Tag: heart

Womanly heart, Manly courage

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Wednesday, Week XXXIII, Year I, 20 November 2019

2 Maccabees 7:1, 20-31 ><)))*> <*(((>< Luke 19:11-28

Candle and ordo in our sacristy, 17 November 2019.

Today’s first reading is very interesting, Lord, especially that part describing the disposition of the mother of the seven Maccabean brothers facing execution:

Filled with a noble spirit that stirred her womanly heart with manly courage, she exhorted each of them in the language of their forefathers…

2 Maccabees 7:21

I really wonder the meaning of “womanly heart with manly courage” but something tells me it is exactly what we need these days.

A womanly heart is a faithful heart, like a mother who would never forsake her child (Is. 49:15). It is a heart willing to bear all pains in life, suffering in silence, totally empty for the beloved and filled with God.

In this age of “instants” where lines are always moved to accommodate our whims and selfish desires, we need a womanly heart that is rooted and inclined to you O God.

Like the mother of the Maccabean brothers, she freely gave up her sons and exhorted them to look more intently to you, God, than to her herself, insisting that in the end, we are all answerable to you alone, O Lord.

Our sacristy table, 17 November 2019.

Manly courage, on the other hand, Lord is perhaps our ability to muster our strength to be truthful about our very selves.

It is something that still pertains to the heart because the word “courage” is from “cor” or heart.

A manly heart is a sincere heart that gallantly accepts one’s limitations than pretend to be somebody else.

In our suffocating world of social media where everybody is blowing out of proportion everything including one’s self, it is very ironic that while everybody claims to be the best, the more our lives are in a mess.

Like those servants in your parable, O Lord, grant us a manly heart so we may graciously accept our role and mission in this life to please you than pretend to be somebody else who really has nothing at all. Amen.

What Jesus looks for and how we see

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Friday, Week XXIX, Year I, 25 October 2019

Romans 7:18-25 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Luke 12:54-59

Photo by Noelle Otto on Pexels.com

What a beautiful way to end the week of work and studies, O Lord, when you asked us to read the signs of the times.

Jesus said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west you say immediately tat it is going to rain — and so it does; and when you notice that the wind is blowing from the south you say that it is going to be hot — and so it is. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky; why do you not know how to interpret the present time? Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?”

Luke 12:54-57

In this age of social media where everything is being shown and seen by everyone, it is very unfortunate that we still fail to see beyond the physical realities.

In an age when everything and everyone is seen, we have become more superficial than ever and have refused to see more deeper than what appears to the eyes.

We look outside of us to explain everything like in the news and in the internet, at YouTube and Facebook, Google and Wikipedia.

Rarely do we look deep inside ourselves like St. Paul to realize the greater battle going on deep within each one of us between good and evil.

Teach us Lord to see more the spiritual meanings of the things happening in us and around us, to always look deep into our hearts to see and realize the need to be good and just, kind and loving.

Maybe if we can look more often into our hearts and look piercingly into the heavens to find you, perhaps we can have a better world with lesser crimes and hatred among peoples. Amen.

It is never too late with God

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul

Wednesday, Feast of St. Augustine, 28 August 2019

1 Thessalonians 2:9-13 ><)))*> ><)))*> Matthew 23:27-32

O God our loving Father! Today we celebrate the feast of one of your greatest saints of all time, St. Augustine.

His life story itself is a gospel, a good news of your love and mercy, of your salvation in Christ Jesus!

It is never too late to love you, O Lord, for our hearts are restless until they rest on you!

Like the song of the psalmist today, “You have searched me and you know me, O Lord” that despite my many sins, my great pride, you patiently wait for me to go back to you like St. Augustine.

In him, we have found hope and and chances to be become better and holy.

Like St. Augustine, give us the gift of humility of accepting our humanity, our weaknesses and sinfulness to be converted into better persons.

Like St. Augustine, may we use our intelligence for your greater glory and not for our selfish ends and other evils.

Most of all, purify our hearts always that it may always seek you and follow you. Amen.

Funeral of St. Augustine by Bennozo Gozzoli at Florence. At the time of his death, St. Augustine was a towering figure in the Church and the entire Western world at that time with his hundreds of letters, treatises and books that shaped our thoughts and provided foundations for our many doctrines still very much in use these days.

Decluttering our inner self

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul
Monday, Week XIX, Year I, 12 August 2019
Deuteronomy 10:12-22 >< }}}*> < *{{{>< Matthew 17:22-27
From Google.

Moses said to the people: “Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and be no longer stiff-necked.”

Deuteronomy 10:16

Your words, O Lord, today are so shocking. Even funny. And difficult to relate with.

But that is exactly what we need to hear and learn these days: your words that shake and jolt our inner selves that cleanse and lead us to a more genuine and intimate relationship with you.

Like those Israelites wandering at the desert, rebelling against you, we have become stiff-necked. We have refused to look up to you as well as look inside our hearts to see you and follow you.

Help us to circumcise our hearts – not physically but spiritually – like what Marie Kondo has been advocating of decluttering our spaces to experience inner joy. So often we refuse to admit how our outer selves and homes look like indicate our inner selves.

It is you, Lord Jesus, who probes our hearts and guide us like Marie Kondo, step by step, to declutter our hearts.

May your light enable us to see and remove the many stacks of materialism, compartments of insecurities, and drawers of pretensions and other lies that clutter our inner selves, our hearts that keep us away from you and from others.

Like what you did today in the gospel when you taught Peter a beautiful lesson of being nice among our enemies and detractors who try to destroy us always, may we look more often inside our hearts to see YOU as the most essential in life than simply following the ways of the world.

May the example of St. Jane Frances Chantal whose feast we celebrate today, help us to keep that inner glow of your love within us when facing difficult situations in life like problems with in-laws and being widowed.

Fill us with the same charity you have given her in helping the poor as well as the forgotten people of the society.

We pray through her intercession for parents and children separated from one another due to many reasons, either by choice or circumstances.

Bless also the members of the congregation she had founded, the Sisters of Visitation that they may continue her wonderful works of charity among the poor. Amen.

Slow of heart

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe, Wednesday, Easter Octave, 24 April 2019
Acts 3:1-10///Luke 24:13-35
Road to Emmaus. From Google.

How interesting is Easter becoming, O Lord! Yesterday, Peter’s listeners were “cut to the heart” upon hearing your good news of salvation. Today, as you walked along with two disciples going to Emmaus feeling so sad with your death and news of missing body, you expressed great surprise at their being “slow of heart to believe”.

And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the Scriptures.

Luke 24:25-27

So many times Lord, we are slow of heart to believe because we refuse to see the bigger picture in life when setbacks and failures can be staging points for greater growth and maturity. We choose to be mediocre and be contented with whatever is before us, refusing to strive and rise.

So many times Lord, we feel like that man crippled from birth at the Beautiful Gate of the temple contented in begging alms without realizing that negative things in our lives can enable us to receive the gift of life.

Like that crippled man from birth at the Beautiful Gate, let us seize every moment of meeting you, having you in our lives. Amen.

Healing of a Lame by Peter and John on a tapestry by Raphael at the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. Photo from Google.

Cut to the heart

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul, Tuesday, Easter Octave, 23 April 2019
Acts 2:36-41///John 20:11-18
Photo from Google.

Now, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and they asked Peter and the other Apostles, “What are we to do, my brothers?”

Acts 2:37

What a powerful expression, O Lord Jesus Christ: “they were cut to the heart” upon hearing the preaching by St. Peter about you on Pentecost day, on how the people have killed you, on how they failed to recognize you as the Christ.

They were cut to the heart, they were so moved.

Yesterday O Lord, many of us were also cut to the heart with the powerful earthquake that rocked us hard late afternoon. Many prayed, many wondered what’s going to happen next. And many asked what are we to do?

Suddenly, people remembered you and called on you. That is always the case when calamities strike us, when problems arise in our families. We are cut to the heart. Our faith is awakened, we become conscious not only of you but of others we used to take for granted.

But there is something more wonderful in being cut to the heart, O Lord.

Mary Magdalene was also cut in the heart upon discovering your empty tomb that Easter morning. Give us that same grace of always seeking you, looking for you whenever we feel we have lost you.

So often, you come to us, calling us with our name but we never listen to you, always forgetting how much you love us, how much you have forgiven us with our many sins, how you have changed us.

Remind us like Mary not to touch you because from now on, we must relate with you in a higher level, that the most important thing to do is to proclaim to others most especially with our lives that we have seen you, that you are risen.

That is the most kindest and wonderful kind of cut of all, Jesus. Amen.

Jesus telling Mary Magdalene not to touch him in a painting at the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in Italy. Photo from Google.

Forgiving from the heart

40 Shades of Lent, Tuesday, Week III, 26 March 2019
Daniel 3:25, 34-43///Matthew 18:21-35

Praise and glory to you, O Lord Jesus Christ!

Here we are now O Lord being confronted by this topic of sin and forgiveness. Every day we pray the “Our Father” and you know very well how mechanical it had become for us asking God “to forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sinned against us.”

Like Peter, we often feel at a loss at how to forgive those who have hurt us. No… not just hurt or wronged us but, hurt or wronged us so deeply.

The pain is so deep in our hearts, Jesus. And that is why you want us all to forgive from our hearts, not from our lips or from our minds but from our hearts where the pains hurt us most.

We really do not know how. Your parable seems inadequate though you make an absolutely valid point of forgiving others because we have been forgiven too.

Like Daniel your prophet in the Old Testament, we beg you to “Deliver us by your wonders” – surprise us O Lord with your gentle mercy, with your kindness that like you we may be moved to forgiving those who have terribly wronged us. Amen.

From Google.

Lent is for repairing the heart

40 Shades of Lent, Thursday, Week II, 21 March 2019
Jeremiah 17:5-10///Luke 16:19-31

“More tortuous than all else is the human heart, beyond remedy; who can understand it? I, the Lord, alone probe the mind and test the heart, to reward everyone according to his ways, according to the merit of his deeds.”

Jeremiah 17:9-10

Thank you very much, O Lord, for this season of Lent, giving us time to examine and repair our hearts that have turned away from you in sin and indifference.

Forgive us in trusting more our selves, our strength, our powers, our intelligence. We have turned away from you, believing only in our selves and fellowmen.

How ironic that while we trust more with human, our hearts are too far away from most people who are poor and suffering! We have not only turned away our hearts from them like Lazarus in the gospel today. We have become indifferent to their plight.

Help us, dear God, through your Son Jesus Christ, to regain our natural hearts that know how to suffer with the poor and dying, hearts that cry with those in pain, and hearts inclined to your Holy Will. Amen.

Images from Google.

God’s Word, God’s Sign

40 Shades of Lent, Wednesday of Week 1, 13 March 2019
Jonah 3:1-10///Luke 11:29-32

Open “the ears of our hearts”, O Lord, to always heed your words especially in this holy season of Lent when your readings are so rich and meaningful. So many times we are like your contemporaries, “an evil generation always seeking signs.” (Lk. 11:29)

Or, like your reluctant prophet Jonah: we cannot believe your words, always trying to escape responsibilities and mission from you to proclaim your word.

The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: “Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and announce to it the message that I will tell you.” So Jonah made ready and went to Nineveh, according to the Lord’s bidding.

Jonah 3:1-3

How funny and even insane, Lord, for us to run away from you, hide from you like Jonah because we find your words so simple, doubting its powers to move and change people.

But when like Jonah we proclaim your words, we are amazed and surprised at its efficacy not only with the people they are directed to but most of all with us. Your words indeed are alive and so powerful especially if our whole heart is humbled and contrite from our sins.

Help us to always recognize your presence in your words for you are the Word who became flesh. Take away our stony hearts and give us a natural heart that beats with firm faith, fervent hope and unceasing charity and love. Amen.

Images from Google.

“The Keys to Your Heart” by Orup (1991)

Photo from Google.

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music, 03 March 2019


It’s a very beautiful Sunday, the first in this month of March.

I have been thinking of so many other songs that best capture our reflection for the Sunday gospel which is about education of the heart when Jesus said, “A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks” (Lk.6:45).

Our heart is the core of our person and that is why it is called “corazon” in Spanish from the Latin “cor”.  And the best way to understand it is to simply feel what is inside.

Can we really look inside one’s heart as David Benoit said?

The French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote that “the heart has its own reasons that the mind can never understand.”

Another Frenchman, the aviator and writer Antoine de St. Exupery expressed in his book “The Little Prince” that “what is essential is invisible to the eye; it is only with the heart one can truly see.”

And so, I have decided this Sunday to share with you the music of the Swedish pop singer Orup (Thomas Eriksson) called “The Keys to Your Heart” released in 1991.  I can’t find its lyrics but that’s the key to our heart – just feel the music and enjoy!

https://youtu.be/ONmJrQsqHe0