Eating well, living well

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B, 18 August 2024
Proverbs 9:1-6 ><}}}}*> Ephesians 5:15-20 ><}}}}*> John 6:51-58

*Photo by author, James Alberione Center, QC, 15 August 2024.*

It is our fourth consecutive Sunday listening to the sixth chapter of John’s gospel that opened with the miraculous feeding by Jesus of more than five thousand people in a deserted place; Jesus fled from there, went back in Capernaum where people caught with Him and disciples as He began three Sundays ago His “Bread of Life” discourse now getting deeper while the drama among the crowd is heating up.

From murmuring last Sunday about Jesus who said “I am the bread that came down from heaven” (Jn.6:41), the people today quarreled among themselves after Jesus said “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world” (Jn. 6:51).

Notice the beautiful contrast of reactions by people to Jesus: from murmuring last Sunday, they sank deep into quarreling while Jesus leveled up to “the living bread from heaven” from merely “the bread from heaven” last week. For us to live well, we have to eat well by having Jesus Himself as our food and drink.

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me” (John 6:52-57).

*Photo by Ms. Ria De Vera in Banff, Alberta, Canada, 07 August 2024.*

Eating is the most common human activity anywhere, any time. Human life basically revolves around eating as we have seen since time immemorial how we have progressed following our search for food. We work to feed ourselves and loved ones. Without food, we die. Food is so essential that there is always food to share in our gatherings.

That is why Jesus chose the bread and wine as the signs of His living presence among us in the Holy Eucharist He established during the Last Supper on Holy Thursday. In the Eucharist, Jesus elevated the most ordinary human activity of eating as most sublime and Divine. In the Holy Mass, we share in Christ’s Body and Blood so we too may share our very selves with one another.

When Jesus said in Capernaum that the bread He is giving is His own flesh with His blood as drink, He was already preparing the people for the Eucharist while at the same time teaching them that eating is not everything. We have to eat well to live well. When tempted by the devil in the wilderness, Jesus right away taught us to remember that man does not live by bread alone but with every word from God. At the start of this discourse last August 04, Jesus challenged the people, “Do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you” (Jn.6:27).

Many times, we get so used in our many activities that unconsciously, we miss life itself as we punish ourselves with exhaustion and sickness as well as emptiness.

Food is not just something that fills our stomach but must also lead into our heart and soul. Observe any cuisine and you get a taste of the culture and people it represents, even with strong hints of its geographical origin. In the first reading we find how the Book of Proverbs personified Wisdom as God to remind us that though He is transcendent and so above us, God is easily accessed even in the most ordinary instances like eating.

Wisdom has built her house, she has set up her seven columns; she has dressed her meat, mixed her wine, yes, she has spread her table. She has sent out her maidens; she calls from the heights out over the city: “Let whoever is simple turn in here; to him who lacks understanding, I say, Come, eat of my food, drink of the wine I have mixed! Forsake foolishness that you may live; advance in the way of understanding” (Proverbs 9:1-6).

How lovely is that part of God calling us to come like Jesus in the gospel when He said “come to me all who are burdened” or when He ordered to “let the children come to me”. Is it not the same thing we say when we are about to eat, to come and get it?

Sadly these days, we seem to have retrogressed in our manner of eating. Social media rightly labeled it as “food porn” when we are flooded with everything about food and drinks minus its deeper meanings. Food is sadly seen in its material aspect that eating is more on filling the stomach, forgetting the soul because we have totally forgotten God and the people around us. No wonder that despite the growing food production and plethora of food we have these days, many still starve while the rest of us remain lost in life, more sick.

See, my dear friends, the great coincidence on the very Sunday Jesus began his bread of life discourse, it was also the opening of the Paris Olympics with a mockery of the Last Supper that led us into a kind of “quarrel” as organizers and their supporters insisted it wasn’t the Last Supper at all despite the clear indications and proofs.

“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Suddenly, we heard anew that same question by the people in Capernaum to Jesus reechoed in the Olympics at the capital city of the Church’s so-called “eldest daughter”, France. Of course, we know this bread of life discourse by Jesus refers to the Holy Eucharist and surely, the many defenders of the Paris Olympics are aware for many of them are Catholics. But, Jesus must have willed this gospel be proclaimed at this time coinciding with the Olympics for us to evaluate anew our faith in Him because at the very core of this bread of life discourse is the mystery of faith.

“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” In the gospel of Luke, we find a similar question by Mary at the Annunciation that is filled with faith, “How can this be?” (Lk.1:34); but today, like in Capernaum as exemplified by the Paris Olympics, that question is a renewed refusal to believe in the words of Jesus Christ. Worst of all as we noted earlier in our perceptions of food and eating these days, that question shows modern man’s insistence on everything material, totally disregarding our spiritual nature.

Like in Capernaum, many people today who refuse to believe Christ’s words resort to malicious and insidious arguments that it becomes useless to really converse with them as they would rather insist on their grossly material understanding and perception of life these days. Many prefer to quarrel these days than accept life’s many mysteries not merely seen nor tasted by the senses but experienced and realized through faith in God.

Life for them has become merely material which in Greek is bios as in biology. There is another Greek word for life which is zoe that refers to the eternal, divine life of God that Jesus repeatedly used in our gospel today.

Like last Sunday, Jesus did not engage Himself into debating with the crowd in Capernaum by simply repeating the words living and life to emphasize the total acceptance of Him – Body and Blood – in faith: “I am the living bread… my flesh for the life of the world. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.” These are the very same words too, life and living that Jesus would mention before His Passion and Death as well as after His Resurrection because eating His flesh and drinking His blood is to share in His life that is also the fullness of life. It is only in Christ Jesus can we find fulfillment in life. Let us pray:

Lord Jesus Christ,
help me watch carefully 
how I live, not as a fool
but as wise as St. Paul taught
us today in his letter to the Ephesians;
let us not be intoxicated 
with life's pleasures and worldly pursuits
but let us be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

When getting technical & legal, we forget our personal relationships

The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday, Memorial of San Roque (St. Rock/Roche), Healer, 16 August 2024
Ezekiel 16:1-15, 60, 63 <*((((>< + ><))))*> Matthew 19:3-12

God our loving Father,
thank you for the gift of personhood,
for your gift of personal relationship
with each one of us;
your servant St. John Paul II
defined a person as a 
"full, conscious, relating being."

Very true but sadly,
we never recognize your gift
of personhood,
of our being a person
and its fruit of relationships;
instead of looking into the
heart and soul of every one of us,
we prefer to see each one
in the mind, in the letter,
in the technical than personal:

Some Pharisees approached Jesus, and tested him, saying, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause whatever?” (Matthew 19:3)

Soften our hearts, Jesus;
take away our stony hearts
and give us natural hearts
that beats with firm faith,
fervent hope in You,
and unceasing charity for everyone.

Forgive us for being so captivated
by our own beauty and prowess,
remove our confusion
and let us be silenced for shame
(Ezekiel 16:15, 63)
to remember your covenant
by appreciating and being open
to your gift of person and relationships
by striving to keep this alive
despite our many flaws and sins.
Amen.

St. Rock,
pray for us so infected
by another kind of pestilence
of pandemic proportion when
we see persons as objects
and make objects like persons.
Amen.

Walking life’s hills with Jesus

The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thursday, Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 15 August 2024
Revelation 11:19;12:1-6, 10 ><}}}}*> 1 Corinthians 15:20-27 ><}}}}*> Luke 1:39-56

Glory and praise,
God Almighty Father
in sending us Jesus our Savior
who gave us His Mother
the Blessed Virgin Mary,
the very first fruit as St. Paul said 
of Christ's wondrous work 
of salvation due her oneness in Him.

Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-40).

Right after the Annunciation
to Mary, her path to her Assumption
began when she "set out and 
travelled to the hill country in haste"
to share Christ in her with Elizabeth;
what a beautiful imagery of the same
path to the Calvary, another hill
outside Jerusalem to be with Christ
her Son.

Bless us with the same grace 
You gave Mary your Mother, Lord Jesus,
to follow your path to every hill in this life,
to be one with those especially who are
in pain and suffering; let us trust in You
fully in faith, hope and love that the 
sufferings we may endure in setting out
to travel to the hills of this life is 
the very path of our assumption 
in You; let us realize that despite the
many comforts and ease of technology
today, it is not what life really is, that
we all have to go through your 
Passion, Death, and Resurrection.
Like Mary, may we believe
your words, Jesus, 
will be fulfilled.
Amen.

*“The Assumption of the Virgin” by Italian Renaissance painter Titian completed in 1518 for the main altar of Frari church in Venice. Photo from en.wikipedia.org.*

Umuwi ka na Mommy…

Lawiswis ng Salita ni P. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Ika-14 ng Agosto 2024

*Larawan kuha ng may akda sa kanyang silid, 14 Agosto 2024.*

*Salamuch sa Orange and Lemons.

Umuwi ka na Mommy:
yan lang mithi ko palagi
hindi lang masabi 
nitong aking mga labi
dangan kasi hindi mangyayari;
akala ko noong dati
makakaya ko ang pighati
ng iyong pagpanaw
ngunit aking akala pala ay mali
tunay na damdamin namnamin,
ilahad at aminin sa sarili
huwag ikubli
huwag magkunwari
tiyak madadali sa huli.

Umuwi ka na Mommy:
kailanma'y hindi namin iyan nasabi
dangan nga kasi ikaw palagi
nasa tahanan at tindahan
naghihintay sa amin
at pagsapit ng takipsilim
tulad ng mga alaga mong inahin
isa-isa kaming iyong hahanapin
parang mga sisiw
bubusugin sa halimhim
ng iyong mga pangangaral
at dalangin saka ipaghahain
ng masarap at mainit na pagkain
mahirap limutin.

Umuwi ka na Mommy:
ikaw lang kasi
sa akin ang walang atubili
nakapagsasabi, nakakaramdam 
at nakababatid ng lahat
dangan nga kasi
ikaw ang sa akin nagsilang
sa iyong sinapupunan
hanggang libingan
dama ko ating kaisahan
pilit ko noon hinihiwalayan
kaya ngayon aking ramdam
kay laking kawalan kahit
nag-iisa ka lang.

*Salamuch talaga, Orange and Lemons.

Mula sa YouTube.com

Elijah & Jesus with “Lolo and the Kid”

Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 13 August 2024

This is a rejoinder to my Sunday homily I posted here Saturday morning (https://lordmychef.com/2024/08/10/when-we-cry-this-is-enough-god-gives-us-more-than-enough-to-go-on/).

I had published my Sunday homily that Saturday morning when I decided to unwind by watching any movie on Netflix which I do only on weekends. So glad it was the first movie I saw, very related with the story of Prophet Elijah and Jesus Christ’s “Bread of Life Discourse” that Sunday.

First think I liked with Lolo and the Kid is its fast-paced story that revolved around the two characters played by veteran Joel Torre and GMA7’s famed Firefly star Euwenn Mikael Aleta.

Second thing so interesting with me is how Lolo and Kid have no proper names at all (I just learned Lolo’s name was Mario after reading the various write ups) maybe because they stand for all of us who are caught in this great race for money and material things but deep inside longing for the more essential and truly lasting in life like love. And people who love us too, who care for us, and would stand by us.

We are Lolo and Kid who many times have traded our principles for momentary satisfaction but despite our seemingly strong facades of pragmatism and “resourcefulness” or madiskarte as Lolo taught Kid in the movie, deep inside us is still our conscience where God dwells, telling us to pursue good and shun evil. Joel Torre perfectly portrayed this beautiful side in each one of us (with his Ilonggo accent) of keeping a conscience despite our sinfulness, like a soft shell we delicately keep whole and intact inside lest we lose everything in life.

Recall our first reading last Sunday about Elijah fleeing to the mountain from an army pursuing to kill him. Elijah felt a total failure like Lolo and us many times in life when after all our goodwill and love, we are dumped by the very people we care for.

Elijah went a day’s journey into the desert, until he came to a broom tree and sat beneath it. He prayed for death, saying: “This is enough, O Lord! Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers” (1 Kings 19:4).

In one of the scenes of Lolo and the Kid, we find Lolo crying, cursing everyone and murmuring just like in last Sunday’s gospel. As he tried to end his life with a knife, Lolo suddenly heard the cry of an infant from the heap of garbage around him. What a beautiful portrayal of that infant left in the trash like Jesus Christ born on a manger becoming the savior of Lolo, a definitive message of mercy and love from God after his apparent cry of “This is enough, Lord!”

How many times have we found ourselves in the same situation, often in less momentous ones than Elijah or any prophet and saint, crying out to God in the heavens “this is enough”?

But, what is also most true behind every cry of “this is enough” that we make, we continue to believe and to hope in God that there is still a way out of our plight. And very often like in the story of Elijah last Sunday and in that scene in Lolo and the Kid, God comes at the nick of time like that infant crying in the garbage heap, a reminder of life and beauty found within us despite all the dirt we may have around us.

Here we find the Kid, perfectly played by Euwenn like in Firefly, as the saving grace, the Christ-figure in the movie bringing salvation to Lolo. Kid was “the bread of life from heaven” who “fed” Lolo with life with its meaning and direction. And joy found in Kid, the image of Christ Jesus.

Now, joy according to Jesus at the Last Supper is like a woman at the pangs of childbirth (Jn.16:21-22); it is deeper than happiness. True joy is borne out of self-sacrifice, a fruit of self-denial, of loving somebody more than one’s self. This we find at the end of this moving film.

Now all grown up, Kid finally met again Lolo in the hospital a day after his college graduation. Kid brought Lolo while seated on a wheelchair to visit Taba (another character without a name), their suki in fencing. From there, they went to their usual stop, a videoke bar to eat and drink, singing repeatedly Kenny Roger’s Through the Years.

Then, Lolo died, singing the only tune he knew that summed their beautiful relationship.

After Lolo’s body was taken out of the videoke bar, Kid opened Lolo’s bag that had a tin can of biscuit filled with old photographs taken with their stolen Polaroid camera. The photos did not merely remind Kid of their happy times together but most especially when they were already apart!

Unknown to Kid, Lolo hid to take photos when he moved to his adoptive parents, from his first ever birthday party to his college graduation! Through the years, Lolo, like God, was always there, present in all of Kid’s milestones in life because he is truly loved.

I have never liked that song Through the Years even when it was a hit during our high school days in 1981 but since Saturday, I have been humming it silently, hearing it inside me as an LSS until now. We hear the song playing throughout the end of the movie with scenes of how Lolo secretly took Kid’s photos filled with love and joy amid the strong current of pain within he had to endure to be far and away yet so near to his beloved apo.

If the Kid is the Christ figure in this film, Lolo is the God-the-Father figure, the One who seems so far from us as if He does not care at all. In Lolo and the Kid, there is that message of God never leaving us wherever we may be, whether we are in the squalor of poverty and sin or in the purity and cleanliness of affluence and grace maybe. God like Lolo to Kid is always with us but never interferes, silently doing many things to ensure that despite our many faults and failures in life, we end up in Him and His love.

We go back to Elijah’s cry of “This is enough, Lord!”, our very same cry like Lolo in the movie.

It is a cry that is also a prayer coming from our innermost being when we feel so saddled with no one to unload our woes except to God – who after all is the very reason why we cry! Watch for Lolo’s soliloquy on this reality we often do.

*Photo by author, James Alberione Center, QC, 08 August 2024.*

It is that moment when we feel so “fed up with life” but deep inside, we hear God telling us like Lolo with the cries of an infant or like Elijah with an angel instructing him, “Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!” (1 Kings 19:7).

Yes, our life journey is still long but we have a companion in Jesus, our bread of life from heaven, nourishing us, strengthening us, teaching us that essential beauty of love found only in sharing one’s life for the other. As we have said in last Sunday’s homily, it is when we cry “it is enough, Lord” when God gives us more than enough to sustain us sometimes in the form of a good movie like this one. May we have more “bread” like Lolo and the Kid that feeds our soul and gladdens our heart.

*BTW, we are not paid to endorse this movie; simply sharing with you its good news.

When we cry “this is enough” & God gives us more than enough to go on

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B, 11 August 2024
1 Kings 19:4-8 ><}}}}*> Ephesians 4:30-5:2 ><}}}}*> John 6:41-51

Like the Prophet Elijah in the first reading, many times we have found ourselves in the same situation of utter desperation, begging God to take our life to end our sufferings and miseries, crying to Him, “Lord, this is enough!”

Elijah was fleeing from the army of Queen Jezebel out to kill him after the priests of Baal were massacred by the people in a showdown with him in sending fire to their offerings as well as the rains after a long period of drought. He felt a total failure because despite God’s manifestation of powers through him, the Israelites and their King Ahab have refused to be converted to God. And here now is Queen Jezebel making things worst when she vowed to kill him.

Exhausted and deeply discouraged at the turn of things for him, Elijah stopped to rest and lament under the shade of a tree:

Elijah went a day’s journey into the desert, until he came to a broom tree and sat beneath it. He prayed for death, saying: “This is enough, O Lord! Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers” (1 Kings 19:4).

“This is enough.” It was the same cry of Moses when he felt so bent under the weight of the load God had placed on his shoulders with the people complaining endlessly after their Exodus from Egypt (Num. 10:11-12).

“This is enough.” It was the same cry by Prophet Jeremiah who in his faithfulness to God was subjected to ridicule and persecution by his own people for telling the truth as we heard daily in the first readings of Masses these past two weeks (Jer. 15:10-11; 20:14-15).

“This is enough.” It is also our cry to God like all the other Biblical figures and saints even if we are not going through difficulties not as momentous as theirs. It is a cry that is also a prayer coming from our innermost being when we feel so saddled with no one to unload our woes except to God – who after all is the very reason why we cry!

It is a cry of faith so akin with love because to believe and to love go hand in hand. It is during that moment when we feel like giving up to God, crying “this is enough” when in reality we surrender everything to God because we have been caught up by Him that we cannot resist His attraction. It is that moment when we feel so “fed up with life” but deep inside, we hear God telling us, like Elijah, “Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!” (1 Kings 19:7).

*Photo by author, PDDM chapel, James Alberione Center, QC, 08 August 2024.*

Crying “this is enough” is different from murmuring which comes directly from the intellect. It is not coming from the heart that is an outflow of faith and love. To murmur is to reason out and to challenge God and most often our parents and elders.

The Jews murmured about Jesus because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven,” and they said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? How can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven?'” Jesus answered and said to them, “Stop murmuring among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him the last day” (John 6:41-44).

When we were growing up as kids, it was a mortal sin to murmur to parents and elders. Most of all, it is not only sinful but also bastos because when we murmur, we dare and challenge God and our elders. Murmuring is a willful act, an activity of the intellect tinged with malice and insubordination as we imply to know better, even superior than others. The murmuring of the people against Jesus was clearly their failure and refusal to see Him as the Christ, regarding Him merely as one of them with an insinuation of how could He speak that way and be better than them.

Our scene is still in Capernaum where the people have caught up with Jesus and His apostles after that feeding of more than five thousand people in the deserted place before the Jewish Feast of Passover. See the exciting progression of Christ’s Discourse on the Bread of Life with the subtle interplay of questions and answers like when Jesus was narrating a parable to the people.

However, here we find Jesus continuing with His discourse by simply declaring Himself as “I am the bread that came down from heaven”. Next week, Jesus will say “I am the living bread that came down from heaven” that would lead the people to quarreling among themselves, not just murmuring! Eventually all these interplay of questions and answers would lead to Jesus challenging the people and us on the last Sunday of this month to either leave or follow Him (August 25, 21st Sunday).

There is no need for Jesus to explain or clarify things as in defending Himself. Clearly, plain and simple, Jesus tells us the truth of Himself as the Bread from Heaven who sustains our life here on earth, precisely more than that bread sent by God to Elijah in the wilderness to continue with his long journey. This requires faith and love on our part.

Jesus is telling us today as He had expressed to the people in Capernaum that there is another dimension, of a higher degree and deeper sense of existence in Him that makes us live forever. When He said “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him”, He was referring to our gift of faith that is akin with love we have mentioned earlier.

But unlike our concept of a gift as being given to a selected few, Jesus here is assuring us all of being gifted with that faith and love. We all have these virtues along with hope that is why we come to the Sunday Mass. Others may have just left these gifts unopened but surely time will come when like Elijah, they will cry out from their hearts “this is enough.”

It is difficult to explain – if it is really possible at all – the deep cause of faith and love except that it is a gift from God. Many times, we may lose faith and love of God but later find them again especially when we are shaken by life-changing moments that may be either good or bad. Just like in falling in love: recall those time when we took some people for granted in our lives only to discover later he or she is the love of your life! Then we become aware of the many reasons beyond explanations why we love them because we are so caught up by that love.

Level up that experience in God when believing in Him is to allow ourselves to be captured or seized by Him who alone is infinitely worthy of love when we say, “ah, basta si Lord iyon!” like Carlo Yulo after winning his two gold medals in the Paris Olympics.

We gather today in this Sunday Mass with all of our cries of surrender and desperations to God, sometimes we murmur but Jesus understands us very well as He continues to give Himself to us in the liturgy of the word and in the Eucharist. You are loved and welcomed to rest inside the church to receive that bread from heaven to enable you to journey farther in life. Let us pray:

God our most loving Father,
let us live in the love 
of your Son Jesus Christ
as St. Paul urged us today in
his letter to the Ephesians;
our life is a long march
that is monotonous and even painful;
many times we feel like Elijah
giving up, so fed up in life;
thank You, dear Father
in giving us your Son Jesus
who is more than enough to
strengthen us in this long journey
back to You.
Amen.

An august month, not a ghost month

Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 09 August 2024

*Photo by author, Parish of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, Valenzuela City, 24 July 2024.*

I was recently asked to bless a little store the other day, the seventh day of August. My schedule was toxic with another appointment in another city but the owner begged because she believed it is the most auspicious date for blessing.

How I wanted to ask her why have a blessing at all if you believe in luck than in God? Para wala nang gulo, I blessed her store but explained the meaning of blessing and of superstitions during the rites. It is one of those occasions when all we can do is sigh, saying haynaku and Juice colored!

What a sad reality in our Catholic Christian country where the kind of religiosity that binds most of us is more on rites and rituals but lacking in roots and spirituality, centered on ourselves to be assured of every kind of material blessings, forgetting all about the very object of faith who is God expressed in our concern for one another.

And in the light of all these things going on especially the never ending topics in social media, we ask, pera pera na lang ba talaga ang lahat sa buhay natin?

Consider the name of this month August which was borrowed from the Roman Caesar Augustus that signifies reverence or to hold someone in high regard. As an adjective, august means “respected and impressive” like when we say “in this august hall of men and women of science”.

August is not a ghost month nor any other month of the year.

Like the days of the week, every month is a blessed one. No day nor date nor time is malas because these were all created by God who is all good. Nothing bad can come from God. Period.

Moreover, when God became human like us in the coming of Jesus Christ, life has become holy, filled with God, debunking those ancient beliefs of the Divine being seen in various cosmic forces. Pope Benedict explained this so well in his second encyclical:

*Photo by author, St.Scholastica Retreat House, Baguio City, 2023.*

In this regard a text by Saint Gregory Nazianzen is enlightening. He says that at the very moment when the Magi, guided by the star, adored Christ the new king, astrology came to an end, because the stars were now moving in the orbit determined by Christ[2]. This scene, in fact, overturns the world-view of that time, which in a different way has become fashionable once again today. It is not the elemental spirits of the universe, the laws of matter, which ultimately govern the world and mankind, but a personal God governs the stars, that is, the universe; it is not the laws of matter and of evolution that have the final say, but reason, will, love—a Person. And if we know this Person and he knows us, then truly the inexorable power of material elements no longer has the last word; we are not slaves of the universe and of its laws, we are free. In ancient times, honest enquiring minds were aware of this. Heaven is not empty. Life is not a simple product of laws and the randomness of matter, but within everything and at the same time above everything, there is a personal will, there is a Spirit who in Jesus has revealed himself as Love[3]. (#5, Spe Salvi (Saved in Hope) by Pope Benedict XVI, 30 November 2007)

*Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 20 March 2024.*

I love this part of his encyclical, “It is not the elemental spirits of the universe, the laws of matter, which ultimately govern the world and mankind, but a personal God governs the stars, that is, the universe; it is not the laws of matter and of evolution that have the final say, but reason, will, love—a Person.”

It was this Person of Jesus Christ why so many great men and women then and now have abandoned their previous ways of life to lead holy lives even in the face of death. Very interesting in this modern time are two great saints we celebrate on this month of August, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (August 09) and St. Maximilian Kolbe (August 14) who died at the gas chambers of Auschwitz during the Second World War. Let’s reflect first on St. Teresa Benedicta whose memorial we celebrate today.

*Photo from FB page of Scott Hahn, 09 August 2024.*

St. Teresa Benedicta is the German philosopher Edith Stein. She came from a prosperous Jewish family gifted with great mind becoming one of the first female university student and later professor in Germany.

An associate of the famed Edmund Husserl of the philosophical method of phenomenology, St. Teresa Benedicta became an atheist during her teenage years; but, upon further studies and prayer, converted into Catholicism, becoming a Carmelite nun where she adopted her new name. She wrote that “Those who seek truth seek God, whether they realize it or not“.

She actually had all the chances to leave for South America and then to Switzerland to escape the Nazis but opted to stay in their monastery in the Netherlands with her younger sister Rosa who had also converted as Catholic and joined the Third Order Carmelite. When they were arrested on August 2, 1942, she told her, “Come, Rosa… we go for our people.”

St. Teresa Benedicta honored her Jewish roots by dying among them as a martyr of Christ, one who had “learned to live in God’s hands” according to Sr. Josephine Koeppel, OCD, a translator of much of her works. According to various accounts, St. Teresa Benedicta showed great inner strength by encouraging her fellow prisoners to have faith in God while helping in looking after the small children when their mothers were so distressed to do so. One woman who survived the war wrote: “Every time I think of her sitting in the barracks, the same picture comes to mind: a Pieta without the Christ.”

Dying ahead of her in Auschwitz on August 14, 1941 was St. Maximilian Kolbe, a Franciscan priest who was arrested for his writings against the evil Nazis. It was actually his second time to be arrested.

When a prisoner had escaped from the camp, authorities rounded up ten men to die in exchange of the lone escapee. Fr. Kolbe volunteered to take the place of a married man with children. They were all tortured and starved in order to die slowly in pain. A devotee of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Maximilian was injected with carbolic acid on the eve of the Assumption after guards found him along with three other prisoners still alive, without any signs of fear like screaming but silently praying.

We no longer have gas chambers but atrocities against human life continue in our time, hiding in the pretext of science and laws. Until now, men and women, young and old alike including those not yet born in their mother’s womb are hunted and killed to correct what many perceived as excesses and wrongs in the society. Just like what Hitler and his men have thought of the Jews at that time.

The Nazi officers and soldiers of Auschwitz remind us the true “ghosts” and evil spirits of our time sowing hatred and deaths are people who may be well-dressed, even educated in the best schools, and come from devout or “normal” families. They sow evil every day without choosing any particular month, blindly following orders without much thinking and reflections or introspection.

Many times, they insist on following or speaking the truth – a truth so empty of the person of Jesus Christ. As we have been saying amid this growing trend of wokism and inclusivity that have badly infected the Olympics, people tend to exaggerate the truth they believe or follow when actually, they are just exaggerating themselves.

By the lives of the many great saints of August, or of any other month for that matter, we are reminded that holiness is not being sinless but simply being filled with God, being converted daily to the truth of Jesus Christ by allowing that holiness to spill over and flow onto others with our lives of authenticity expressed in charity and mercy, kindness and justice, humility and openness with one another.

Let us make every month holy and blessed with our good deeds to make everyone aware of Christ’s presence among us. Have a blessed weekend!

Way of God, way of man

The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday, Memorial of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Martyr, 09 August 2024
Nahum 2:1, 3; 3:1-3, 6-7 <*((((>< + ><))))*> Matthew 16:24-28

*Photo by author, Chapel of the Angel of Peace, 25 June 2024.*

Lord Jesus Christ,
yesterday You reprimanded Peter
for "thinking not as God does,
but as human beings do";
today, You tell us what is to
think as God does by choosing
your path of the Cross:

Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:24-25).

Forgive us, dear Jesus,
for always choosing the path of
humans, thinking of one's self,
taking and grabbing whatever
is available, unmindful of others;
give us the courage of St. Teresa
Benedicta of the Cross known as
the philosopher Edith Stein:
born to a family of means
and comfort, one of the first women
to study and teach in university 
before World War II in Europe
who became an atheist
only to discover the truth of God
upon meeting a good friend filled with joy
despite the death of her husband;
she eventually converted to Catholic faith
and when war was raging in Europe 
as Hitler ordered the extermination of Jews,
St. Benedicta remained despite her many
chances of leaving safely to Switzerland or
South America only to be imprisoned 
later at Auschwitz where she died 
a martyr in 1942, described by one survivor 
of the Holcaust as a "Pieta without the Christ."

In this life of affluence,
of noise and glamor,
St. Benedicta of the Cross taught
as of the beauty of poverty,
of silence and of simplicity,
of choosing your ways, O Lord Jesus
for indeed, "what would there be 
for one to gain the whole world
and forfeit his life?"

Sadly, it is happening now, Lord,
it is happening: families so divided
because of fame and wealth,
friendships destroyed because of ideologies,
a nation, a culture going down the drain
because of modern thoughts
so far from your ways, Jesus.

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross,
Pray for us to see and follow
the light of Jesus Christ.
Amen.

Written in our hearts

The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thursday, Memorial of St. Dominic, Priest, 08 August 2024
Jeremiah 31:31-34 <*((((>< + ><))))*> Matthew 16:13-23

Graffiti: a writing or drawings on a wall
or other surface, usually without permission
and within public view.

Writings on the wall: an idiom that means
to say something will fail or something
unpleasant will happen like during the time
King Belshazzar when there appeared 
writings on the wall of Babylon's impending
end (see Daniel 5:1-30).

*Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, 20 March 2024.*

The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will place my law within them, and write it uppn their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people (Jeremiah 31:31, 33).

How lovely,
O God our Father,
You chose to write your covenant
on our hearts-
not on the walls
nor documents
that often spell danger
and disaster
or doom and endings;
how lovely
to simply just look
inside our hearts to find
You and your covenant,
O God;
no need to look out
or look up
or look down
and see dirt
and chaos.

Your writing
on our hearts is simple,
noble and reassuring:
You shall be our God,
we are your people;
when Jesus came,
He gave us His heart
to visibly make
that writing,
that covenant
simply the word LOVE.
Many times,
we cannot find
your laws,
your writing on our hearts
because we have covered
them with so many other gods;
very often,
Jesus comes to us
asking us the same question
to the Twelve,
"But who do you say
that I am?"
but we are so busy
with our many pursuits in life,
reading the many writings
on the wall and pavements
of our sick world.

Cleanse our hearts, Lord
to truly give You our
sincere answers
and remember your
covenant of love
written on our hearts.
Amen.

St. Dominic De Guzman,
Pray for us!

Faith is hope

The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Wednesday in the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time, Year II, 07 August 2024
Jeremiah 31:1-7 <*((((>< + ><))))*> Matthew 15:21-28

Yes, a day will come when the watchmen will call out on Mount Ephraim: “Rise up, let us go to Zion, to the Lord, our God.” For thus says the Lord: Shout with joy for Jacob, exult at the head of the nations; proclaim your praise and say: The Lord has delivered his people, the remnant of Israel (Jeremiah 31:6-7).

How refreshing are your words
today, God our loving Father;
so upbeat with hope
for the divided nation of
Judah and Israel to finally
be one just like us today:
so divided recently with all
the mockery and sacrilege
in the Paris Olympics
only to be united
by Carlos Yulo's 
recent harvest of two gold medals;
what a beautiful lesson in faith in You
that is also hope itself;
from being the least supported
and known sport in the country,
Yulo remained faithful
filled with hope in You
while persevering in gymnastics;
like Yulo and Jeremiah's command,
let us shout with joy to You,
proclaiming your redemption
that literally means "Hosanna"
in Hebrew, the very shouts of joy
when Jesus entered Jerusalem
on Palm Sunday.

She said, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” Then Jesus said to her in reply, “O woman, great is uyour faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that hour (Matthew 15:27-28).

Like that Canaanite woman
who begged Jesus,
even bantered with Him
about dogs and puppies,
bread and crumbs
for mercy and healing to her
sick daughter,
help us realize that faith is hope;
that hope is more than positive thinking
of how things would get better
but could even get worse
yet still believe in God!

Thank you Jesus
for always coming to "pagan"
territories like Tyre and Sidon;
keep our faith and hope burning
to await You,
to recognize You,
to meet You
coming in the midst of our
many darkness and brokenness.
Amen.