The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Thursday in the Thirty-Second Week of Ordinary Time, Year II, 14 November 2024 Philemon 7-20 <*[[[[>< + + + ><]]]]*> Luke 17:20-25
Photo by Ms. Ria De Vera at Banff, Canada, August 2024.
Refresh my heart today, Jesus; refresh my heart that has become hard like a stone because of the many pains and hurts; refresh my heart, Lord, that has become numb to the cries and pleas of others in pain; refresh my heart, Jesus, that has turned away from you because of many disappointments; please refresh my heart, dear Lord because I am so tired of being by myself.
Like Philemon, I feel life has been so unfair, with me asking like Jeremiah in the Old Testament, "why should doing good be repaid with evil?"; and yes, like St. Paul, many times I find the gospel so difficult to balance with the ways and realities of the world that like the computer, I need to be "refreshed" in you, Jesus to be truly responsive and faithful to you.
Refresh me in you alone, Jesus, for you are the only one who is our life and meaning; you are the kingdom of God within I refuse to reign over me due to sin; refresh me in you, Jesus, by being faithful to you in my prayer life, of making time, of keeping our time together instead of looking for your many physical signs when all along, you have always been in me if I just stop and be silent to let you refresh me; refresh me, Jesus so I may also refresh others in you. Amen.
Photo by Dra. Mylene A. Santos, MD, an orange-bellied flowerpecker (Dicaeum trigonostigma), December 2023.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Friday, Memorial of St. Vincent de Paul, Priest, 27 September 2024 Ecclesiastes 3:1-11 <*((((>< + ><))))*> Luke 9:18-22
Photo by Mr. Howie Severino of GMA7 News in Taal, Batangas, 2018.
There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. He (God) has made everything appropriate to its time, and has put the timeless into their hearts, without men’s ever discovering, from beginning to end, the work which God has done (Ecclesiastes 3:1, 11).
How lovely and mysterious are your words today, God our Father; you have appointed time for everything, making everything appropriate to its time, and has put the timeless into our hearts.
We live and move in time, through time measured and taken in various ways seen in the past, the present, and the future; there is the inescapable dimension and reality we keep on freezing momentarily, hoping to go back in the past while we are so eager to know what is to happen next in the future.
Let Jesus Christ your Son reign in our hearts that we may always live in the present moment of every here and now, the timeless in our hearts with our fervent loving service to you through others; like St. Vincent de Paul, let us be rooted in you, Jesus, living in the present, lovingly serving the poor and needy among us; but most of all, make our hearts attuned in you, Jesus, in prayer to experience the timeless even right here in this life. Amen.
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
Photo by author, 15 August 2024.
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.
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.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Tuesday, Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, 06 August 2024 Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14 ><}}}}*> 2 Peter 1:16-19 ><}}}}*> Mark 9:2-10
Photo from commons.wikimedia.org of mosaic inside the Basilica of the Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor, Israel.
Thank you very much, Lord Jesus, "in taking us always with You, apart from others by ourselves like Peter, James, and his brother John to a high mountain” (cf. Mark 9:2); many times You set us apart from others amid many darkness like that night on Mount Tabor just to be with You, to experience You; how ironic in this age of so much light everywhere with a world running 24/7, the more we are plunged in darkness that we feel lost and empty. Continue to invite us to detach from so much worldly attachments that are so irresistible due to social media and the glamor that come with them.
And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them… Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them; then from the cloud came a voice, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him” (Mark 9:2-3, 7).
Like Peter, James, and John we also wonder at the meaning of your Passion and Death when You are the Christ? Why all the sufferings happening in us and among us with all the confusions and divisions going on?
Like Peter during the Transfiguration, we do not know what we are saying to you, Lord; whether we are filled with joy or burdened with sorrow, we speak without thinking much even if you know what is in our hearts. Open our hearts, dear Jesus, to always listen to You by remaining with You on the path to Your Cross; let us listen more than talk or click more without much reflections; two ears form the image of heart, never the mouth nor the lips. Let us heed Peter in his words today:
Moreover, we possess the prophetic message that is altogether reliable. You will do well to be attentive to it, as to lamp shining in a dark place, until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts (2 Peter 1:19).
Bring us back to your path of faith, Jesus; amidst all these noise and divisions of relativism and wokism, open our hearts by listening intently to your voice when all is dark and even dead or as it happens these days, blindingly so bright with artificial lights because for as long as we return to You, sin and failures become means for us to be changed and transformed - or transfigured when we rise in your Resurrection. Amen.
A 1311 painting of the Transfiguration by Italian artist Duccio di Buoninsegna from commons.wikimedia.org.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 03 May 2024
Photo by author, Anvaya Cove in Morong, Bataan, 15 April 2024.
How I wish I could strum and sing like Simon and Garfunkel saying hello and listening to the sound of silence that nobody hears, nobody cares; what a lovely commodity now a rarity in the time of Siri, everybody is so afraid of silence when its loudest sound is less than a breath, feebler than a whisper.
How foolish have we become to disregard silence when it is the only sound before we have all become that is why when death comes, in silence we shall return; woe the Walkman that pushed us back to the caves of our own world enslaved by gadgets that muffle our ears and head from the warmth of another soul speaking in silence.
Let us touch and be disturbed by the sound of silence! Listen to its wisdom and truth for it is not emptiness but fullness; embrace silence, feel its warmth to see life's vibrance in its natural sound telling us to trust again so we can love anew that is most true when words are few because the heart is empty, silently awaiting YOU!
Photo by author, Anvaya Cove in Morong, Bataan, 15 April 2024.
The Lord Is My Chef Easter Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Monday in the Fifth Week of Easter, 29 April 2024 Acts 14:5-18 ><))))*> + ><))))*> + ><))))*> John 14:21-26
Photo by author, San Juan, La Union, July 2023.
Like the Apostle Jude, I have always wanted to ask You dear Jesus, "Master, then what happened that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?" (John 14:22); why, O Lord, You not simply appear to everyone so that people will not have to create other gods like the people at Lystra who mistook Paul and Barnabas as Hermes and Zeus?
Jesus answered and said to him, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.”
John 14:23
It is a very timely question many of us are still asking and Your answer, O Lord, was mysterious and so profound; but, thank You, dear Jesus, for being so near with us, for being with us always to enable us to slowly grasp and understand Your words: forgive us, Lord, when we take You as a thing, as an object to be possessed and held like those idols and gods not only of the Greeks and Romans of old but by many of us today in various forms and ways; You, O Jesus, are a Person, Someone who must be seen and perceived by our hearts so that You may take Your dwelling within us; how lovely that despite our sins and weaknesses, You desire to enter our lives; grant us, therefore, Lord, an open heart willing to welcome You inside, to dwell in our hearts so that we may manifest You to others in our life of witnessing You peace and joy, mercy and love, kindness and reconciliation so that like the psalmist, we may always sing, "Not to us, O Lord, not to us but to your name give glory because of your mercy, because of your truth" (Psalm 115:1). Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Easter Recipe by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Wednesday in the Easter Octave, 03 April 2024 Acts 3:1-10 <*[[[[>< + ><]]]]'> Luke 24:13-35
Photo by author, Della Strada Chapel, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 19 March 2024.
Continue to open my eyes, my heart, my total self to Your coming, to Your passing Lord Jesus Christ; Your tomb was empty because You chose to walk with me even when I was at the wrong path, in the opposite direction like those two disciples on the way back to Emmaus from Jerusalem because You were nowhere that Easter Sunday; what a beautiful gesture by You, dear Jesus, to walk with them, to converse with them, most of all, to make their hearts burn within!
With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the eleven and those with them…
Luke 24:31-33
Photo by author, Della Strada Chapel, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 19 March 2024.
My dear Jesus, many times I felt giving up of going back to Emmaus too, leaving Jerusalem at those times I felt You were gone; but when You helped me retrace my path with Your words and many signs, my heart burned within of love and faith in You that before I knew it, You have brought me back to Your path again with enough love to move on; keep me in Your path to the Cross, Jesus; let me immerse in the Scripture to discover in Your words Your presence, Your calling, Your life in my life and relationships with You, with nature, and with others.
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 19 March 2024.
Keep that fire of love burning within me, Jesus so that I may bring Your light and your warmth to those seeking You, those lost in life, and worst, those resigned in their situations like that man crippled from birth at the Beautiful Gate of the temple:
When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked for alms. But Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, “look at us.” He paid attention to them, expecting to receive something from them. Peter said, “I have neither silver nor gold, but what I do have I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, rise and walk.”
Acts 3:3-6
There are times, Jesus, I look more into negative self, my distaff condition, my wounds even if I am looking at You like that crippled man expecting the trivial things than the essential ones like fulfillment in You; enable me to look for You in my heart, to see You in my self and on the face of others I meet.
Dearest Jesus, keep the fire of Your love burning inside me so I may see You and follow You more closely daily. Amen.
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 20 March 2024.
Blessed happy Easter everyone! We take a melancholic love song on this day of celebrating the triumph of love in Jesus Christ’s Resurrection because Easter is a continuing journey with Him, in Him and through Him amid darkness and emptiness in life (https://lordmychef.com/2024/03/30/easter-is-signs-scripture-together-always/).
Like the story of that first Easter morning while still dark when Mary Magdalene and later Simon Peter with the beloved disciple found the tomb of Jesus empty except for His burial cloths neatly folded to indicate the Lord’s rising from the dead, Ronnie Milsap’s 1983 hit Is It Over speaks a lot of the essence of Easter about faith in the love of Jesus Christ.
Milsap’s Is it Over invites his beloved to sincerely search her heart to get over her former relationship so that theirs would flourish and grow; in the same manner, we need to get over our Good Fridays in order to experience the glory of Easter Sundays in life.
Is it over, are you really over him Is it over, or will you take him back again If it’s over you can let his memory in Come on over, we’ll let our love begin.
You say you can’t count the times that he’s hurt you And he’s hurt you for the last time Now you say I’m the one that you’re needing But is the need in your heart or just in your mind.
Is it over, are you really over him Is it over, or will you take him back again If it’s over you can let his memory in Come on over, we’ll let our love begin.
Like Jesus calling us every day in our lives to come over to Him by leaving behind our past hurts, Is it Over tells on the need to move on in life, to embrace the present by learning from the past. Most of all, of the need to confront one’s true self in the heart, not just in the mind in order to move on in life.
Milsap’s music and voice are uniquely refreshing that sound very Easter perhaps due to his personal experiences. Born partially blind and abandoned by his mother after birth, Milsap grew up in poverty with his grandparents in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. Despite his handicap and poverty, he was found exceptionally brilliant and talented even while in his early childhood when he was sent to a school for the blind at the age of five where he developed his musical talent at age seven. He was later sent to Governor Moorehead to formally begin studies in classical music. It was there in his early teens when Mislap learned to play several musical instruments and chose to master the piano.
At age 14, Milsap became totally blind after being slapped on his left eye by one of the houseparents but that never affected his pursuits in learning as well as music. He was able to finish college through scholarships and was already in law school as a full scholar when he decided to leave to concentrate in music in 1964.
He met his wife Joyce Reeves in one of their gigs the following year, got married and remained together until her death in 2021 due to cancer. They had a son, Ronald who died in 2019 aged 49 apparently due to a medical condition
Is It Over follows the style of Milsap’s earlier and biggest breakthrough in 1977, It Was almost Like a Song that topped the Billboard charts in many categories. Both songs are very popular among us Filipinos who are certified romantics.
Now aged 81, Milsap remains active in the music scene as a composer, collaborating with some of the biggest names in the industry. His life is a beautiful example of the Easter glory amid many darkness and emptiness. Although officially retired, it isn’t over yet for Mislap as he continues to record and busies himself with a podcast as well as an amateur radio enthusiast.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 28 March 2024
Photo by author, sunrise at the Sacred Heart Novitiate in Novaliches, QC, 20 March 2024.
As we now enter the holiest parts of the Holy Week called the Sacred Triduum of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Vigil beginning tonight with the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, please find time to have some silent moments of prayer and reflections.
Do not let this Holy Week pass as one of those days so unique because of the great sights and sounds that have filled our cameras with so much photos and videos but have ironically left us empty inside. Don’t you notice the more we fill ourselves with photos and videos on the pretext and excuse of keeping memories and remembrances, the more we are left empty, lost and alienated because we have missed experiencing the moment itself?
From forbesmagazine.com
The reason images are covered and no flowers adorn our church altars during Lent until Holy Saturday is for us to focus more inside ourselves than outside.
Lent and the Holy Week remind us that basic truth in life that what is most essential is the inside not the outside we aptly call in Filipino as palabas.
How ironic that despite all the technologies and comforts they have brought humans, we are more lost and empty these days than before with more suicides, more depressions, and more social problems and issues.
Lent invites us to return to our very first love of all, God who patiently awaits us always, right in our hearts. Pray as much as possible today to experience God and your very self this Holy Thursday. Just pray. Very often, the most difficult prayer is also the most meritorious.
And when you pray, I strongly recommend Jesuit Father Eduardo Hontiveros’ classic Buksan Ang Aming Puso, the most beautiful and touching church music that is a prayer in itself during this season of Lent and the Holy Week.
Buksan ang aming puso Turuan mong mag-alab Sa bawat pagkukuro Lahat ay makayakap
Buksan ang aming isip Sikatan ng liwanag Nang kusang matangkilik Tungkuling mabanaag
Buksan ang aming palad Sarili'y maialay Tulungan mong ihanap Kami ng bagong malay
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 18 March 2024.
I love its progression from opening of heart, then of mind, then of the hand which signifies our whole person.
Our hands is a microcosm of our very selves that is why we shake hands, with give high fives to signify the giving of our total selves in friendship. Fortune tellers read our palms because they signify our whole person. We Filipinos have a beautiful expression during pamanhikan when parents of the groom meet their future balae to ask for the hand of their daughter in marriage, “hihingin namin ang kamay ng inyong anak.”
What is in our hands?
Remember the word betrayal that literally means to hand over from the Greek word paradidomi? Again, our Tagalog translation renders its deepest meaning especially when we recall how Jesus was handed over by Judas to the soldiers who handed Him over to the Sanhedrin who then handed Him over to Pilate who finally handed Him over to the people to be crucified. That repeated handing over of Jesus – or betrayal – is perfectly said in our own expression of “pinagpasa-pasahan si Jesus.”
That is how dirty our hands are with sin and evil when we repeatedly hand over Jesus through our own family and friends whom we take as things to be passed on for something or someone else more useful.
Opening to God becomes complete, from the mind and the heart, when we are able to open our hands to Him, the only One we can really hold on in this life. When we die, we cannot hold and bring anything from this life. Like Jesus, we die with hands opened to God, praying, “Into your hands, I commend my spirit.”
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 20 March 2024.
You will notice this afternoon when you come for the Mass, the tabernacle is opened and empty. The Sacred Hosts we shall receive later in the Holy Communion are the ones to be consecrated during the Mass.
Are we also empty to receive Jesus? That is the beauty of Communion by hands when we hold nothing else, we open our hands positioned across our heart supposed to be clean to receive Jesus wholly and responsibly.
As you receive Jesus in the Holy Communion tonight, pray Buksan Ang Aming Puso and ask God to give you a new consciousness (bagong malay) that you are loved and forgiven so you can love and forgive others too.
Ask Jesus to empty your heart of pride so He would reign there to fill you with more of His humility, justice, and love.
Most of all, ask Jesus to dwell in your heart so that every decision you make may come from your heart not from the hatred and bitterness that have covered it all these years.
Be the new person tonight in Jesus as He wash you clean of sins. Amen.
*Usiginanga… you may open your phone to listen and pray Buksan Ang Aming Puso.
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