alive and to always do what is good and pleasing to you is all you want us to offer to you through others.
In works of charity one offers fine flour,
and when he gives alms he presents
his sacrifice of praise.
To refrain from evil pleases the Lord,
and to avoid injustice is an atonement.
Appear not before the Lord empty-handed,
for all that you offer is in fulfillment of the precepts.
How wonderful, O Lord, are your words through Ben Sirach! Help us remember that true worship, true prayer is always being good and holy before you through our loving service to others.
We do not have to look beyond ourselves to find so many things to offer to you, primarily our good works that you ask from us. We may not have all the material wealth the world has to offer, but you always shower us with every spiritual gifts more needed especially in our world today plunged in the darkness of sin and selfishness.
Sometimes like Simon Peter, we become proud of the little things we give up for you, thinking they are so great without realizing the great rewards you have in store for our sacrifices.
Jesus said,
"Amen, I say to you,
there is no one who has given up house
or brothers or sisters or mother or father
or children or lands for my sake
and for the sake of the Gospel
who will not receive a hundred times more
now in the present age: houses and brothers
and sisters and mothers and children and lands,
with persecutions, and eternal life
in the age to come.
(Mark 10:29-30)
Indeed, you have given us with so much, dear God and we have given so little. Teach us to give more of our kindness and mercy, love and understanding, time and presence and most of all, more of YOU to others. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Mary, Mother of the Church, Monday after Pentecost, 24 May 2021 Genesis 3:9-15, 20 +++++ John 2:1-11
Photo by author, December 2020.
On this first day of the resumption of Ordinary Time, a day after Pentecost Sunday when we celebrated the coming of the Holy Spirit to launch the Church, we also offer this day in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary as Mother of the Church.
Indeed, inasmuch as she had stayed by your side at the foot of the Cross, Mary has always been with us in our journey as your Mystical Body here on earth. She has always been home for us, taking care of us, looking after us, and reminding us of our mission in you.
She was the first to believe in your saving power, coming to your side when win had ran out in that wedding feast at Cana.
It is so unfortunate that we have always taken her granted.
Worst, some people have maligned and derided her important role in cooperating with all your plans for the Church.
May her charity and fidelity to you, Lord, inspire us to work further for the mission of the Church to make you present in the world now in pandemic, seeking the best ways to pick up the pieces and start anew their lives.
May the world be ready now to listen to the teachings of Mary your Mother to return to you and turn away from sins and evil. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Solemnity of the Pentecost, 23 May 2021
Acts 2:1-11 ><}}}*> Galatians 5:16-25 ><}}}*> John 15:26-27.16:12-15
Photo by Ms. Jo Villafuerte at Atok, Benguet, 2019.
Today we bring to completion our celebration of the Lord’s Paschal Mystery – his Passion, Death, and Resurrection, Ascension and Coming of the Holy Spirit to his disciples. Although this mystery is one single reality, we have stretched its celebration over a period of 50 days (hence, Pentecost) or more than seven weeks because it will never be enough to fully grasp its whole meaning for it is a continuing reality and mystery in our midst just like the Ascension last week.
Note the upward movement of the Ascension that calls us to “level up” our relationships with God and one another in Christ; today, the downward movement of the coming of the Holy Spirit calls us to being small in order for us to be broken and shared with others. Whenever there is a downward push, what happens usually is a breaking down into smaller parts to fuse with the larger whole like a mix.
...our greatness is in our sharing ourselves with others...
It is in our becoming small to participate in the whole
that we truly become great -
whether in the Church or a community,
in our personal relationships...
Jesus had taught us in his life and example especially on the Cross that our greatness is in our sharing ourselves with others like him. It is in our becoming small to participate in the whole that we truly become great – whether in the Church or a community, in our personal relationships like family and circle of friends and most especially in the union of man and woman as husband and wife in marriage.
That is why the Pentecost is called the birthday of the Church when the disciples after being filled with the Holy Spirit came out in the open to proclaim the Gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ. It was actually more of a “coming out party” of the Church that was established by Christ during his Last Supper.
See that since the very beginning, the Church started as a catholic – a whole – at the Last Supper of the Lord when he also instituted the Holy Eucharist that has become the sign of our unity from then on that enabled the disciples to recognize him at Easter at the breaking of bread.
Jesus promised them at the Last Supper how things would get clear to them when the Holy Spirit comes.
"When the Advocate comes whom I will send you
from the Father, the Spirit of truth that proceeds
from the Father, he will testify to me. And you
also testify... I have much more to tell you,
but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes,
the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth."
(John 15:26-27. 16:12-13)
Believing in the Holy Spirit, Believing in the Church
Every Sunday in the Mass we profess our faith, declaring “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church” but, do we really understand its meaning? To believe in God is to believe in the Holy Catholic Church, to forget one’s own agenda in life, to submit ones self to her teachings from Christ our Lord and Master.
It is a declaration of the mystery and reality of the Pentecost, reminding us that becoming Christian means receiving and embracing the whole Church!
This is the beautiful meaning of the account by St. Luke at the first reading of the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost at Jerusalem when all barriers – physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual – were broken as the disciples went around speaking in various languages to proclaim the truth of Jesus Christ.
When the time of Pentecost was fulfilled,
they were all in one place together.
And suddenly there came from the sky a noise
like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house
in which they were. Then there appeared to them
tongues of fire, which parted and came to rest
on each one of them. And they were all filled
with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues,
as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.
(Acts 1:1-4)
Here we find the disciples of Jesus and their converts on that day of Pentecost allowing themselves to be taken up into the Church!
And how did this happen? St. Luke tells us “Then there appeared to them tongues of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them.” Each one was parted, was broken down from their sins and selfishness that they became open for each other, trying to understand and accept each one as brother and sister in Christ.
It was a reversal of the story of Babel in Genesis when people were so arrogant and proud building a tower that reaches to heaven who were punished to speak in different languages that led to their confusion and quarrel until they all perished along with their ambitious plan.
Pentecost was different. There were different languages, different peoples with different backgrounds yet they were united and understood each other because everybody tried to become small, to mix into the whole and thus becoming a part of the Church on that day.
Unless we are willing to be parted by the Holy Spirit’s “tongues of fire” and “strong driving wind” like a storm, we can never be filled with God and his holiness to experience his peace and his joy.
It is a lifelong process and that is why Pentecost is a daily reality, happening to us especially when we sometimes have to be shaken by so many events and circumstances that come our way.
In the second reading, we heard St. Paul reminding the Galatians, including us, to “live by the Spirit and not gratify the desire of the flesh” (Gal.5:16). At that time, some missionaries sowed confusion among the Galatians, telling them to follow Jewish practices and Mosaic prescriptions to be fully Christians like circumcision. The issue had long been settled at the Council of Jerusalem but some Jewish converts persisted.
Here, St. Paul teaches us a valuable lesson in resolving conflicts and confusions in daily life in the light of Jesus Christ, of salvation, of the Church. For St. Paul, we always have to ask the Holy Spirit in guiding us in everything, no matter how secular and mundane it may be to find the theological and spiritual implications of our experiences.
What he told the Galatians remains true to our days, that freedom is not the ability to do whatever we want but to choose and do what is good. Every person has that tendency to sin, an imperfection in the “flesh” that is always in contradiction with the “spirit”.
As we have mentioned earlier, our greatness lies in our ability to share and give ourselves to others by dying to our sins and selfish motives, precisely what St. Paul is telling us:
Now the works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like.
Galatians 5:19-21
These are the things that the Holy Spirit “part” in us when it comes to us daily especially in our prayers and in the celebrations of the sacraments like the Holy Eucharist. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are unified as a person, we become whole and integrated that we see the value and importance of being one with God and with others. It is not longer the rituals that become the law guiding us but the interior law of love of Jesus Christ that enables us to get out of our selfishness to give ourselves in loving service to others.
When we live in the power of the Holy Spirit guided by this interior law of love, that is when we become truly free and experience the gifts and fruits mentioned by St. Paul like peace and joy.
In our world today marred by sin and so many divisions happening in our society and even in the Church, in our communities and right even in our families and personal relationships, let us pray today to the Holy Spirit to come to us, break down within us the many walls we have and lead us to surrender ourselves to God to be led by his hand in continuing the mission of love and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
A blessed week ahead of everyone!
Photo of the stained glass with the Holy Spirit bringing light into the altar of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Photo from wikipediacommons.org.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday in the Seventh Week of Easter, 21 May 2021
Acts 25:13-21 <'(((>< + ><)))'> John 21:15-19
Photo by author, St. Paul Center for Spirituality in Alfonso, Cavite, 2019.
He said to him the third time,
"Simon, son of John, do you love me?"
Peter was distressed that he had said it
to him a third time, "Do you love me?"
and he said to him, "Lord, you know everything;
you know that I love you." Jesus said to him,
"Feed my sheep. Amen, amen, I say to you..."
And when Jesus had said this,
he said to him, "Follow me."
(John 21:17-18, 19)
As the closing of the Easter Season fast approaches, it is getting clearer, O Lord Jesus Christ that for us to be able to follow you more closely, we first have to love you more dearly and intently. The same reality holds true in any relationship we have: love first, and everything follows!
Because when we truly love, we can do nothing but good.
You know everything and you know how much we love you, Lord.
And you know very well how imperfect is our love for you and one another.
Let us discover again the wonder and joy of loving another person by forgetting our very selves, by having the courage to dare think more of our beloved than our own good. Make us realize that pain and hurt always come when we love because it in in them when love grows and deepens.
Enkindle in us again the fire and passion of sharing the love you have made us experience despite the fears, hatred, violence and abuse we have gone through from others. Enable us to still choose love despite all these troubles in the world.
Teach us to forgive those who denied us with your love and most of all, let us learn to forgive our very selves too so we may rediscover that power of love you have in us.
Like Peter who denied you thrice out of fears and have witnessed the violence surrounding your Passion and Death, he chose to love you in his own imperfections and weaknesses. And that was enough for you to bring hope to his companions!
Awaken our hearts, dear Jesus, to love again, to shred off our pains and hurts from the past and start living in the present, savoring the love you offer us each day to drive away the prevailing negativities around us.
Like St. Paul, may we have the courage and trust in you to let your hand bring us to places and situations where we do not want to go, always believing, always hoping, and always loving you.
We pray most especially today for those who have lost a loved one. Make us realize that love is never lost at all for in the end, only love lasts. Amen.
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