The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music, 10 November 2019
Photo by Mr. Chester Ocampo, October 2019.
Today’s Sunday gospel is admittedly very difficult: the resurrection of body and life everlasting.
In our gospel, the Sadducees tried to trick Jesus with their “levirite law” from Moses that decreed “If someone’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother” (Lk.20:28).
Right away, Jesus quashed their wrong argument because there is no point in having analogies and comparisons when it comes with the resurrection of the dead. Marriage is something of this world while resurrection is something beyond this world and life.
What Jesus is asking us this Sunday is to focus our sights on our loving and merciful Father because faith in resurrection is faith in a living God.
Moreover, faith in resurrection of the dead is borne out of an encounter and experience of God, moving us to forge on with life amidst all its difficulties and trials because we believe this life would be changed and perfected by God in the end.
And that change, that resurrection begins right here in this life – every time we try to pick up the pieces of our lives, when we try to start anew, whenever we rise again from every little death, that is when we experience our little resurrection.
From that experience we slowly gain passion for life because we are convinced deep inside there is something more bigger awaiting us because we have God on our side who would never forsake us and perfect us in eternity.
In reflecting these things of the above like heaven and resurrection of the dead, I always choose next to prayer the way of music, and believe me, not just meditative or classical music.
I do it with rock and funk and soul!
See how Daryl Hall and his musicians play with so much passion and gusto this classic by the Average White Band (AWB) called “Pick Up the Pieces”: it’s a natural high, feeding our soul deep within, transporting us to somewhere higher in realm and reality.
Released in 1974 by Scottish musicians AWB, Pick Up the Pieces is essentially instrumental with its title being shouted occasionally.
I prefer the version of Daryl Hall when he invited to his internet show Live From Daryl’s House AWB original Alan Gorrie jamming with them in his home-studio in New York state in January 2010.
Just enjoy and feel the music, feed your soul, be assured Jesus is always on your side who journeys with you through this life into eternity. Amen.
Our gospel today helps us to further reflect the meaning of last week’s All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day when we honored our departed loved ones with prayers, believing and hoping that some day we shall be with them in heaven at “the resurrection of body and life everlasting”.
Every Sunday this is what we profess and so today, our readings invite us to reflect anew this last but crucial article of our faith, theresurrection of body and life everlasting.
Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to Jesus, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us, If someone’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman but died childless. Then the second and the third married her, and likewise all the seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven had been married to her.”
Luke 20:27-33
The Jewish Cemetery at the Mount of Olives facing Jerusalem, May 2019.
Jesus had finally entered Jerusalem. What an extraordinary manner for him to discuss death and resurrection right in the city he knew where he would eventually die and rise again in a few days later!
And the first to confront him there were the Sadducees, Israel’s elite from whose ranks came the high priests who later conspired with Rome to put Jesus to death.
Jews at the wailing Wall, May 2017.
Very conservative and rigorous in their practice of religion, the Sadducees were basically fundamentalists who refused to accept oral traditions on equal footing with the Pentateuch. They only accepted whatever was explicitly written on the Pentateuch, discarding anything that the Torah does not mention at all like the resurrection, existence of spiritual beings like angels and immortality of the soul.
Don’t we find ourselves into the same situation too when despite our professed religiosity, we subscribe to other beliefs like reincarnation and fortune-telling because of “proofs” we find about their veracity unlike the resurrection that seems to be so difficult to think of in the first place?
We have those vestiges of fundamentalism within, always searching and asking for proofs on so many things about our religious beliefs, especially about God and Jesus Christ.
Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They can no longer die, for they are like angels… That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called ‘Lord’ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”
Luke 20:34-38
Photo by Mr. Raffy Tima of GMA-7 News, 2018.
Notice how Jesus right away told them analogies and comparisons are not applicable because marriage and resurrection are of two different realms. The Sadducees were thinking on ground level when resurrection is definitely of a higher plane.
Jesus finds no need to prove anything at all to them – even to us! What he is more concerned is for us to “level-up” our thoughts, to set our sights to him, the Son of the Living God.
Now in Jerusalem to fulfill his mission, Jesus in the next two weeks will summarize for us all his teachings that lead to our coming home to the Father in heaven upon our death. Like Jesus Christ who died and rose again, we shall experience the same in the end.
How? Nobody really knows but our faith teaches us that resurrection is more than being restored to life; resurrection is life perfected in Christ. Life is surely changed and that is why it is on a different and higher level of existence.
Every time we experience our little deaths on our daily cross with Christ, we also experience our little resurrection when our lives are changed for the better. Amidst our many struggles in this life, we experience God’s loving presence, his very revelation of himself that moves us to deeper faith in him for indeed, he “is not God of the dead” – nor a dead God – because “for him all is alive” .
This faith in the resurrection is faith in the living God “who has loved us and given us everlasting encouragement and good hope through his grace” (2 Thes. 2:16) in Jesus Christ.
It is a faith borne out of our encounter with him as our loving and merciful Father that we are filled with passion to do everything for him because he is so true, so real, like in the experiences of the seven Maccabean brothers who heroically accepted death than sin against God in the first reading.
In 2013, I lost my best friend from high school to cancer.
One week before he died, I visited him three more times and that was when I noticed something so different: during the early months of his sickness, he would always cry to me, expressing his fears and anger but, during that final week of his life, I was the one crying to him while he was the one who would console and explain things to me!
Later, I experienced the same thing with some friends and parishioners I have accompanied in their final journey as a priest.
I have learned that the dying stop crying, stop fearing death because they could already see their final destination. They could feel God so close already that they no longer resist dying, so certain of their own resurrection. We who are left behind cry not only in losing our loved ones but unconsciously because we are afraid, unsure of where our lives are leading to.
In one of the beautiful scenes of the Netflix series The Kominski Method, Sandy (Michael Douglas) told his friend Norman (Alan Larkin) how everyone else is also afraid because nothing is so certain in this life. But, Sandy added, we continue to live because we have others with us journeying together in this life.
Let that Other be Jesus Christ who has come to accompany us in this life and back to the Father in heaven. Amen.
“Praise be to Christ” says the floor of the Church of the Beatitudes, Galilee, Holy Land, 2019.
Our loving Father in heaven:
Thank you very much for the gift of church, especially beautiful and lovely churches where we encounter you in prayers and the sacraments.
How amazing that these churches “breathe” with their walls, “whispering” to you the many praises and thanksgiving of countless people who have encountered you there.
Whenever I come inside a church, I try to feel your presence as well as those other faithful including those who have gone home to you in heaven.
Indeed, we your “chosen people as living stones” are your buildings, your temple and dwelling place.
Whenever we enter a church, we also enter you, our God as you fill us with life like those fruitful trees saw by Ezekiel in the first reading growing on the banks of the river flowing from the temple.
Forgive us when we destroy our bodies and our communities, forgetting that we are your temple.
Forgive us when we refuse to celebrate the Sunday Mass with our fellow believers.
St. John Lateran Basilica, the Cathedral of the Pope as Bishop of Rome, our Mother Church. Photo by Arch. Philip Santiago, 2017.
As we celebrate today the Feast of the Dedication of the Mother of all churches, the Major Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, remind us also to take care of our churches, to always maintain their sacredness, do away with all profanities and “shows” so many priests and lay people are now so fond of doing forgetting it is always your house, not ours.
Breathe into us your life-giving Spirit, Lord Jesus, for us to create a space within us and in our churches for you to come and renew us. Amen.
Romans 15:14-21 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Luke 16:1-8
Photo by Mr. Jim Marpa in Carigara, Leyte last September 2019.
Before everything else, O loving Father as we praise and thank you for this new day, we fervently pray for our brothers and sisters severely affected by the rains and floods up north in Cagayan as well as those displaced by the effects of earthquakes last two weeks in Mindanao.
Take care of them and make us more sensitive to their plights that we may be moved to do something concrete for them.
Like St. Paul, fill us with the same Holy Spirit, with zeal and enthusiasm to always do your work, Lord.
But I have written to you rather boldly in some respects to remind you, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in performing the priestly service of the Gospel of God, so that the offering up of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:15-16
Fridays for everyone is the end of school and/or work, a time to celebrate and have fun; the most welcome break of the week. But with you, Lord, you never stop working for us, with us, and in us.
Like St. Paul, fill us with yourself, O God which is the literal meaning of “enthusiasm” from the two Greek words, “en theos”, “be filled with God”.
Like St. Paul, may we never stop proclaiming you and your salvation joyfully even among those who have known you, Lord.
In this world of so much competition and rat race with no clear winners at all, make us realize like the shrewd steward in today’s gospel that being wise is giving more importance to people and persons and relationships than money and wealth. Amen.
Love can never be defined because it is a reality that cannot be restricted to certain parameters unlike other words or virtues or concepts for that matter.
The most we can do about love is describe it.
And, live it — as St. Paul has been telling us this week in our daily readings.
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
Photo by Ms. Jo Villafuerte, Atok, Benguet, 01 September 2019.
There lies the beauty of love, in being sincere, being true.
Not fake as we know and must have experienced somehow.
Sincere literally means “without plaster” that came from two Latin terms, sin for without and cerofor plaster.
In ancient Rome, good sculptures were highly prized, must be “sin cero” – no plaster and purely carved out from wood or stone. Like in the usual practice today, some sculptors “fake” their work with plasters (masilya) to cover uneven surface or disfigured portion that eventually wears out.
To love sincerely means loving like Jesus without strings attached, not expecting anything in return.
But, how can we love sincerely when others are so untrue with their love to us? How can we hate evil and hold on to what is good when people continue to hurt us, or oblivious to their wrongdoing and sins? Most of all, how can we anticipate one another with honor when nobody seems respectable at all these days?
It is always difficult to love because it is also difficult to be true when everything is artificial these days.
And that makes love beautiful not only because it is true but it is something we assert and insist despite the many evils around us.
Violets in our old sacristy, 2016.
Love becomes more beautiful when it is hurt and rejected, continuing to love, doing good and showing kindness even if others are not true because it is only then in pains and sufferings when more love is born and summoned from within us.
The more tears we shed, the more love flows to clean the mess.
Love never runs out, never dries up like a well or a river. It is the greatest virtue and gift we can have as St. Paul tells us in another letter because in the end, only love remains as it is from God who is Love himself.
When our love is true, no matter how untrue are the people around us, for as long as we love in Christ, the more we are able to love, the more love we have to share and give. The more we love, the more love we receive; withhold love, keep love to yourself, that is when you lose love.
Photo by Mr. Chester Ocampo, multi-media artist, and teacher (October 2019).
Brothers and sisters: owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
Romans 13:8
During his last supper, Jesus mentioned to his Apostles about his new commandment of loving each other as “I have loved you”.
Though other ancient sages have taught about love or similar attitudes especially in the East long before Jesus Christ’s coming, his commandment was new because it is a love rooted in God. More than a moral prescription or a code of conduct as seen in other religions and cultures, Christian love is so unique because it is rooted in God who is love himself.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s first encyclical issued on Christmas 2005.
Love is the only thing asked of us by God; hence, any failure to love is always a sin.
How sad that in this age of affluence and sophistication in terms of technology and knowledge, men and women are getting more isolated and alienated, giving rise to hosts of mental illnesses that lead into rising incidence of suicides worldwide.
One usual complaint of many people, young and old alike, is the lack of love. They always ask “where is the love?” even in the midst of every relationship that have become transactional in nature, forgetting the human face longing for affection, crying inside, alone.
Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another because it is love that defines us; without love, we are nothing.
To live is essentially to love.
If you have love in your heart, you have been blessed by God; If you have been loved, you have been touched by God.
Romans 14:7-12 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Luke 15:1-10
Betania Tagaytay, August 2017.
Dearest Lord Jesus:
It seems more rains are coming today as I watched the rains last night amid dark skies with only a few stars above to accompany the moon. What a sight to behold as darkness enveloped us with the trickling of rains calming my soul while listening to St. Paul:
Brothers and sisters: none of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself. For if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord; so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.
Romans 14:7-8
Thank you very much Lord for your wonderful gift of self to us!
Indeed, you are the gift and the giver at the same time.
Thank you for making each of us a small universe, self-contained but not totally complete if separated from you and from others. May we always share this gift of self with others by keeping us one in you and with you.
You are our “deep space”, our “big bang”, always expanding, ever growing, bursting with life and meaning.
May we not be bothered like the Pharisees and scribes when people seek you more than us for we are mere stars leading them to you.
May we search and bring back to you the other dead stars and lost stars of this universe we call life. Amen.
Yaman rin lang naumpisahan ko nang balikan natutunan sa pagdidilig ng mga halaman, narito naman aking kinamumuhian sa nilalang na luntian.
Hindi ko malilimutan noon sa aking kabataan nang ako'y mapagalitan ni inay nang pagmuntikanan ko nang maluray alaga niyang halaman kailan ko lamang nagustuhan.
Tuwing aking dinidiligan aming mga halaman palagi kong iniiwasan maski mawiligan mga cactus dahil aming napag-aralan namumuhay mga ito sa disyerto kahit walang ulan.
Hindi ako nahiwagaan sa naturang katangian bagkus aking pinagtakhan bakit ang cactus inalagaan di naman pala kailangang diligan bukod sa di kakitaan ng kagandahan?
Doon nagsimula itong aking kalokohan o kademonyuhan, wika ng aking ina nang unti-unti kong hiwaan berdeng laman iniiwasan mga tinik na nakatirik gamit bago kong laseta na nabili sa bangketa pagkagaling sa eskuwela.
"Ano ngayon iyong laban?", pahibang kong binulungan itong cactus na aking sinaktan habang pinagmamasdan mga dagta tila baga luha ng halamang nasugatan.
Nang ako'y kinagalitan ng aking inang, iisa lamang kanyang tanong at wala akong naitugon: "Inaano ka nitong halaman, bakit mo ginawan ng ganyan?"
Pagkaraan ng mahabang panahon akala ko'y nakalimutan ko na 'yon ilang pagkakataon kalooban marahil ng Panginoon sa aking pagdarasal at pagninilay sumasagi sa aking atensiyon halamang wala akong pakialam noon.
Katulad ng kanyang mumunting tinik nakasalubsob na tumitirik, sumasagitsit ang sakit sa aki'y cactus nagtatanong, ibig makasumpong maliwanag kong tugon: "Hindi mo ba ako kayang tanggapin, kilalanin at mahalin sa ganang aking sarili?"
Sa cactus din nasasalamin karunungan at kabutihan ng Diyos natin lahat ng nilikha niya sadyang mabuti magkakaiba man ng uri at itsura lahat tumanggap ng kanyang hininga nakikibahagi sa buhay niyang nakabibighani.
Paalala ng cactus sa atin tanggapin bawat isa sa atin hindi sagwil pagkakaiba-iba natin bagkus marahil ito magpapabuti sa atin upang buksan kalooban natin sa maraming inihahaing pagkakataon itong buhay natin.
Romans 13:8-10 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Luke 14:25-33
Photo by Mr. Jim Marpa, market in Carigara, Leyte, September 2019.
Glory and praise to you, O God, for this Wednesday!
Your words through St. Paul today are very encouraging and reassuring as well.
Brothers and sisters: owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
Romans 13:8
How sad, O Lord, that these days, one of the cries and questions we either hear or ask is “where is the love?”.
Even in our personal relationships, we have forgotten love and kindness, mercy and forgiveness, always insisting on the letters of the laws disregarding the human face crying for help, crying in pain.
We have become so materialistic and legalistic, going into the details and other nitty-gritty in life forgetting the warmth of a human face, of a person.
It is love that defines who we are; without love, we are nothing!
Love speaks well of you, O Lord our God whom we believe in; without love, then, we have become monsters and Antichrists!
In the midst of our many transactions today, let us keep in mind to “owe nothing to anyone except to love one another”!
As I start this day, fill me with your Holy Spirit to cleanse and purify me with your breath, with your life, with your joy. Empty me of my pride, fears, insecurities and replace these with your humility, justice and love.
Help me renounce things that I am supposed to own yet possess me in reality so that only you, Jesus, always you, Jesus whom I shall only have and share. Amen.
Romans 12:5-16 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Luke 14:15-24
Photo by Mr. Chester Ocampo, October 2019.
Lord Jesus Christ, I come to you in darkness, desolate and sad with so much pains and fears. And anger.
You are the only one I can turn to, Lord.
You alone are the one who can heal me and console me.
You alone can fill me with life and love.
Like the psalmist, it is only in you, O Lord, can I find peace.
Help me to respond to St. Paul’s call today:
Brothers and sisters: 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
How can our love be sincere and not hate evil or even show honor to those who continue to do evil against us?
O sweet Jesus, give us the courage to come to your “banquet”; enable us to let go of our many excuses like those you have invited to your banquet.
It is only in communing in you, in being with you can our love be sincere, Lord, when we are able to disarm ourselves of our doubts and anxieties, fears and hatred to receive you and share you with others. Amen.
Lawiswis Ng Salita ni P. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Ika-04 ng Nobyembre 2019
Mga lumot sa Malagos Gardens, Davao City, Agosto 2017.
Mula pa sa aking pagkabata naroon na aking pagkabighani sa mga lumot na tila baga may naghahabi mumunting alpombra sa mga gilid at tabi-tabi.
Hindi gaanong naabot ng liwanag mga mumunting halaman ang lumot mahiwagang sumusulpot maski sa mga sulok madaling lumalaganap waring sila'y mga nalimot.
Kay lamig sa paningin itong mga lumot kung susuriin tila baga nagpapahiwatig himig ng lilim at dilim, tinig ng mahalumigmig.
Mga lumot sa St. Paul Spirituality Center, Alfonso, Cavite. Setyembre 25, 2019.
Kamakailan ko lamang napagtanto aral na ibig ipaabot marahil ng mga lumot sa atin na laging nalulungkot, nakasimangot lalo na't kung ating buhay ay masalimuot.
Paalala marahil sa atin ng mga lumot hindi man maabot at mabaanaagang lubos ng sikat ng araw, sa lilim ng kadiliman maaaninag pa rin busilak na luntian.
Katotohanan at ganda nitong ating buhay bumubukal saan man ilagay ng Maykapal pahalagahan, pangalagaan dahil walang kapantay paalala ng lumot huwag sanang malimot.
Patak-dugo at lumot, St. Paul Spiritality Center, Alfonso, Cavite. Setyembre 25, 2019.
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