The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul, Tuesday, Easter Week-IV, 05 May 2020
Acts of the Apostles 11:19-26 +++0+++ John 10:22-30
Photo from Reddit
Our loving God and Father, as countless men and women are now searching for the cure and vaccine against this corona virus that have hit us, you have also given us opportunities to look inside ourselves to examine the things and persons we are searching for in this life.
Today’s first reading reminds us how Barnabas went to Antioch to see for himself the power and grace of the gospel of your Son Jesus Christ being preached there among the gentiles.
When he arrived and saw the grace of God, he rejoiced and encouraged them all to remain faithful to the Lord in firmness of heart, for he was a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith. And a large number of people were added to the Lord.
Acts of the Apostles 11:23-24
Not only that: Barnabas also “went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he had found him he brought him to Antioch” (Acts 11:25).
What a remarkable attitude by Barnabas to search for the truth, to find the realities going on in Antioch!
Most of all, his efforts to look for Saul – a person feared and perhaps hated at that time – to bring him into the church in Antioch that eventually led to his baptism and adoption of the new name of Paul.
Give us, O Lord, the same desire for you! That we may always look for you in every situation we are into especially in this time of the corona. May we also look for those people we can bring closer to you through our communities, especially those suspected of so many things like St. Paul before.
How sad that sometimes, we are more like those in the gospel who kept on looking for you, Jesus, not because of a desire to really know you and follow you but to test you.
Give us a heart and the eyes of faith that truly search for what is true and good, that look for you in people and events because, like the deer that yearns for streams of water, our soul thirsts for you. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul, Monday, Easter Week-IV, 04 May 2020
Acts of the Apostles 11:1-18 ><)))*> ooo+ooo <*(((>< John 10:11-18
Photo by Mr. Jim Marpa, 2019.
One good thing about this COVID-19, O Lord, is how it is teaching us today that we all belong to each other, that we all belong to you, our loving and merciful God.
How wonderful that in the midst of quarantine, the many brothers and sisters we have looked down or taken for granted for so long a time are finally telling us, showing us that in this life, we do not need boundaries or walls but bridges to link us all as one.
We belong to just one flock with one Shepherd, Jesus Christ.
In him alone can we rely and trust because he is the only one who is “the way and the truth and the life.”
Even him tells us in today’s gospel that there are still other sheep who do not belong to our fold of whom he must also look after and guide (Jn.10:16) because ultimately, we all go to one destination in life which is eternity in you, O God, our Father Almighty.
Help us realize like Peter in the first reading that the key is to be inclusive than exclusive. May we see that more than the many superficialities of our color, beliefs, and gender is your Son’s Easter gift of divinity you have shared with us.
May we focus more on our similarities than differences so that we may work and live harmoniously as one big community to never allow this calamity to befall us again. Amen.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 03 May 2020
Photo by author, Parokya ni San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Bagbaguin, Santa Maria, Bulacan. April 2020.
Against the advice of good friends, I went out to distribute Holy Communion in the streets to some parishioners who have participated in our Sunday Mass early this morning at Facebook Live.
I know the risks involved despite our best efforts in having all the precautionary measures but, what convinced me to go on with it is a beautiful Psalm so appropriate during this quarantine period.
As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God.
My being thirsts for God, the living God. When can I go and see the face of God?
And when our quarantine period was extended for the second time before the end of Holy Week last month, I began praying again Psalm 42 every night for that is when I truly long for God so much, most of the time lamenting to him our situation, my condition of being alone in my rectory.
This is the first time I felt like this, so different from those so-called “desolation” or “dryness” because I could feel God present in my prayers but… he is not “fresh”.
Like the deer longing for streams of water, my soul longs for God too.
Not just like the water we buy from a filling station but exactly what the deer yearns for — fresh water that is refreshingly cool not only on your face but deep into your body when sipped amid the burbling sounds of the spring, babbling through rocks and branches of trees with the loamy aroma of earth adding a dash of freshness in you.
Admittedly, sometimes I wonder if I still know how to pray or if I still pray at all!
I can feel God present but he is like someone stacked there in my mind, in my memory, in my ideas shaped by my years of learning and praying.
What I am longing for is a God so alive, so true not only in me but also in another person.
And that is when I realized, most likely, my parishioners must be longing for God too in the same way — the God we all come to meet and celebrate with every Sunday in our little parish, among the people present who are so alive, so vibrant, so true, so touching.
Our empty church since March due to COVID-19.
Psalm 42 is believed to have been sang by David when he was prevented from coming to the tent of God either during the reign of King Saul who plotted to kill him or during the revolt of his own son Absalom when he was already the king of Israel.
Like David or the psalmist, I miss celebrating Mass with my parishioners.
And maybe it is safe to assume that two or three of my parishioners are also feeling the same way with me and David, saying these to the Lord:
My tears have been my food day and night, as they ask daily, “Where is your God?”
Those times I recall as I pour out my soul,
When I went in procession with the crowd, I went with them to the house of God,
Amid loud cries of thanksgiving, with the multitude keeping festival.
Psalm 42:4-5
If there is one very essential thing this pandemic has brought back to us in our very busy lives, it is most certainly God. And if ever this is one thing people need most in this time of corona virus, it is spiritual guidance and nourishment from God through his priests.
Of course, people can pray and talk to God straight as the Pope had reminded us before Holy Week.
But, human as we are, we always experience God and his love, his kindness, his mercy, his presence among other people who guide us and join us in our spiritual journey. They are special people like friends or relatives or pastors with whom they can be themselves, let off some steam, get some rays of light of hope and encouragement.
And that this is why I try to keep in touch with my parishioners in various ways in this time of corona: even I myself can feel so low and dark despite my prayers and very condition of living right here in the house of God who can still feel alone and desolate, even depressed.
If I – a priest – go through all these uncertainties and doubts this in this time of quarantine, how much more are the people, the beloved sheep of Jesus the Good Shepherd?
Why are you downcast, my soul; why do you groan within me?
Wait for God, whom I shall praise again, my savior and my God.
Psalm 42:6
Photo by Ms. Ria De Vera, 10 April 2020.
After our Mass this morning when we set out to distribute the Holy Communion, there was a little drizzle. It did not last long that I just wore a hat and left my umbrella in the rectory.
There were about 30 people who waited for us to receive Holy Communion, most of them along the main highway that stretched to about 2 kilometers. Some families gathered with a little altar at their front gate while a waited a couple waited in a gas station along our route.
In less than 20 minutes, we have completed our mission and as we headed back to the parish, the rains fell again, this time stronger than before.
My driver commented, “The weather cooperated with us, Father”1
I just nodded my head to him inside his tricycle but deep inside me, I felt joy because God answered my prayer, my lamentations for he was crying too, – for me and his people.
May this lamentation be an answer to your lamentations during this pandemic of COVID-19.
Continue with your lamentations to God our Father for this very act of crying out to him is the working of the Holy Spirit he had sent us through our Lord Christ Jesus. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe, Easter Week IV-A, 03 May 2020
Acts of the Apostles 2:14, 36-41 ><)))*> 1 Peter 2:20-25 ><)))*> John 10:1-10
Entrance to the Sepulchre Church in Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified, buried, and rose again. Photo by author, May 2017.
Starting this Sunday, we stop hearing stories of the appearances of the Risen Lord as we go back to the days before his Passion, Death, and Resurrection to reflect further on his words and teachings.
In fact, it is the same path taken by his followers after Easter when they recounted everything Jesus had done and told them as they slowly understood their meanings later in the coming of the Holy Spirt at Pentecost.
Also today is “Good Shepherd Sunday” when every year on this fourth Sunday of Easter the gospel is taken from John 10 which is about Christ’s “Good Shepherd” discourse that actually begins with him declaring he is the gate or the door for the sheep.
So Jesus said again, “Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”
John 10:7-10
Photo from Google.
Entering Jesus our Gate who truly owns the sheep
Let us start our reflection today by recalling our Sunday gospel on the Fourth Week of Lent last March 22 which is about the healing of the man born blind on a sabbath day.
The healing stirred the people and the temple officials led by the Pharisees whom Jesus had hinted as being the ones truly blind who could not see God’s coming in him. As expected, the Pharisees dismissed Christ’s accusations, claiming themselves to be “clean” unlike the man born blind.
Our gospel today is the scene that immediately follows that where Jesus now speaks of himself as the gate where shepherds enter through to tend their sheep. According to the author of the gospel, Jesus was using a figure of speech in referring to himself as the gate for the sheep.
Unfortunately, the Pharisees did not understand Christ’s figure of speech, refusing to be referred to as “thieves and robbers” that Jesus had to use the emphatic “Amen, amen” to declare he is in fact the gate for the sheep.
To clearly understand his being the gate for the sheep, let us fast-forward to his last Easter appearance to Simon Peter and companions by the lake after a night of fishing when they caught nothing until Jesus told them to cast the net on the right side found in John chapter 21.
After their breakfast by the lake, Jesus asked Peter thrice, “do you love me?” and each time he would say yes, the Lord would always tell him to feed his sheep.
It was after that third query as Peter assured him of his love that Jesus told him, “Follow me” (Jn. 21:19).
Here we find the essential truth before anyone can follow Jesus, one has to love him first above all like Simon Peter!
It is only in loving Jesus can anyone truly care for his sheep who “belongs” only to Christ and nobody else.
And this is what we should pray for today as World Day of Prayer for Vocations: not only for more men and women to answer the call to priesthood and religious life but most of all, that we in the ministry love Jesus more than our vocation!
When priests and religious love more their vocation, that is when they become thieves, stealing the sheep from Jesus, claiming them to be theirs that lead to so many abuses in the church, in the liturgy, and in the ministry.
Jesus is the gate for the sheep because first of all the flock belongs to him!
And that is only when we can truly realize too why Jesus is the gate for the sheep.
Photo by Lorenzo Atienza, Malolos Cathedral, June 2019.
How to enter Jesus our Gate
Jesus is the gate who leads his sheep to greener pastures because he is “the way and the truth and the life” (Jn.14:6). And his way is no other than the way of the Cross, of being with him in his daily suffering and death so we can be with him in his resurrection!
One of my favorite scenes of the Crucifixion is when Jesus told Dimas – the good thief who stole heaven – “today you shall be with me in Paradise” (Lk.23:43).
From Google.
See my dear reader that Jesus did not tell Dimas that he would be with him in Paradise later when they die or on Easter when he rises from death.
Jesus was very clear in telling him that “today you shall be with me in Paradise”.
The today is the here and now of heaven in Jesus Christ present to us, present with us, present in us.
Jesus never promised Paradise to anyone when he was freely walking around, neither thirsty nor hungry to show us that every time we go through trials and difficulties, sufferings and pains, that is when we enter Paradise in him our Gate.
When a person suffers a long illness, he/she has already started entering Paradise long before his/her death. That is the unique grace of sickness, of suffering with Jesus and suffering in Jesus which St. Peter tells us in the second reading today:
Beloved: If you are patient when you suffer for doing what is good, this is a grace before God.
1 Peter 2:20
Yes, we are all into great suffering in this time of the corona virus without any clear sign yet when would this finally end.
This in itself is a clear presence of Jesus among us as our Gate: let us “follow in his footsteps” (1Pt. 2:21) to “save ourselves from this corrupt generation” (Acts 2:40) where so many shepherds in government even in the church unconsciously claiming theirs are the sheep, leading them to darkness and misery.
May we all first love the Caller, Jesus Christ our Gate and Good Shepherd, than see more our call or vocation in life that deludes us into owning his flock. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe, Memorial of St. Athanasius, 02 May 2020
Acts of the Apostles 9:31-42 <*(((>< ><)))*> <*(((>< ><)))*> John 6:60-69
Photo by author inside the Holy Sepulchre Church in Jerusalem near the tomb of Jesus, 2017.
Dearest Lord Jesus:
We are getting tired and weary.
This community quarantine is slowly taking its toll in us with its emotional and psychological stresses especially for those living alone, for the elderlies, those with debilitating diseases and condition, for those in the margins of the society.
Give us the gift of faith like that of St. Peter in the first reading and the gospel: in this time of the corona virus when many of us are wishing to give up and walk away, may the words of faith by St. Peter re-echo within us too…
“Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”
John 6:68-69
Let us be reminded that like St. Peter, there are moments of crisis in faith when we are so tempted to walk away from you or even deny you, Lord; yet, your grace is always there to encourage us, to strengthen us, and most of all, to inspire us to find those going through various tests of their faith.
In this time of the quarantine, help us to make that extra effort to learn and know you more like St. Athanasius who spent many hours praying and studying your teachings so more people may be enlightened, especially those who are misled by heresies and trappings of the modern world.
Keep us faithful and focused only on you, Jesus, so we may always follow you alone. Amen.
Sana ay huwag ninyong masamain
itong aking puna at pansin
sa marami nating kababayan
ngayong panahon ng COVID-19
palaging daing walang makain
ating sinasambit
saan mang bahagi ng mundo sumapit
kapag tayo ay nagigipit.
Hindi naman sa kung ano pa man
pagkain lamang ba ang sadya nating kailangan
na siyang laging pinahahalagahan
kaya naman kadalasan ito ang sanhi
ng ating mga alitan at di pagkakaunawaan?
Anong sakit mapakinggan, malaman na
nag-aagawan, pinag-aawayan
ay pagkain lamang?
Larawan mula sa Google.
Sa Banal na Kasulatan ating matutunghayan
habilin ng Diyos sa ating unang magulang
maari nilang kainin mga munting butil
pati na rin mga bunga ng punong kahoy sa hardin
huwag na huwag lamang nilang kakanin
mahigpit Niyang bilin
bunga ng puno ng karunungan
dahil magiging sanhi ng ikasasawi natin.
Hindi napigilan kanilang tinikman
pinagbabawal na bunga kaya lumuwa mga mata
sa katotohanang lumantad sa kanila na di nakaya
kaya't dating kapwa hubad ay nagdamit na!
Nang pumarito si Jesu-Kristo upang tubusin ang tao
unang tukso na kanyang pinagdaanan sa ilang
sa gitna ng kanyang kagutuman
ay gawing tinapay mga bato upang busugin Kanyang tiyan.
Hindi nalito si Kristo nang sagurtin niya ang diyablo
na hindi lamang sa tinapay nabubuhay ang tao
kungdi sa bawat salitang namumutawi sa bibig ng Diyos;
kaya noong gabing ipagkanulo siya habang kumakain sila,
nangunsap Siya sa mga alagad Niya
habang hawak-hawak ang tinapay na pinaghati-hati
"Tanggapin ninyong lahat ito at kanin
ito ang aking katawan na ihahandog para sa inyo."
Mula noon hanggang ngayon
nakikilala, naaalala natin ang Panginoon
sa hapag ng kanyang piging, sa mesa ng Misa
nang kanyang inangat katayuan at kahulugan
nitong pangkaraniwang gawain natin na kumain:
hindi lamang upang busugin mga tiyan at laman natin
kungdi upang punuin din kamalayan at kaluluwa natin
ng diwa ng piging na mismo tayo ay maging pagkain din!
Larawan ng “Supper at Emmaus” ni Caravaggio mula sa Google.
Nakikila pag-uugali ng tao
kapag nakita paano siyang kumain
sapagkat doon lamang sa mesa ng piging
nawawala mga pagkukunwari natin
nabubunyag tunay nating saloobin
kaya naman sa bawat pagdiriwang natin
palaging mayroon pagkain upang
magkasalu-salo, magkaniig at magkaisa mga kumakain.
Alalahanin si Hudas noong Huling Hapunan
lumisan na kaagad dahil siya ay tumiwalag
di lamang sa hapag kungdi sa kaisahan at
pakikipag-kaibigan kay Jesus at mga kasamahan;
iyon din ang sinasaad sa bawat piging ng mga
dumadalo at hindi dumarating
mga kumakain at nanginginain
kay daming pagkain ngunit makasarili pa rin!
Sa tuwing tayo ay kumakain
laging alalahanin kaisa palagi natin
Diyos na bukal ng lahat ng pagpapala sa atin:
huwag mangangamba o mag-aalinlangan
kung sakali mang tayo ay gutumin
sapagkat hindi iyan ikamamatay natin
kungdi pagkabunsol sa labis na pagkain
lahat-lahat ay inaangkin.
Ang tunay na sarap ng pagkain
nalalasap pa rin
maski tapos nang kumain
kapag nabusog di lamang tiyan
kungdi puso at kalooban;
mga alitan nahuhugasan sa inuman
mapanghahawakan pagsasamahan at pagkakapatiran
upang huwag masabi ninuman na wala silang makain!
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul, Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, 01 May 2020
Genesis 1:26-2:3 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Matthew 13:54-58
Photo by author of the site of St. Joseph’s shop in their home at Nazareth found beneath the Chapel of St. Joseph near the Basilica of the Annunciation, Nazareth, Israel. May 2019.
As we start the third extension of our quarantine period, you have gifted us O God, our loving Father, with this Feast of St. Joseph the Worker to guide many of us working at home during this time of the corona pandemic.
St. Joseph must have been a very good father to Jesus at Nazareth and a very wonderful carpenter too to their neighbors that long after he had died, the people still remembered him being the father of the Lord.
Jesus came to his native place and taught the people in their synagogue. They were astonished and said, “Where did this man get such wisdom and mighty deeds? Is he not the carpenter’s son? Is he not his mother named Mary and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? Are not his sisters all with us? Where did this man get all this?”
Matthew 13:54-56
Remind us always, O Lord, that like St. Joseph, our main task in life is to do your work in the way you would want it to be done because all our work is just a sharing in your creation completed in six days, setting aside the seventh day of sabbath as a day of rest in you.
In this time of the corona virus when many of us are working at home with almost all establishments including churches are closed, may we find again the true meaning and value of all work and material endeavors in the light of Jesus Christ who did and spoke only what you willed, our heavenly Father.
May we break free from our works and be not their slaves that have destroyed our personal and family lives as well as our environment as we pursued in recent years material wealth and fame now useless in the face of COVID-19.
May we always find you, Lord, in all our work and undertaking as our only fulfillment. Amen.
Photon by Mr. Raffy Tima of GMA-7 News, March 2020.
Lawiswis ng Salita ni P. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Ika-30 ng Abril 2020
Isang matandang kasabihan
itong ating masasandigan
na nagsasaad ng katotohanan
na hindi nalilikha ating pag-uugali
sa panahon ng krisis, bagkus dito
ito nahahayag at nalalantad din.
Sa gitna nitong quarantine ng COVID-19,
maraming pag-uugali natin ang nabuking:
nakilala sino ang may tunay at dalisay
na pagtingin at malasakit sa kapwa
sariling kaluguran at kapakanan ipinagkait
upang madamayan, masamahan higit nangangailangan.
Gayon din naman napatunayan higit kailanman
hindi lahat ng kumikinang ay ginto
kungdi tanso din naman
dahil sa asal at pag-uugali
hindi lamang magaspang
kungdi kamuhi-muhi, nakakapangiwi!
Sa kaunting halaga
o anumang ayuda maaring makuha
ipinagpalit ang kaluluwa
dangal ay ipagpapaliban
matiyak lamang hindi siya malalamang
sapagkat sariling kaluguran tanging panuntunan.
Pagkaraan nitong lockdown
kawawa mga nanlamang
hindi na sila pagkakatiwalaan
makitid na isipan, sarili lamang ang tanaw
kaya pag-uugali ay gayon na lamang;
sa kabilang dako naman, pakatandaan
yaong mga sa gitna ng kagipitan
nanatili sa atin at hindi nang iwan
pasalamatan at ituring na tunay na kaibigan
dahil kanilang pagdamay at pag-agapay
nadalisay pang tunay nitong kahirapan.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul, Memorial of St. Pius V, 30 April 2020
Acts of the Apostles 8:26-40 <*(((>< 000 ><)))*> John 6:44-51
Photo by Mr. Raffy Tima of GMA-7 News, 2020.
It is the last day of April 2020 and we still cannot rejoice, Lord, because we still have to continue with our enhanced community quarantine until the 15th of next month to further control the spread of the dreaded COVID-19 virus.
Yes, it is very difficult and sad for everyone but deep inside each one of us is the excitement too of seeing that day finally when the pandemic is finally over and the corona virus wiped away.
And that is why we have to believe in you, O God our Father for you alone is the God of history, you have the final say at how things are in this life and the good news is, you always ensure that even tragedies and miseries end for our own good.
“Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.”
John 6:47
Yes, Lord Jesus, we believe in you because we want to see how all these things will end, if not in this life then in the eternity.
We have to believe to understand further and accept how things are in this life.
Like St. Pius V, the first Dominican Pope, he believed in your presence and power in the praying of the Holy Rosary that helped the Spanish Armada crushed the Ottoman Turks in Lepanto Bay to finally stop them from getting into Europe any further.
Incidentally, every Rosary begins with the Credo, “I believe in God…”
He believed in your works, O Lord, that despite the gargantuan tasks ahead of him, St. Pius pushed for the reforms of the Council of Trent that revitalized the whole Church after the Protestantism movement that swept the whole of Europe at that time.
We have to believe because believing is the starting point of everything in you; without it, we can never see through and look beyond to discover more meanings in life here and thereafter. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul, Memorial of St. Catherine of Siena, Virgin and Doctor of the Church, 29 April 2020
Acts of the Apostles 8:1-8 ><)))*> 000 <*(((>< John 6:35-40
Our empty church since March 17, 2020.
Once again, O Lord Jesus Christ, your Body the Church is facing severe trials and difficulties at this moment of history with the pandemic COVID-19 that have closed churches worldwide even in Rome, Italy which is one of the worst hit countries of the corona disease.
Since the martyrdom of St. Stephen, the Church has always been persecuted but never defeated. On the contrary, it was during the persecutions when your Church had really grown beyond leaps and bounds, so to speak.
St. Catherine lived at that time when she was able to unite warring factions in Europe as well as in the Church with her counsels while through her, many individuals found directions in life with her holiness, teachings and directions.
And while churches remain closed with dim prospects of opening soon, you never fail to send us men and women full of devotion to you who continue to work tirelessly in building your Body, the Church.
One of them is Fr. Jun Villanueva from the Diocese of Balanga in Bataan who was infected with COVID-19 while serving in New York.
As he recovered from the deadly disease celebrating Mass in his parish, he had a wonderful realization that many of us priests have seem to forget:
“Then I realized that the Mass is not a show but our union with Jesus, whether there are people or none… from then on I started to look at the situation from that perspective”.
CBCP News, 27 April 2020
In the first reading we are told of the zeal of Saul in destroying the early church alongside the devotion of the early disciples in keeping the young church alive.
Devout men buried Stephen and made a loud lament over him.
Acts of the Apostles 8:2
Only St. Luke used that adjective “devout” in the New Testament to describe people of “good heart, ready to believe, and then act openly and with courage” according to Timothy Clayton of the book “Exploring Advent with Luke”.
Devout people make thing happen for God like St. Stephen and the early Christians.
From Google.
Devout people give themselves to God wholly like St. Catherine and all the saints who remained attuned with the Holy Spirit like Philip in the first reading today, ready to follow its promptings and leads.
Give us the same gift of devotion to you, Jesus, the “Bread of Life” who had come down from heaven so we can build up your Church as your body here on earth.
Help us avoid the pitfalls of pride and self-centeredness that tend to destroy the unity of your Body, the Church.
Most specially, keep us devoted to you in the Blessed Sacrament like St. Catherine of Siena with whom you have shown in a vision while she was sick the celebration of the Eucharist in their chapel making her a patroness of those in television. Amen.
lordmychef.com 