Presence in Absence

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul, Easter Wk. VI, Yr. C, 26 May 2019
Acts 15:1-2, 22-29 >< }}}*> Revelation 21:10-14, 22-23 >< }}}*> John 14:23-29
A view from the entrance to the Temple Wall of Old Jerusalem, 04 May 2019.

Life is a series of coming and going where we never really leave at all.

I have been sharing you this quite often since Advent last year. We do not leave completely but simply come to new levels of relationships with our loved ones. When children grow up and go to college, they move into new environment, new stage in life. They never leave but come to new beginnings. Eventually, they leave home when they graduate in college and get married only to start their own family and home.

We call this series of coming and going in life as “presence in absence”. Sometimes it happens that it is after someone had left us, whether temporarily or permanently like death, that we even get closer with that person. Here we find the wonderful truth that if you want to be eternal, love. Then, a departure no longer becomes an exit but an entry to new mode of presence and relationships.

This is why Jesus commanded us last Sunday to love one another as he loved us, that is, to always love in his Father who is love himself. When we love in union with the Father, then our love is made perfect as it is God who eventually works in us.

The Lord deepens this teaching to us in our gospel today as he prepares us for the great celebration of his Ascension on Sunday, a kind of his own “leaving and coming”. Our gospel today is still part of his long discourse during his Last Supper when Thomas, Philip, and Jude asked him some questions about his impending departure that they could not really fully grasp at that time. Anyway, Jesus now answers the last question from Jude concerning his presence while at the same time prepares them for the inevitable when he has to “leave” them first for his Passion and Death and second, when he returns to the Father in heaven.

( Judas, not the Iscariot, said to him, “Master, what happened that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?”) Jesus said to his disciples: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. I have told you this while I am with you. The Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name — will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.”

John 14:22-23, 25-26
Altar of the church Dominus Flevit (the Lord Wept) with the old Jerusalem as background, April 2017.

First thing we notice in the Lord’s statement is the great honor for each of us to be the dwelling place of him and the Father. Can you imagine the kind of intimacy that means we now have with both the Son and the Father dwelling in us? It is something beyond our expectations or hopes when all we want in life is to be with him in heaven after death. But we do not have to wait for our death because right now, right here, Jesus and the Father are dwelling in us. And because of this reality, we are able to find meaning and fulfillment in life despite its many trials and difficulties, pains and tears along the way.

We have experienced the Father’s presence through the words and teachings of Jesus passed on to us through the Sacred Scriptures and the Tradition of the Church. Jesus himself stressed that his words are not really his but the Father’s. Loving the Lord and keeping his words are the same because Jesus is the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us according to St. John’s prologue to his gospel. It is for this reason that we are also able to call God “Abba” (Father) because we have that inner recognition of him deep within us in Jesus Christ.

Clouds over Sinai desert in Egypt, 07 May 2019.

Jesus continues his presence and teachings in us in our own time in the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the second part of his discourse in our gospel today, his sending of the Holy Spirit upon his return to the Father to be his apostles’ and our Advocate or defender and inner guide to all the truths he had taught us.

Christ did not say everything to the apostles. Aside from the fact that the time of his “presence” on earth was limited (33 years), it was impossible for the evangelists to report everything he had said and done (Jn.21:25). But he knew the totally different situations his disciples would be into and that includes us in the present time. Jesus knew very well the shifts and upheavals coming but, as we have seen in the past 2000 years since he went back to the Father, his Church has continued to exist despite the many predictions of its end. And that is largely due to the work of the Holy Spirit as our Advocate or defender.

From Google.

As our Advocate, the Holy Spirit acts as the “memory” of the Church like in a computer that it “processes” us disciples to act according to the Scriptures and teachings of Jesus in our own time. The Spirit powers us like a dynamo to continue to be the living presence of Jesus in his “absence” in a world that tries to delete him. This was first experienced in the first Council meeting of the Church in Jerusalem in the year 50 AD (Jesus ascended to heaven 33 AD) when the first Christians were plunged into a controversy regarding the imposition of Judaic traditions on Gentile converts. The first reading from the Acts tells us how the Apostles were guided in their proceedings by the word of God in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit continues to do the same in the Church when our Pope and bishops pray and reflect on the Scriptures in making its stand on the different issues now confronting us that were non-existent 100 years ago or 2000 years ago like the Internet or global warming. The Holy Spirit is the “heart and soul” of the Church’s living tradition that makes Jesus present in the world today through each one of us, its dwelling-place.

In the second reading, John tells us of the splendor of the heavenly Jerusalem where God is at the middle of everything. It is also the challenge of the gospel to us today, as the indwelling of the Father and of the Son, do we make God present in our family, in our places of work and study? Do we remain faithful to his word that we are not ashamed of praying even in a restaurant?

See that after explaining his mode of presence through us in the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus spoke of the gift of peace. Peace is always the fruit of love when we have Jesus as basis within us in all of our undertakings. How sad that even in many families, couples and children plan on their own for their many projects and activities without including their spouses or children in the process. There is no internal unity that often leads to misunderstanding and divisions that make peace so elusive.

Last Wednesday night I was invited to guest in a radio talk show hosted by former colleagues in the news. They complained to me how the Mass is no longer holy and has become very showbiz. Lourd De Veyra complained of priests not prepared with their homily and so “in love” with their voice that they talk nonsense like TV hosts. Photojournalist Melvin Calderon formerly of TIME Magazine and Pulitzer Prize winner last year Manny Mogato of Reuters News lamented at how our churches have become to look like a studio or a stage with all the pomp and pageantry, empty of any sense of the Holy. Though their observations were painfully true, I still felt so glad for them because despite their being so immersed in the world, they all long for the peace of Jesus Christ they believe can be first found among us priests and in our churches! May we go back to the Father so we may be able to share Jesus, only Jesus, and always Jesus through the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Love and Respect in Marriage

The Lord Is My Chef Recipe for Wedding of Bryan and Catherine, 24 May 2019
St. Francis of Assisi Chapel, Fernwood Gardens, Quezon City
Ephesians 5:2a,25-32 >< }}}*> <*{{{ >< John 15:11-17
The Tamsui Lover’s Bridge, New Taipei, Taiwan. Photo by author, 29 January 2019.

Congratulations, Bryan and Catherine!

Our gospel is very clear today with Jesus telling you, “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you” (Jn.15:16). In his infinite wisdom, God had planned this day to happen today, not last year or last month nor tomorrow or next month.

Today the Lord had chosen you Bryan and Catherine to tie the knot as husband and wife in this lovely chapel so you would be his witnesses of his immense love for us. You went through a lot of challenges in your love that is a certified “LDR” – you got me thinking for sometime what those letters mean.

As classmates in elementary until you were separated in high school when Catherine and her family moved to Marilao, you remained friends. When you pursued your dreams in college, the great distance between UP Los Banos and UST in Espana did not keep you away from each other as friends until you realized you love each other that you became sweethearts.

After graduation, Catherine had to move again with her family and this time, thousands of miles away from you Bryan when there were no free messaging apps yet like Messenger and Viber. Bryan had to make those expensive overseas calls while Catherine had to be patient with the unreliable, cheap call cards bought in Asian and Filipino stores in New Jersey.

Thanks very much to Mark Zuckerberg and you had more time seeing each other in social media that your love deepened through time and distance. But, Facebook did not resolve your main issue at that time.

It was Jesus who moved you both to realize that “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn.15:13).

Both of you Bryan and Cath sacrificed so much to be finally together, today and forever. Married life is not a competition in love, in seeing who loves most. Husband and wife simply love, love, and love. St. Paul said it so well in our first reading, “live in love as Christ loved us” (Eph.5:2a).

To live in love like Christ is to respect one another.

In our gospel, Jesus said “You are my friends if you do what I command you” (Jn.15:11) which is to love like him, giving up one’s self to your friend.

Bryan and Cath, you are now the bestest of friends. In the word “friend” you find a letter “r” that if you remove it, you get the new word “fiend” or enemy, the exact opposite of friend. That letter “r” in “friend” stands for respect which means in Latin “to see or look again”.

Without respect, any love will not grow. Without respect, love withers and dies. Respect deepens our love because in seeing again, in looking back to our loved ones, we remember our vows to always love.

From Google.

Three things I wish to share with you Bryan and Catherine about respect so you may live in love as the bestest of friends.

First, always look at your very selves, see yourself as the beloved of God.

God makes no mistakes. You are God’s perfect creation as he intended when he created you, Bryan and Catherine. Be proud of who you are even you have lost your hair or have had wrinkles, or gained weight to have so much “love handles” around your waist.

Bryan… Catherine… you are not only one in a million… you are a once in a lifetime.

Catherine, stay true to who you are as a woman. St. Paul never meant in our first reading that the wife must lose her identity in a relationship. Everything and everyone changes for sure, but a healthy marriage will always grow with you and never against you.

When you are apart and not together due to work, always look at each other. Always try to see the other looking at you. That is respect because in that way, you remain faithful to each other and avoid sin.

Second, always look back to your dreams, to your plans and vision in life.

The ideal man finds himself first before he finds his ideal woman, and vice versa. What do I mean? Many people have sights but not all have visions. A visionary is someone who dreams with eyes wide opened. Vision makes us see where we are going and what it will take to get us there. Like the “Mission-Vision” thing you have Bryan in Maynilad.

The moment a man/woman starts to have a vision of himself/herself with a partner in achieving that dream in the future, then he/she has become the ideal husband/wife. When you have a purpose in life and included in that is someone special, even if you have not met him/her yet, then you are the man, you are the woman.

When trials come in your lives Bryan and Catherine, look again into your vision and dreams in life. Start to work for it again with each other, together as one. If you have to start all over again, do so. Together. Pursue your dream and make it come true!

Third, every day, Bryan and Catherine, look again to God. Always see God in your life. Remember the Holy Family how every year they would go to Jerusalem to worship God. When the child Jesus was lost and they could not find him, they went back to Jerusalem and found him in the Temple. Mary and Joseph looked to God to find Jesus and they found him!

When you always look to God Bryan and Catherine, you will also find yourselves and your dreams. In that, you live in love, respecting each other always as gifts from God.

May today be the least happiest day of you life as husband and wife, Bryan and Catherine! Amen.

From Google.

Friend, or fiend?

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul
Friday, Easter Week V, 24 May 2019
Acts 15:22-31 ><}}}*> John 15:12-17
From Google.

What a lovely Friday you calling us friends, Lord Jesus! What an honor for you to regard as your friends even though so many times we disappoint you, even betray you with our sins.

You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.

John 15:14-15

How funny, Lord, that just one letter in the word “friend” can spell the big difference to turn it into its exact opposite, the letter “r”: from friend to fiend or enemy.

So many times, Lord, it is the lack of respect that leads us to sin against you and one another, that we become fiend than friend. Friends always respect, which is from the Latin roots re and specere or to “look again”.

Teach us, like your apostles in the first reading to learn to respect one another, especially those different from us that we may always see them as brothers and sisters despite our differences like backgrounds, culture, and color.

Teach us, O Lord, to see more of you in others to be the very basis of our friendships rather than looking more into our many differences that we always make as excuses in being apart. Amen.

An optical shop in Madaba, Jordan. Photo by author, 02 May 2019.
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Where is God?

Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 23 May 2019
Our fellow pilgrims to the Holy Land who made it to the top of Mt. Sinai in Egypt, 06 May 2019. Photo by Atty. Grace Polaris Rivas-Beron.

A catechist asked her class, “where is God?”

A small boy right away raised his hand and boldly answered “God is in our toilet!”

The catechist was shocked with the boy’s answer but did not want to put him on the spot so she asked, “how did you know God is in your toilet?”

And he said, “every morning I see my dad knocking at our toilet door, asking, ‘my God, are you still there?'”

The shore of Lake of Galilee in Capernaum where Jesus used to visit the synagogue nearby. Photo by author, 02 May 2019.

Main reason I always encourage people to go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land is to experience God.

The Franciscans who safeguard the holy sites in Jordan, Israel, and Egypt teach that the Holy Land is the “fifth gospel” after Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John found in our bible. In the Holy Land, one can surely experience God speaking and conversing with you in the very places where he had appeared to the great prophets or had come in Christ Jesus and did wondrous deeds to his people. There is a different level of understanding and appreciation of the many stories found in our bible when you go to the Holy Land that can really be life-changing depending on your personal disposition.

There are two instances where we experience God in the Holy Land: first in the country of Israel and second in the churches at the holy sites.

Israel, the Promised Land.

How could God call this country “the Promised Land” when it is so small and sits on a vast tract of limestone and desert? Technically speaking, a desert is an area that receives an average rainfall of 25 centimeters or ten inches annually. That is why it is barren and desolate.

But not Israel.

Once you see the greenery abounding at Israel’s desert, you immediately feel God’s presence there, fulfilling his promise of blessing the land “flowing with milk and honey” as the bible says. Aside from their local date and fig trees with so many other varieties that are the best in the world, plants and trees imported from abroad like bougainvillea and acacia thrive so well in the Israeli desert. From the Philippines, they have imported and improved our mango trees that bear more fruits, yielding higher income to their farmers. Interspersing the greenery on their desert are the colonies of greenhouses that shine in their silvery color during the day while producing many varieties of fruits and vegetables inside. Likewise, exports of Israeli wines and dairy products are steadily growing due to increasing demand from abroad.

All these produced at the desert!

Resort at the Dead Sea area, April 2017.

Like any Filipino pilgrim to the Holy Land, one then remembers what foreigners say that our country is literally a paradise with the right amount of rain and sunshine throughout the year with very fertile soil when we cannot even have enough rice to feed our people? How tragic that we have to import rice from Vietnam and Thailand, our two neighbors in Asia that sent their farmers to Los Banos 40 years ago to learn growing rice scientifically! And it is not only rice that we import but even other basic food stuffs like onions, garlic, and fruits that include cut flowers lately. Drive for two hours outside Manila and you find vast tracts of land with so much grass but we have to import beef, chicken and pork to satisfy our local cravings even for the simple chicharon (pork cracklings) because our local farmers cannot meet the demands.

Where is God?

God has blessed our country with wide arrays of flora and fauna, more amazing beaches and mountains, and friendlier climate and weather. But, God is nowhere to be found because we have lost him in ourselves. We have lost him in our hearts that we took our country for granted, molesting and abusing her like Boracay or the Manila Bay. God dwells among the people, not on the land. Pope Francis reminds us in his encyclical about the care for the environment “Laudato Si” that “we have only one heart and every act of cruelty against nature is contrary to human dignity.”

If we wish to find and experience God blessing our own land, we have to be like the people in Israel who kept him alive in their hearts by thinking bigger than themselves.

Our group posing with two 19-year old Israeli female soldiers at the Jordan River where Jesus was baptized. It used to be a part of Jordan that Israel had occupied after the 1967 Six-Day War.

God in the noble simplicity of a church.

For us Catholics, God is truly experienced present in the Holy Land through the many churches – all beautiful – spread out throughout Israel. But, what really makes the churches and chapels or oratories in the Holy Land so special and unique is not only the fact they are on the very sites or near the areas where Jesus had stood to preach or performed a miracle. Aside from the aesthetic factors that make these churches so beautiful and moving that you experience God inside is because of their “noble simplicity”.

The inside of the modern main chapel of Our Lady of the Milk Grotto in Bethlehem, 05 May 2019.

Unlike the churches here in our country that have become so kitschy that look like cheap cakes with too much decorations and scandalous colors, those in the Holy Land are definitely clean cut, no clutter whatsoever. There is always the sense of the holy right upon entering every church and chapel despite the great crowd present. Most of all, with the church’s noble simplicity, there is always that sacred space for God to be encountered.

When the church is so cluttered and so mixed up, signs that should point to God fail miserably, leaving the church banal and empty of any transcendence or sense of the holy. And I must confess we priests are so guilty of this liturgical abuses when we have made our churches the extensions of our very selves and eccentricities, totally disregarding Jesus Christ. We have evicted God from our church as we priests lorded it over among people with us becoming more known and popular than Jesus Christ.

Can you really feel God present in your parish with all the tarpaulins and giant flat screens around with matching giant fans above? What would Jesus do if he comes today in our churches and finds all kinds of stores, not only those selling religious articles that are sanctioned and even maintained by priests right inside our church premises?

Inside the beautiful Church of the Beatitudes, April 2017.

What a church looks like indicates the kind of pastor and parishioners it has. No matter how big or small a church is, its true beauty lies on the sense and feeling of sanctity or sacredness it creates, not popularity or mass appeal. And as always, like anywhere else, holiness comes only from God who dwells on his people who pray together, moving as one body in the Holy Spirit.

Recently I guested in a radio talk show hosted by some former colleagues in the news who lamented at how our churches have become very “showbiz” with all the pomp and pageantry of telenovelas. So true! It is a reality that unconsciously shows how we in the Church are slowly losing that touch with the holy when everything has gone down to human level despite our pretentious claims of artistic expressions.

When God appeared in a burning bush at the Sinai desert, he asked Moses to take off his sandals for he was standing on sacred ground.

The whole Earth is a sacred ground, a holy land created by God. The challenge is for us to let go of ourselves and let God. And that is when we discover where God is.

A blessed day to you!

Facade of the St. Katherine Monastery of the Greek Orthodox at the foot of Mt. Sinai, Egypt. Inside is a chapel built on the site of the burning bush of Moses. At the back is the staging point of pilgrims’ ascent to Mt. Sinai where God gave Moses the Ten Commandments.

When words mean the world

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul
Thursday, Easter Week V, 23 May 2019
Acts 15:7-21 ><)))*> John 15:9-11
The Sphinx with the Great Pyramids that express more than words the great love of ancient Egyptians to their gods and rulers. Photo by author, 09 May 2019.

Today is “throwback Thursday”, Lord. We call it tbt. And I cannot resist humming that song by the Extreme, “More than Words” as I prayed over your words for today.

How amazing is the power of a word, especially your words, Lord. Whatever you said came into existence for you words and your being are one. In your goodness, you shared this great power of the words with us that we are your only creatures able to communicate using words.

Before you went back to the Father, you told us to keep your words, to remain in your love so that our joy may be complete.

How sad that we have taken this for granted as we desecrate words of their sanctity and true meaning.

How sad that so often we never meant what we said. We have to multiply our words in order to be meaningful, for others to believe us and trust us.

Help us to regain the sanctity of words, of “palabra de honor” that has long been gone in a world of words that lie, mislead, and deceive.

Help us rediscover anew your words of life, Lord, like the Apostles who relied heavily on your words when they met at the Council of Jerusalem to resolve their first issues as a Church.

May your words guide us anew so we may discover the true meaning of life that in the process, like the ancient peoples, we may express in more than words our great love for you through our wonderful works of art and charity with others. Amen.

The Treasury of the lost city of Petra in Jordan built in 1 BC that express in more than words the beliefs and values of the ancient Nabataeans. Photo by author, 01 May 2019.
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Remaining in Jesus, our true vine

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul
Wednesday, Easter Week V, 22 May 2019
Acts 15:1-6 ><}}}*> <*{{{>< John 15:1-8
From Google.

Thank you very much, Lord Jesus Christ, for coming to us, for bringing God the Father closest to us. Thank you for being our true vine, for being planted in the earth, one with our humanity in everything except sin.

Through your mystery of Incarnation, you have bound yourself to us, Lord, assuring us of your indestructible unity with us who always separate from you, run away from you, and turn away from you in so many sins.

Teach us to remain always in you, Jesus.

To remain in you is to rely more on your powers than on our own strength.

To remain in you is to trust in your promises that you will fulfill them.

To remain in you is to be fruitful in firm faith, fervent hope and unceasing charity and love.

Since the time of Adam and Eve, there has always been that strong temptation to go on our own ways, to break away from you, O God, to be on our own. We have not only put you on trial 2000 years ago but, over a hundred years ago, we have even declared “God is dead”!

Forgive us when we refuse to be pruned of our ego and pride.

Let us overcome our fears to settle our differences like in the Council of Jerusalem so that we may continue to bear fruit in you O Christ. Amen.

From Google.
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The small door of the “little town of Bethlehem”

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul
Tuesday, Easter Week V, 21 May 2019
Acts 14:19-28 ><“)))*> <*(((“>< John 14:27-31
Pilgrims entering through the small door of the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, 02 May 2019.

Lately, Lord Jesus Christ, doors have been fascinating me: more than passages where we come and go, or enter and leave, doors are indeed like you! Last week you claimed yourself to be the gate of the sheep with you, Lord as our door, we never leave but, simply, come and come.

When you told your disciples at your Last Supper in today’s gospel that you were going away and will come back to them (Jn.14:28), you were very much like a door, Lord: for how can our hearts be not troubled or afraid when you are going away only to come to another level of relationship and existence with us?

That is the beauty of the door in you, Lord: your going away in your Ascension is your coming to us in new form of closeness, of continuing presence that leads to peace within each one of us.

How wonderful to remember Lord Jesus why the door to your birthplace in Bethlehem is so small: we have to go down, we have to bow and be humble in order to enter you:

They (Paul and Barnabas) strengthened the spirits of the disciples and exhorted them to persevere in the faith, saying, “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.”

Acts 14:22

Give us the courage and strength, patience and perseverance, Lord, along with faith, hope and love to enter through you our door so that we may always come out as better persons than yesterday. Amen.

View from the inside of the Nativity Church in Bethlehem of its small doors. Photos by author, 02 May 2019.
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The way of God

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul
Monday, Easter Week V, 20 May 2019
Acts 14:5-18 ><)))*><*(((>< John 14:21-26
Dusk at the Sinai desert in Egypt, 06 May 2019.

Jesus said to his disciples: “Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.” Judas, not the Iscariot, said to him, “Master, then what happened that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?”

John 14:21-22

So often in life, Lord Jesus, we feel like St. Jude Thaddeus asking you the same question of why did you not reveal your self to more people, especially the unbelievers and your enemies so there would be no more questions about your Resurrection and most of all, of your existence.

Why did you not appear to powerful nations and not just Israel or to more people not just the few Apostles whose testimony about you we must now rely?

But, Lord, the more we wonder about your ways and compare it to our supposed to be bright ideas of making you known and accepted, the more we experience your presence and realize your goodness. Most of all, the more we appreciate and embrace your mystery.

You always act so gently in history, Lord, always waiting for the right time to come and reveal your self. You chose the more difficult way by becoming human, being born an infant subjected to so much dangers early in life and when you matured, you chose to suffer and die so that when you rose again, you came knocking into everyone’s heart inviting us all to have faith that you have risen.

For the world, your way is always laughed at because we always think we know better like the people at Lystra who insisted that Paul and Barnabas are gods, without us knowing that the more we insist on our ways, the more we get lost from what is really true.

Teach us today, Lord Jesus Christ, to learn from your divine way of revelations by choosing silence than noise, simplicity than complexity, hiddenness than spectacles.

Teach us today, Lord Jesus Christ, that your divine way of revelation is always the path of weakness and smallness that lead us to more freedom and more love. Amen.

Rock formations at Petra in Jordan that nature had carved slowly through time. Photo by author, 01 May 2019.
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“To Love Somebody” by the Bee Gees (1967)

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music, 19 May 2019
Clouds over the vast desert of Egypt going to Cairo, 07 May 2019.

Thank you for following our LordMyChef Sunday Music.

It is nice to be back again this Sunday with a music from the Bee Gees with their second international hit single called “To Love Somebody” released in 1967.

According to Barry Gibb, the only surviving member of one of the world’s most successful musical group composed of his late brothers Robin and Maurice (and Andy), To Love Somebody is his most loved composition because of its “clear, emotional message” (Piers Morgan’s Life Stories interview in 2017). In another interview earlier in 2001, Barry said the song was meant for their long-time producer Robert Stigwood’s gift and brilliance, as a sort of a tribute. He explained that Stigwood asked him to compose a soul for Otis Redding in 1967; they presented To Love Somebody to Redding in New York who liked it very much. Unfortunately, Redding never had the chance to record the song when he died in a plane crash that year. To Love Somebody was then offered to other artists but despite their good reviews of the song, nobody wanted to record it. Hence, the Bee Gees included it in their first international debut album Bee Gees 1st, releasing it as a single that reached the 17th spot in the US charts and 41 in UK. The brothers reissued it in 1980 and the song has been covered by so many other artists worldwide that included Michael Bolton, Rod Stewart, Janis Joplin and Nina Simone.

To Love Somebody sounds so close to our gospel today when Jesus gave his disciples a new commandment to love one another as he has loved us, which is, “to love somebody the way I love you”!

Of course, the song is romantic in nature but it gives us also a hint of the newness of Christ’s new commandment to love like him that is always unitive, creating a communion and bond of unity with the lover and the beloved. That unity for Jesus is rooted in God our Father who is love himself.

Human love is always imperfect. There will always be people so difficult to love or deal with or simply accept. Even more difficult to forgive. But when we love in Christ Jesus, in him and with him, our love becomes more truer and doable and possible. After all, as the Bee Gees sing in this song, it is Jesus Christ who first loved us too and desired so much that unity in him. We are able to love because of Christ’s gift of love for us. Let us not waste that gift of love. Love somebody, the way Jesus loves you! Amen.

From Youtube.

Christ’s gift of love

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul, Easter Wk. V, Yr.C, 19 May 2019
Acts 14:21-27 ><)))> Revelations 21:1-5 ><)))> John 13:31-33, 34-35
Sunrise at Lake Tiberias, the Holy Land. Photo by author, 04 May 2019.

I was sleeping soundly along with other customers at our barbershop last Thursday noon when we were jolted by a boy about four years old who shrieked and threw on tantrums as he vehemently refused to have a haircut. It was a big scene and the poor young mother was at a loss how to pacify her son who kept yelling at her “I do not want to have a haircut!”

After a couple of minutes, everybody sighed with relief – except me – when the boy finally finally cooled off to sit on the barber’s chair for his haircut. I felt no relief first because the more I pitied the young mother who had to bribe her spoiled son with a cellphone to play computer games just to behave. And secondly, I was never able to get back to my siesta due to the sounds of the boy’s computer games.

As I looked in horror with the scene, I wondered if this is the new kind of love today when gadgets and things replace persons.

When Judas had left them, Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

John 13:31, 34-35
Boat ride at the Lake of Tiberias, 04 May 2019.

It is very true that love of neighbor is not a Christian innovation. Other great religions also have love as a fundamental principle.

The newness in Jesus’ new commandment to love lies deeply in his following sentence, “As I have loved you, so you should love one another.”

To love like Jesus Christ is more than doing a higher order kind of love or a more loving way of loving by following a stricter moral standard.

To love like Jesus is to love in union with the Father who is love himself!

This newness of his commandment to love is found deep in the preceding scene of the gospel when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. In the fourth gospel, the washing of the feet is the meaning of love expressed in the Holy Eucharist that prefigured Good Friday’s crucifixion. In relating that scene, St. John used the word “clean” three times as Jesus declared to his disciples “you are clean” (Jn.13:10).

It was in the washing the feet when Jesus first clearly showed the most unique and loving way of God coming down to us to cleanse us of our sins. Purity is always a gift from God because we cannot make ourselves clean. And like in that washing of feet of his disciples, Jesus continues to purify us in every Mass we celebrate today. The more we are “purified” by Jesus in the Eucharist, the more we learn to be like him, to love like him unconditionally and most of all, to love in union with the Father who is love himself.

And there lies the newness of Christ’s new commandment of love, for us to love like Jesus in him and with him.

We will always be imperfect and sinful, always needing to be cleansed and purified to be fitting to God. In the same manner, human love is always imperfect like us. Most often, we love for reasons that are always wrong or sometimes love in seasons that soon go off season. There will always be people and situations when our arguments and reasons not to love are not only right and proper but also justified. But when we come to realize this gift of love from Jesus, of loving like him in union with the Father, we become his extension and channel of love. Love, then, becomes pure and doable, even easier and acceptable because first of all, we experience it in us.

Franciscan Monastery, Mt. Nebo, Jordan where God let Moses view the Promised Land to be given to the Israelites. The cross with serpent prefigured the salvation to come from Christ’s death: the Israelites complained against God who punished them by sending poisonous snakes that bit and killed them. The Israelites repented and God ordered Moses to make a copper snake image to mount it on a stick that whoever looked at it was healed of the snake bite and lived (Numbers 21:6). Photo by author 03 May 2019.

To love like Jesus is totally new because it is not really us who does the loving but Jesus himself in us and with us. It is a totally new kind of love because it is a love not based on norms or rules but on God himself. It is a totally new kind of love because we allow Jesus to act in us, making God truly present among us. Thus, we all become an Emmanuel like Jesus, God-is-with-us. What a great honor for us to be a presence of God in Jesus! That despite our sins and weaknesses, Jesus continues to cleanse us so he may dwell in us and work through us. When we obey his new commandment to love like him, then his words at the end of today’s gospel are indeed fulfilled, “This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (Jn.13: 35). It is a love so different from the world that sets us apart from others, enabling us to make a big difference in this world marred with sin and imperfections.

This remains the great challenge among us now in our time when Jesus said “My children, I will be with you only a little while longer” (Jn.13:33) when he gave this new commandment. It is the present time where we always have that tension of the here and the not yet oriented toward Jesus who has come, is coming now and will come in the end of time. This is why until now like during the time of the apostles, we have priests or presbyters appointed to care for the flock by leading them in a life of charity and unity in the Church. Every priest as well as every Christian is supposed to be a presence of Christ, loving like Jesus in union with the Father. How sad when we, priests and lay people alike, deny this kind of love of Jesus, destroying our unity in the Father as one family of believers and followers.

Let us not waste Christ’s gift of love so unique that unites us with the Father and with everyone. Let us strive harder that despite our sinfulness and many differences of beliefs and affiliations, through Christ’s gift of purity and love, we may little by little realize “a new heaven and a new earth” as John saw in his vision at Patmos. A blessed Sunday to everyone! Amen.