Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Thursday in the Fifth Week of Easter, 23 May 2025 Acts 15:7-21 <*((((>< + ><))))*> John 15:9-11
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 20 March 2025.
Make my joy complete, Lord Jesus, let your joy be in me (John 15:11)!
True joy comes only in union with the Father like you, dear Jesus; in a world that had shrunk into one global village due to modern technology that has spawned so many forms and kinds of connections among peoples, we are not yet filled with joy, Lord; in fact, the more we have been separated than ever because our "connections" are fleeting, empty of any love at all; true connections in you, with you Jesus lead to joy as we have seen in the experience of the early Church:
After much debate had taken place, Peter got up and said to the Apostles and the presbyters… “Why, then, are you now putting God to the test by placing on the shoulders of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they” (Acts 15:7, 10-11).
When we keep your commandments, then we remain in your love, Jesus; that's the only basis and most essential in every connection and relationship because when there is love even if in the midst of pain and suffering, there is always joy which is more than a feeling but an assurance that no matter what, there is God always on our side, loving us, blessing us as Peter explained in the Council of Jerusalem; grant us the grace to remain in your love, Jesus, to examine in what areas of our life we remain and grow in your love. Amen.
Photo by author, Chapel of the Angel of Peace, Our Lady of Fatima University, Valenzuela City, 28 March 2025.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B, 03 November 2024 Deuteronomy 6:2-6 ><}}}}*> Hebrews 7:23-28 ><}}}}*> Mark 12:28-34
Photo by author, river at the back of Nagsasa Cove, San Antonio, Zambales, 19 October 2024.
Jesus finally entered Jerusalem to fulfill His mission as we also enter the last four Sundays of our liturgical year before entering the season of Advent in preparation for Christmas.
Two Sundays ago we reflected the atmosphere of fear among the Apostles and the crowd following Jesus to Jerusalem after He had made known to them for the third time His coming Passion, Death, and Resurrection. This Sunday our readings invite us to look into that feeling of fear we often experience.
Fear can be negative in nature when we experience a threat to our safety whether there is a clear and present danger from a person or animal hurting us, or when our imagination runs wild with ghosts or a snake underneath the bed at night.
Positive fear is actually the reverence we experience due to a sense of awe often associated with our relationships like with our parents and relatives, teachers and superiors, or any person who seem to amaze us. We fear them not because they threatened us but actually inspired us with their presence, dignity and grace, intelligence and kindness among other things. This kind of fear we experienced in childhood then slowly matured and blended with trust, translated into adoration of the persons so unforgettable to us, influencing us in many ways that we have come to love them eventually, especially God. This is what the Bible and catechism books refer to as “fear of the Lord”.
Photo by author, Mount Sinai, Egypt, May 2019.
Moses spoke to the people, saying: “Fear the Lord, your God, and keep, throughout the days of your lives, all his statutes and commandments which I enjoin on you, and thus have long life. Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone! Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. Take to heart these words which I enjoin on you today” (Deuteronomy 6:2, 4-6).
This “fear of the Lord” that Moses and later the prophets instilled among the Israelites was expressed in faithfulness and obedience to the Laws so that for them, being holy or upright was obedience to the Laws.
This “fear of the Lord” is not about God overpowering man to keep him in bondage. In giving the Ten Commandments, God first entered into a relationship or covenant with the chosen people based on friendship, trust, and love. See here that positive aspect of fear, of reverence like our fear of parents and elders as well as those seemed larger than us including our crushes and first love when we revered them by showing them love and respect.
This “fear of the Lord” then becomes a passing from fear to love that leads us to maturity as persons. And believers. Then lovers and followers not only of those significant people in our lives but most especially of God!
One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” Jesus replied, “The first is this: Hear, O Israel! The Lord your God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:28-31).
Photo of author, Mount Sinai, Egypt, May 2019.
Unlike the tricky questions posed by His enemies, this one from a scribe was so unique with his calm attitude that invites everyone including us to join in the discussion. One can feel his sincerity in seeking out the truth he felt (rightly so!) only Jesus can answer.
Many times, we feel the same way like that scribe so convinced in asking Jesus, ready to follow Him only if we are clarified which is the first to follow in life in order to mature from fear to love.
"Which is the first of all the commandments?"
Like that scribe, many times we feel confused in our lives, in our faith with the many laws and traditions we were told since childhood to follow; hence, we ask “which is the first of the commandments” that really matter most in life.
Such moments in our life is a grace from the Holy Spirit because in asking “the first of the commandments” is not to determine a hierarchy nor a list of which ones to be prioritized and dismissed; the “first” commandment means the absolutely capital that is always binding on all. The “first” commandment is the one to which all others are subjected without being cancelled or considered least nor optional. The “first” commandment is the very essence of all commandments present in each commandment. It is actually a search for the First Principle who is God Himself!
That is why Jesus quoted verbatim Deuteronomy 6:4-5, the opening words of their best known prayer Shema every pious Jew knows by heart, “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone! Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.”
Similar to His manner of answering the question about divorce last month, Jesus did not answer the scribe’s question by making reference to a code of laws but instead recited the Shema that encapsulates maturity and deepening of faith in God who is One, with no other except Him. The Shema also shows how our personal God relates with us His people, bonding in a covenant like husband and wife that is reciprocal, exclusive, and total love “with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength.”
This “first” commandment is also a relationship that flows to our relationships with one another we rightly call as neighbors. See how Jesus added a “second” commandment not as in a hierarchy making it less important but as an expression of the essential “first” commandment of all the scribe understood well when he affirmed, “Well said teacher… and to love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices” (Mk.12:32, 33).
For the Jews, their neighbors were their fellow Jews and those aliens residing in their land as found in the Book of Leviticus; but, in this scene, we find Jesus bringing that whole notion of neighbors for everyone, regardless of color and status in life, or of gender, or beliefs.
Jesus makes known to us this Sunday His mission of salvation is for all, for everyone. Most of all, Jesus tells us this Sunday that He is the fulfillment of the Law that many during His time and sadly until now have misread as mere letters to be followed, failing to find the face of God in every law inscribed on every person.
Photo by author, view from Jerusalem Temple, May 2019.
How interesting that each face has two cheeks, both essential, both as the first commandment: love of God is love of neighbor. To profess and practice this faith in God that started in fear and matured into love finding Him in everyone as our neighbor is to be “not far from the kingdom of God” (Mk.12:34).
Friends, let us not fear asking Jesus which is the “first” of the commandments like that scribe.
Keep asking Him until we find Jesus “first” in our trials and tribulations, darkness and confusions, failures and emptiness.
Keep asking Him until we find Jesus “first” on those people who burden us, those who hurt us, those who judge us, those who refuse to listen to us, those who dictate on us.
Keep asking Him until we find Jesus even in programs and plans we could not understand or that are downright crazy.
That is what to truly love God and to love everyone. It is difficult but we have Jesus as our high-priest “who has passed through the heavens” leading us closer to the kingdom of God. Amen. Have a lovely November!
Photo by author, Pundaquit Mountains, San Antonio, Zambales off Nagsasa Cove, 19 October 2024.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday in the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time, Year I, 28 July 2023
Exodus 20:1-27 ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> Matthew 13:18-23
Photo by Ms. Nikki Vergara in Victoria, Laguna, July 2020.
God our loving Father,
make me a good soil,
a real "good earth" who
welcomes your word
to penetrate my heart.
Let me be a
good soil, O Lord,
by allowing myself
to be absorbed
by your word,
your seed.
Let your word,
O God, grow
and bear fruit
in my heart!
Forgive us
that until now
from Mount Sinai
where you gave us
your Ten Commandments
to the shores of Galilee
where Jesus spoke to us
in parables of your kingdom
up to now in the comforts
of our homes and
parish church amid
the squalor of our many
brothers and sisters
without decent home,
your words seem to have
fallen on deaf ears.
O how you amaze me
so greatly, loving God
for your patience in
continuing to speak to us,
inviting us to enter into a
dialogue and relationship
with you; and yet, here we
are, not listening,
still stubborn;
teach me to give myself
to you completely so
you would absorb me
and fill me with your life
and energy.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Monday, Memorial of Sts. Joachim and Anne, Parents of BVM, 26 July 2021
Sirach 44:1,10-15 ><]]]]*> + <*[[[[>< Matthew 13:16-17
Photo by Mr. Jim Marpa, 2018.
"Old age is the final stage
of human maturity and a sign
of God's blessing."
(St. John Paul II, Letter
to the Elderly, 01 October 1999)
God our loving Father,
today we remember
the elderly among us
in celebration of the Memorial
of St. Joachim and St. Anne,
parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
grandparents of our Lord
Jesus Christ.
Thank you for their many gifts
that without them, we won't be
here at all while at the same time,
life for us will be not this easy
and comfortable without their
many sacrifices and efforts
we may never know
or even experience.
"Their bodies are peacefully laid away,
but their name lives on and on."
(Sirach 44:11)
Teach us, O Lord, to put a stop
to the wrong and evil mentality
of our time that gives priority
to human usefulness and productivity
that lead to contempt
for the later years of life
that make older people wonder
if their lives are still worthwhile.
Help us recover, merciful Father,
the correct perspective on life
as a whole that leads to eternity
for which we are all preparing for,
guided by the elderly among us
who share with us their wisdom
and maturity of the past
on which our present is firmly rooted.
"But, blessed are your eyes,
because they see, and your ears,
because they hear. Amen,
I say to you, many prophets
and righteous people longed
to see what you see but
did not see it, and to hear
what you hear but did not hear it."
(Matthew 13:16-17)
We pray most especially, dear God
on this day for the young people
to remain close to the elderly
with much love and generosity,
for them to realize how older people
can give them much more
than they can imagine
to grasp life's meaning.
Make us remember to keep
your only commandment with
the promise of blessing at old age
to honor our father and mother
by welcoming the elderly,
by helping them in their old age, and most
specially, by upholding their dignity as your
most unique gift to humanity. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday, Week XVI, Year I, 23 July 2021
Exodus 20:1-17 ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> Matthew 13:18-23
“The Sower” by Van Gogh from commons.wikimedia.org
It has been raining for a week,
loving God and Father.
Farmers and sowers must be so
delighted to come out in the fields
to sow their seeds while we stay home
trying to keep ourselves dry and warm.
Help us to make room for you, dear Father,
to open up ourselves to the seeds
of your presence that come to us daily
in your words in the Sacred Scriptures.
Let us be like the fertile soil in the parable
by Jesus "who hears the word and
understands it, who indeed bears fruit
and yields a hundred or sixty or
thirtyfold." (Matthew 13:23)
Your seed is always good
springing into life wherever it falls
for you alone, O God, is good!
How lovely it is to imagine
that all Ten Commandments sprang up
from just one seed that is YOU, dear Father -
You are the seed we always reject
when You are the seed we all need.
Whenever we choose to commit sin,
we take on other strange gods
and idols besides You that
we worship and follow.
May we open ourselves to You, God
welcoming you like a seed into our little room
so we may find home in You when it blooms.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul, Week VI-A, 16 February 2020
Sirach 15:15-20 ><)))*> 1 Corinthians 2:6-10 ><)))*> Matthew 5:17-37
Photo by author of pilgrims entering the Church of the Beatitudes with a painting of the Sermon on the Mount above the door, May 2019.
Jesus continues his Sermon on the Mount this Sunday, expounding the meaning of his teachings called the Beatitudes. As we have reflected last week, the Beatitudes tell us the person of Jesus Christ as being “poor, merciful, clean of heart” whom we must all imitate to become the salt and the light of the world.
Most important of all, Matthew presents to us at the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus is more than the new Moses as giver of laws like at Mt. Sinai in the Old Testament: Jesus himself is the Law, who is both our Teacher and Redeemer.
This we see in his teachings today when he claims to be the fulfillment of the Laws and the Prophets from God in the Old Testament.
Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill it. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.”
Matthew 5:17-18
Essence of the Laws: reflection of God, the good of man
Today, Jesus is teaching us to see the laws in the right perspectives, in the light of the will of God for the good of every person. Throughout his ministry, Jesus has always been consistent in reminding everyone that the laws were made for man, not the other way around.
During Christ’s time, people have lost the real meaning of the Commandments of God as priests and religious leaders focused more on its letters than in its essence and spirit that in the process, the laws have become burdensome. It has continued in our own generation with laws taking precedence over God and persons.
Photo by author of the Church of the Beatitudes at the Holy Land, May 2019.
At the Sermon on the Mount, we find Jesus restoring and recalibrating the laws so that these become more relevant and powerful as reflections of God in the service of man.
Jesus “relectures” us the laws in this part of his Sermon on the Mount by adding more righteousness (holiness), declaring that,
“I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 5:20
By using a pattern where he would cite Laws, saying, “You have heard that it was said”– Jesus shows us his fidelity and obedience to Judaism, contrary to his enemies’ accusations that he had abolished their laws. Moreover, in fulfilling the laws, Jesus put himself in the midst of every law and precept by declaring, “Amen, I say to you” or “but I say to you”.
In following that formula, Jesus gave the laws with a human face and a human heart in himself as its fulfillment so that from then on at his Sermon on the Mount, Christ made every law, every tradition, everything else to be seen always in his person.
Black and white photo by Mr. Jay Javier in Quiapo, 09 January 2020.
Performative powers of the laws in Jesus Christ
With Jesus in the midst of every law and precept as its fulfillment, God’s laws then become not only informative but most of all, performative to borrow one of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s favorite expression. This we find Jesus teaching us in three stages in our long gospel this Sunday.
Education of the heart.
The first two laws cited by Jesus in this long list of commandments are “You shall not kill” and “you shall not commit adultery”. Both laws bring us to the very core of our personhood, of what is in our hearts and in our minds. The Lord explains that being angry as well as saying bad words against another person is like murder while looking lustfully at a woman is a form of adultery because in both cases, we have ceased to regard the other individuals as persons to be loved and respected, created in the image and likeness of God.
From Google.
It is an invitation for us to purify our hearts and minds for what defiles man is not what enters him but what comes out from him (Mt.15:11). Whatever is within us will always have an effect in all of our actions, for better or for worse.
What a tragedy that right here in the middle of our wired world of social media and instant communications, we have actually grown apart than together in the last 35 year with so much animosities fed on by lies and misinformation.
How ironic also that despite the information explosion from the Net, we have more benighted souls today than ever before who have actually gone to schools who know nothing of our history and geography?!
Education of the heart is formation of the whole person, not just a training of skills. One problem we have these days is when information is geared on data and facts without integration that we forget our relationships as well as the values we keep like respect, kindness, and dedication. Unless we have an education of the heart, a wholistic and integral formation, we can never be transformed into like Jesus Christ.
2. Get into the roots of our sins.
In telling us to pluck out our right eye or cut off our right hand if these cause us to sin, Jesus is inviting us again to probe deep into our hearts and being to understand what causes us to sin.
Photo by author, water plants in my room at the Fatima Parish and National Shrine, Valenzuela City, 2010.
The key here is to be totally free. In the first reading, Ben Sirach counsels us to “choose” rightly what is good and avoid what is evil.
We can only exercise our true freedom when we have clearer knowledge and understanding of ourselves and of things within us. We fall into vices and sins because we do not know what is going on inside us; hence, we are enslaved by our desires and sins to be not free at all.
Once we understand our sins, we commit them less often. Most of all, when we understand our sins, our struggles against committing these become more persevering, resulting to more triumphs than defeats.
The Season of Lent is near. Once again, we shall be busy with fasting and abstinence, contrition and confession of sins, almsgiving and other spiritual works that make us holy. But too often, these acts become mechanical that sooner, we sometimes reach that point when we cannot find meaning in doing them anymore that we sink deeper into sins and evil.
This happens when we get focused with letters of the laws and we forget its spirit that we become mechanical because we have failed to understand our very selves as well as our sins.
3. Be true.
Jesus said it perfectly well at the end of his teachings today,
“Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one.”
Matthew 5:37
In this last installment of reviewing the laws, Jesus underscored the problems with divorce as well as with lies that continue to this day because we always choose not to be true at all with ourselves, with God, and with others.
Photo by author of the last two Stations of the Cross at the chapel of my niece Ms. Babs Sison in Los Baños, Laguna 13 February 2020.
See the wisdom of Jesus in putting together divorce and oaths, the two great lies that until now continue to mislead so many among us who refuse to accept and carry the cross of Christ, preferring only the Easter Sunday minus the Good Friday.
Being true is embracing the Cross of Jesus Christ like St. Paul in the second reading. It is something we cannot deny in this life. There will always be pain and sufferings. As Dr. Scott Peck put it in his book The Road Less Travelled, “life is difficult.”
At his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus clearly showed in his Beatitudes that he and his values are in sharp contrast to the wisdom of the world. And this wisdom is only accessible to those willing to embrace the crucified Christ and the scandal of the cross.
It is there on the Cross with Jesus Christ we truly find the fulfillment of the laws as well as our fullness as persons. Amen.
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