“Guilty, your Honor!”

Lord My Chef Sunday Recipe for Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A, 18 October 2026
Isaiah 45:1, 4-6 ><}}}}*> 1 Thessalonians 1:1-5 ><}}}}*> Matthew 22:15-21

*Photo by dp singh Bhullar on Pexels.com*

Ever since, I have never been fascinated with court scenes except with those television series like LA Law, the Lincoln Lawyer and Law & Order that was actually more of police stories. Hence, I have never followed up the Impeachment trial of the Vice President except read reports or watch reels of what transpired in each day because I simply don’t have the patience. Imagine the comedies happening daily courtesy of the defense team.

However, while praying over our gospel this Sunday, it looked like a sort of trial scene in court for me where Jesus seems to be on trial by his enemies. Beginning this Sunday until next, Christ’s enemies would take turns in entrapping Jesus with questions hoping to find grounds for his arrest.

The Pharisees went off and plotted how they might entrap Jesus in speech. They sent their disciples to him, with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. And you are not concerned with anyone’s opinion, for you do not regard a person’s status. Tell us, then, what is your opinion: Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?” Knowing their malice, Jesus said, “Why are you testing me, you hypocrites? Show me the coin that pays the census tax.” Then they handed him the Roman coin. He said to them, “Whose image is this and whose inscription?” They replied, “Caesar’s .” At that he said to them, “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God” (Matthew 22:15-21).

*“Ecce Homo” by Swiss-Italian painter Antonio Ciseri (ca.1860-1880), from wikimediacommons.org*

The scene is actually a prelude to Jesus Christ’s trial before Pontius Pilate after his enemies eventually made up charges against him.

Reflecting on the trial of Jesus by Pontius Pilate, St. John Paul II wrote that until now we put God on trial, accusing him of so many crimes and negligence in the world. And the most ironic part of it is that the more we accuse God of “crimes”, the more we incriminate ourselves actually into the very crimes we accuse him. Every trial, every testing of God is a self-indictment of our very selves.

Self-incrimination is the act of making a statement, providing testimony, or sharing information that exposes one’s self to criminal liability or possible criminal prosecution. Self-indictment is a slight variation of self-incrimination or to describe an action, statement, or work that acts as a severe, self-generated criticism or condemnation of oneself (from wikipedia).

See how the bitter enemies, Pharisees and Herodians joined forces against Jesus: the Pharisees were against the Roman occupiers while the Herodians were pro-Romans. They are a perfect example of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Though they hated each other, they hated Jesus even more, foolishly deciding to set aside their differences momentarily to settle a score against Jesus.

But Jesus smelled their rancid odor right away, asking them of their motive, calling them hypocrites!

But their hypocrisy lies not only in their joining forces against Jesus but most of all in knowing how Jesus is so fair and just, “teaching the way of God in accordance with the truth”, then, why did they not finally accept him as the Christ and followed him? After all their praises, they have the gall to test him?

It was a hypocrisy to the highest degree actually. That is why we always have to beware of people who lavish us with praises with their lips smooth as butter but sharp as dagger.

The Pharisees and all enemies of Jesus have seen how he loved the poor and the sick, the marginalized, the women especially the widows, the children, the sinners and even them despite their being self-righteous. Jesus never drove them away nor rejected their invitations to dinner. Yet, they still refused to believe in Jesus and they wanted to test him.

It is the same tactic we have against one another, against Jesus. We go into secret alliances with our “enemies” against a common enemy without realizing it is in itself a self-indictment of our own sinfulness. It is one reason why I have strongly opposed priests and church organizations aligning with some groups like the so-called progressives, leftists or left-leaning who are mostly wokes: many times we may share a common stand against certain issues like capital punishment but what about their hard-core stance on divorce, contraceptives and abortion, gender-redefinition and same-sex marriage?

How much do we really believe in God? Then why do we have to “sleep with the enemies” like the rich and powerful politicians for donations and favors?

*Flemish painter Peter Paul Ruben’s “The Tribute Money” (ca. 1612) from commonswikimedia.org.*

Inasmuch as we view this as a sort of a court trial scene with the Pharisees and Herodians on the offensive, Jesus is not on the defensive mode here because he has nothing to defend in the first place. In fact, his enemies have conceded earlier on the good character of Jesus which we have just mentioned earlier.

Reminiscent of the tempting by the devil in the wilderness and later his trials with the Sanhedrin then with Pilate, here we find Jesus always with the “upper hand”, never swayed for he is sure and certain of himself. Plaudits and flatteries can never deviate Jesus from the truth that he is the Christ, the Son of God. And this is what he is telling us here: believe in yourself. Stand with your conviction in Christ always. Do not be bothered or affected by what others say.

This we shall see at how Jesus addressed his enemies with their entrapment by asking for a Roman coin. It was the strongest case of his enemies’ self-incrimination, of hypocrisy: they really have no plans of knowing whether it was lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not because in giving Jesus the Roman coin, they have betrayed themselves as in fact paying the tax to Rome after all, even the Pharisees who were anti-Rome.

Most of all, they were not supposed to bring into the temple area idolatrous objects, images of other gods, exactly what a Roman coin was with the image and inscription of the Roman emperor who believed in himself as a god. It was the height of their stupidity to bring out that Roman coin, their clear self-indictment. Though they professed faith in God as Jews, they still followed the false gods of Rome like its emperor.

*“Ecce Homo” painting by Spanish painter Juan de Juanes (ca.1570), from commons.wikimedia.org*

Every day, this happens among us, always complaining, always ranting to God, even sometimes testing him like the Pharisees and the Herodians; but, if we search our hearts, if check on what we have, who we follow, we too are guilty like the enemies of Jesus having aligned with the new gods of today like cellphone and other gadgets, wealth and fame.

How unfortunate many these days live in social media where what is most accepted even glorified and followed is whatever that is shallow and superficial, rude and obscene, stupid and idiotic.

Jesus tells us this Sunday to look beyond what we see on things to find God who is the source of our very life, of every blessings we enjoy. Let us hold on to that assurance by St. Paul in the second reading that we were chosen by God in Christ Jesus to receive all his abundant blessings in life. Hold on to Jesus. Look beyond and find the face of Jesus in everything and everyone like the Persian emperor Cyrus in the first reading used by God as instrument in setting free the Jewish exiles in Babylon. Amen. Have a blessed week ahead!

The Visitation: Waking up from our “sleepwalking Christian existence”

The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Tuesday, Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 31 May 2022
Romans 12:9-16 ><}}}}*> + <*{{{{>< Luke 1:39-56

*Photo by author, Church of the Visitation, Ein-Karem, Israel, May 2017.*

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. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”
Luke 1:39-43

It always happens with us, too, when we experience great privilege and honor be given us by others, most especially by God when like Elizabeth, we have that sense of awe and wonder to ask “who am I” to be accorded with such great honor.

Many times we find ourselves asking God, “why me, Lord?” when given a great blessing in life (and also when experiencing extreme suffering and difficulty). We believe there is somebody better and smarter than us, one who is more capable than us that we always wonder if God really has a plan for us.

It is good to maintain such a sense of humility before God and others like Elizabeth, but sometimes, it can happen that after seeing clearly our role in the plan of God, we back out or worst, we pretend to be doing our part. This is what the Orthodox Christian theologian Olivier-Maurice Clement, a friend of St. John Paul II who warned about “sleepwalking existence” wherein we pretend to be real disciples of Christ when we are actually dreaming.

As we come near to the closing of the Easter season with the approaching midyear on this last day of May after our recent elections, this Feast of the Visitation is the time for us to wake up from our sleepwalking existence, to face the discomforting realities of being disciples of Jesus Christ.

During our diocesan celebration of the World Communication Sunday, one of the more than 300 young people who attended our recollection asked our guest speaker Fr. Ilde Dimaano of the CBCP Episcopal Commission on Social Communication how does he see our “failure in the Church in communicating the gospel with results of the recent elections?” I was so glad with Fr. Ilde’s answer when he clarified to the young people that we did not lost in the recent elections because we have all done so well in harnessing various forms of communications in spreading the gospel by educating the people. Without sounding partisan nor political, Fr. Ilde challenged our young parish communicators to review and study our communication efforts to find ways of getting better.

It is about time that we in the Church must accept that the recent elections show how we have disappointed the people again, of how we have been more aligned with the rich and powerful and our claims about “Church of the poor” are just poster signs than reality.

*Photo by author, Chapel of Basic Education Department, Our Lady of Fatima University, Valenzuela City, 2021.*

We in the Church should never be surprised at all that we are maligned and misunderstood because that was how Christ was treated during His time. It is time for us clergy to wake up from our sleepwalking existence and get real with our vocation of truly shepherding the Lord’s flock, of finally putting an end to our adventures and forays into partisan politics. Like Mary, we priests must first of all immerse ourselves in the Word, Jesus Christ, which Vatican II has long stipulated us to do. See how Elizabeth called Mary “blessed” because she believed in the words spoken to her would be fulfilled. Instead of continuing to stir into flame the frustrations and disappointments of the people, like Mary we priests must “go in haste to the hill country” to reach out to everyone and inspire them to find God’s plans for us in the next six years.

Whether in good times or in bad, God comes to us in Christ Jesus. Do we truly carry him like Mary or are we just sleepwalking?

This Feast of the Visitation is a good celebration for us to accept the real hard stuffs of Jesus Christ like witnessing to his love and mercy among the poor and the disadvantaged, of bringing him to those forgotten by their families and the society like Mary sang in her Magnificat.

And like Elizabeth, let us doubt no more that despite our nothingness, we are worthy before God, that he has plans for us in bringing Christ Jesus in this world even if our mission may look so different from others yet so closely related in establishing his kingdom here on earth.

May the calls of St. Paul in our first reading awaken us from our “sleepwalking Christian existence” to be like Mary and Elizabeth in nurturing the seeds of God’s kingdom here on earth by truly walking the dusty and difficult roads in this life.

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. Do not grow slack in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer.
Romans 12:9-12

These are the real hard stuff we need these days as we seem to be having some semblance of end of pandemic – it is time for us to visit like Mary the many Elizabeths who have been into “seclusion” during these past two years. So many feel so lost, trying to find directions at this time as they try to pick up the pieces of their lives wrecked by COVID-19.

God is visiting us daily because he loves us, he believes in us. Most of all, he comes to us in Jesus so that we can share him to more people to experience the Father’s love and mercy, kindness and blessings. Amen.

“Caritas Christi urget nos”

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Saturday, Solemnity of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, 12 June 2021
2 Corithians 5:14-21 ><)))'> + <'(((>< Luke 2:41-51

Praise and glory to you, O God our loving Father for your immense love for us. Yesterday we celebrated the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus your Son who revealed to us the boundless love you have for us all as your beloved children.

But, such great is your love for us, God our Father, that today, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of your Son Jesus Christ who gave her to us to be our Mother too!

All for your love for us!

What a wonderful twin celebrations of your love for us which must also be the main reason, the very essence of everything in our existence. St. Paul expressed it so well in today’s first reading, “The love of Christ urges us” (Caritas Christi urget nos, 2Cor.5:14).

Love is the very reason, the only reason why you have created us, why you have saved us, why you have given us your Son, why he had given himself for us.

Forgive us when we refuse to accept and recognize, and most of all, when we refuse to share your great love for us with others.

Teach us to be like the Blessed Virgin Mary whose heart is so inflamed with great love to you and her Son Jesus Christ.

Open our hearts to welcome you always, Lord.

Dwell in our hearts, reign in our hearts, dear Jesus, so that we may work for peace, for reconciliation in ourselves with the Father, with our family and friends, and with our countrymen. Help us to heed these beautiful words of St. Paul today:

So we are ambassadors for Christ,
as if God were appealing through us.
We implore you on behalf of Christ,
be reconciled to God.
For our sake
 he made him to be sin who did not know sin,
so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
(2 Corinthians 5:20-21)

Like Mary, along with Joseph, may we always find our way back to God our Father when they decided to go back to Jerusalem to look for the missing child Jesus. And once found, may we imitate Mary who “kept all these things in her heart” (Lk.2:51). Surely, you must have told her many other things, Lord, but most of all, it was YOU whom she must have kept and treasured in her heart!

And that is why on this most crucial part of our history as the only Christian nation for 500 years in this part of the world deeply caught in all kinds of crises especially moral decadence in governance despite our celebration of 123 years of Independence from foreign rule, help us to consecrate our nation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary of the Blessed Virgin Mary so that your love Jesus Christ may impel us to never waver in our efforts for true reconciliation, for real transformation to be truly a people dedicated to God our Father. Amen.