The Lord Is My Chef Easter Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Monday in the Fourth Week of Easter, 22 April 2024 Acts 11:1-18 ><))))*> + ><))))*> + ><))))*> John 10:1-10
Photo by author in Silang, Cavite, September 2020.
Lord Jesus Christ, as we go back to school and to work this Monday, I pray that we "object" less to one another, that we hold our "objections" to ourselves first until we have found the merits of an endeavor or proposal and most especially, until we have found Your Holy Will.
The Apostles and the brothers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles too had accepted the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem the circumcised believers confronted him, saying, “You entered the house of uncircumcised people and ate with them.” Peter began and explained it to them step by step… When they heard this, they stopped objecting and glorified God, saying, “God has then granted life-giving repentance to the Gentiles too.” (Acts 11:1-4, 18)
Teach us, dear Jesus, to widen our perspectives and to always be alert for the movements of the Holy Spirit so that we do not waste time and energies with our endless "objections" that often paralyze missions and operations and worst of all, destroy people.
How lovely is Your claim, "I am the gate for the sheep" (John 10:7) for we all belong to You alone; when we object a lot, we close the gate, we hinder the flow of people to the gate, and most of all, we steal Your sheep!
Do not let our many and endless objections claimed as for the greater good but totally empty of You hinder our flock in finding You "so that they might have life and have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). Amen.
Photo by author in Silang, Cavite, September 2020.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Fourth Sunday in Easter-A, Good Shepherd Sunday, 30 April 2023
Acts 2:14, 36-41 ><}}}*> 1 Peter 2:20-25 ><}}}*> John 10:1-10
Photo by author, Baguio City, January 2018.
Beginning this Sunday, all our gospel readings will be about the major teachings of Jesus before his arrest that led to his Passion, Death, and Resurrection. Like the Apostles, we are reviewing the Lord’s final teachings in the light of Easter to fully appreciates its meaning and significance.
First of these teachings is the Lord’s declaration, “I am the good shepherd” (Jn. 10:11).
This is very significant in the fourth gospel where we find Jesus using the phrase I AM. It was not just reminiscent of God identifying himself as I AM WHO AM to Moses in the Old Testament but most of all, for Jesus it is his self-identification as the Christ, the Son of God whom his enemies refused to accept nor recognize.
More interesting in our gospel this Sunday is how the Good Shepherd discourse of Jesus actually began with his claim as being the gate or door through whom the sheep enter and pass through.
Jesus said: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever does not enter a sheepfold through the gate but climbs over elsewhere is a thief and a robber. But whoever enters enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go our and find pasture. A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”
Jesus spoke twice “I am the gate” in vv. 7 and 9 to emphasize and clarify that flock belongs to him, never to us. That is why Jesus is the gate, the only way through whom the sheep pass through. Hence, the true mark of a good shepherd is one who passes in Jesus as the gate, the owner of the sheep. Whoever does not pass through Jesus is a thief, a robber. A fake shepherd.
Nobody else could ever replace Jesus as Shepherd of the flock but he wants us all to be shepherds like him, passing in him our gate. This we can understand when we fast-forward to his third and final appearance to the seven disciples at Lake Tiberias after Easter. After their breakfast at the lakeshore, Jesus asked Simon Peter thrice, “Do you love me?” In every question, Peter professed his love for Jesus who asked him only for one thing, “feed my sheep” until finally adding at the end, “follow me” (cf. Jn. 21: 15-19). His call to follow him came after describing to Peter how he would suffer and die for him.
To pass in Jesus as the door to the sheep is first of all to love Jesus.
We all have experienced that loving calls for nearness which Nat King Cole described perfectly in his hit “The Nearness of You”. Whenever we love somebody, we want to be always near our beloved. The same desire we must possess if we truly love God. Furthermore, being near demands that we share feelings with the one we love – his/her joy is our joy, his/her pain is our pain. No wonder when we love somebody, we are willing to suffer. That is the first true mark of our love for Christ – we are willing to suffer for him and with him on the Cross!
That is the first meaning of Jesus is the gate of the sheep as the Good Shepherd: his Cross is our path to fulfillment, to true joy in this life and to eternal life eventually. We can only have a true relationship with him through others when we are willing to share in others’ sufferings like Jesus. Because of his Passion, Death and Resurrection, Jesus has turned suffering into a grace itself and a source of grace too because to suffer with somebody else is love. Anyone who avoids suffering does not love at all and can never be a shepherd like Jesus.
The second meaning of Jesus is the gate flows from that nearness with him – it is not enough to be close but most of all, to be obedient, submitting our total self to him in the same manner he obeyed the Father as expressed in St. Paul’s beautiful hymn found in Philippians 2:6-11.
How close can we come to Jesus is the sum of our obedience to him. Or to anyone we love. It is only in being obedient can we truly follow Christ and those we love. When we love, we are not presented right away with everything that could happen in our relationship and journey in life. Love is a wholesale, a package deal always without ifs nor buts. Nobody knows to where our lives would lead to as most couples could attest. That is why, more than being close and near to Jesus or our beloved, we need to be obedient too because that is the mark of true love when we humbly submit ourselves to the one we love.
Obedience calls us to go down to our lowest level because that is the highest mark of our love too. Recall how Jesus at their last supper “loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end” (Jn.13:1) by washing their feet. See how the Son of God went so low, lower than what slaves were not supposed to do, that is, wash feet of others. Jesus showed this in no uncertain terms the following Good Friday by dying on the Cross, of literally going under earth at his burial that led to his highest glory, his Resurrection.
That is why Jesus is the Good Shepherd by first being the gate because in him, we have shared in his pasch to share in his glory. As the gate or door, we enter in Jesus by sharing in his paschal mystery of loving, suffering, and following.
Photo by Dr. Mylene A. Santos, MD, 2020.
Today we are reminded that our being the flock of Jesus, a sheep of the Good Shepherd is not our choice but a gift of God himself.
Our coming together in the church, in our celebrations and sacraments is not a mere social function out of our own volition. It is a gift and a call from Jesus. That is why it is very important to celebrate the Sunday Mass.
It is Christ himself we refuse and turn down when we skip Sunday Masses because when we love somebody, we show it by being present, being near, ready to suffer and obey to show our love.
Jesus is not asking us too much except an hour each week to immerse ourselves in his life giving words, to find him with others we meet and live with.
Peter said something still very true especially in our time, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation” (Acts 2:41) where God is totally disregarded as if we can live without him, without loving like him. Let us return to Jesus, pass in him our door to life and fulfillment by loving, suffering and following him our Good Shepherd. Amen. Have a blessed week and month of May ahead!
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Monday in the Fourth Week of Easter, 09 May 2022
Acts 11:1-18 ><))))*> + <*((((>< John 10:1-10
Photo by author, a house near the home of Cornelius in Jaffa, Israel, 2017.
Today O Lord we go to the polls
to cast our votes for the next group
of national and local leaders of our
nation; we have long been praying
for these elections to be peaceful
and orderly.
Most of all, a matured and intelligent one.
That we finally learn to vote according
to our informed and guided conscience,
carefully and prayerfully evaluating every
candidate, listening more to the voice
of Jesus the Good Shepherd.
But for us to be able to listen to Jesus,
let us first pass through him, our
only door.
Jesus said: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever does not enter a sheepfold through the gate but climbs over elsewhere is a thief and a robber.” So Jesus said again, “Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep.”
John 10:1, 7
To pass through Jesus our gate
requires our own conversion to him;
and not just a conversion like that of
unbelievers and Gentiles in the first
reading but to be converted like Peter
himself and the rest of his fellow
believers who were of Jewish roots:
Peter began and explained it to them (Apostles and brothers in Jerusalem) step by step, saying, “If then God gave them the same gift he gave us when we came to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to be able to hinder God?” When they heard this, they stopped objecting and glorified God, saying, “God has then granted life-saving repentance to the Gentiles too.”
Acts 11:4,17-18
To pass through you, dear Jesus,
is to be one in you which calls for our
daily conversion to you; so many times
we feel complacent, resting on whatever
we have achieved or reached in our
relating with you; it is in our daily-
conversion in you that truly leads us
to communion in you. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Fourth Sunday in Easter-C, 08 May 2022
Acts 13:14, 43-52 ><}}}}*> Revelation 7:9, 14-17 ><}}}}*> John 10:27-30
The Good Shepherd is the earliest portrayal of our Lord Jesus Christ in art. Mostly done in paintings in the catacombs of Rome, Jesus the Good Shepherd is shown as a young, muscular man to signify his eternity carrying on his shoulders a lost sheep.
But that imagery of a shepherd taking care of the lost sheep and flock was an original thought among peoples in the ancient Near East that included Israel. Kings in Babylonia and Assyria regarded themselves as shepherds tasked by their gods to care especially for the weak. This concept we also find in the Old Testament like in the Books of Psalms and of the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel where God promised to send true “shepherds after his own heart” (Jer. 3:15) who shall lead his flock Israel with justice back to him.
That prophecy is fulfilled in Jesus Christ who is not just a shepherd but “the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep” (Jn.10:11) because he is one with his flock.
Oneness is an inner sense of belongingness in personhood and experiences, a common union or communion of selves and experiences like in Jesus becoming human like us to be one in our pains and sufferings and death so that we may be like him in his glorious resurrection and eternal life.
Jesus said: “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand. The Father and I are one.”
John 10:27-28, 30
Photo from Pinterest.com.
Jesus knows us, gives us eternal life; we hear and follow him.
To know in Jewish thought is not merely an intellectual activity of having information and details especially when used in relation with persons. To know somebody means to have a relationship. Knowing is belonging.
Jesus as the Good Shepherd knows us his sheep because we belong to him, and whether we like it or not, we know him precisely because we are his! Recall that during his trial before Pilate, Jesus declared “You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice” (Jn.18:37).
Photo by Dr. Mylene A. Santos, MD, 2020.
From the very start, we have always belonged to God so that out of his great love for us he sent us his Son Jesus Christ so we can find our way back home to him. We are all God’s children created in his “image and likeness” who have become in many instances prodigal sons and daughters living like lost and injured sheep who need all the care and redemption to gain our status again as the Father’s beloved.
Our “belonging” to God is different from “possessing” in the same manner we belong to our parents or spouses to their partner. Human belongingness is way different from things as belongings, although so many times, it happens that people treat persons as things and objects to be possessed than subjects to be loved and cherished.
What do we mean? Children belong to parents and spouses belong to their partner but they can never be considered as possessions or property to be used and manipulated. People belong to one another like children to parents, husband to wife, and wife to husband as most cherished possessions in the sense that they are gifts from God, so unique in one’s self, free to grow and mature as a person. We belong to one another in mutual responsibility not as property; hence, the need for us to accept and support each other in love which leads to deeper communion and oneness through intimacy that extends to eternity!
Now we see why Jesus said he knows his sheep and gives them eternal life. Here we find the image of Jesus the Good Shepherd is in fact the image of Christ the King of the universe which sheds light on his very kingship as seen by John in his vision in our second reading today “of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands” (Rev. 7:9) which is reminiscent of his triumphal entry to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.
In the first reading we have also heard how from the very beginning, it has been God’s plan to lead all men to salvation in Jesus Christ. Despite the setbacks encountered by Paul and Barnabas in Antioch when they were rejected by their fellow Jews, their decision to turn to the gentiles to proclaim the Gospel was in fulfillment of of the Lord’s will that “have made them a light to the Gentiles to be instruments of salvation to the ends of the earth” (Acts 13:47).
The mark of a true shepherd is like a light who leads us to Jesus Christ and his values of prayer, life, persons, family, and justice among others. Here is the distinction between the true shepherd and a thief – a robber does not pass through Jesus, the gate of the sheep (Jn.10:1ff). A thief like many politicians and dictators including their handlers see the flock as things and properties they own and possess who can be bought and be forgotten, even disregarded, until the next elections. (So, vote wisely by listening more to Jesus than to anyone like the candidates’ endorsers.)
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 2018.
Belonging and mutuality
Human belongingness calls for mutuality for it to truly lead to oneness and communion. Jesus said he knows us and gives us eternal life because according to him, we his sheep hear his voice and follow him (v.27).
Do we listen to him and follow him?
Today we are also celebrating Mother’s Day. What a wonderful tribute to mothers who are indeed one of the truest good shepherdess in the world – the one to whom we all belong to, having cared for us from the very beginning in their womb.
Mothers are the most loving, most merciful, and most forgiving of all persons in the world, just like Jesus our Good Shepherd but sad to say, the one we most hurt when we disrespect her, from answering her back to swearing and sadly, when we disobey her. Ironically, when things go wrong with us and our lives, the first person we go to and accepts us is our mother too!
So many times, mothers bear all pains and hardships in life just to see their children fulfilled in life, choosing to suffer and cry in silence to hide the great difficulties they face daily, both physically and emotionally. That is how loving mothers are that in the Old Testament, God introduced himself as a mother, “Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you” (Is.49:15).
It is so easy to say “we love our mom” like claiming “Jesus is our Good Shepherd” but it is entirely another thing to live as a mother’s child or Christ’s sheep.
The grace of this Good Shepherd Sunday is Christ’s coming to us not only to lead us to greener pastures but to renew our relationships, our belonging to him and the Father to experience fulfillment in life. Whether at home or in our nation, may we listen more to Jesus by being mutual in our respect and love for one another and to our Motherland too!
May we have a peaceful and matured elections this Monday! 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.
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