The Lord Is My Chef Christmas Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday in the Octave of Christmas, Feast of the Holy Family, 30 December 2022
Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14 ><}}}}*> Colossians 3:12-21 ><}}}}*> Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23
Photo by Ms. Janine Lloren (2015), Duomo Cathedral in Florence, Italy depicting the harsh conditions the Holy Family faced in Egypt while escaping Herod.
God our loving Father,
thank you for sending us
your Son Jesus through the
husband and wife of
Joseph and Mary;
as we celebrate today
the feast of the Holy Family
of Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
you remind us too that
Christmas is a living story
that happens daily when you
come first in every family.
Help us imitate the Holy Family
in getting closer with you
and with one another in their
flight to Egypt when they faced
so much sufferings and hardships;
how sad that as families face
so many attacks these days from
within and from the outside,
family members have failed to
realize that our flights to Egypt
when we have to go through trials
and difficulties are occasions
to get closer to Jesus and one another;
teach us to go back to you in prayer as
a family, to bring back our altars
of sacred images and icons now
replaced by the giant flatscreen TV;
enable us to reach out more to one
another, to hug more, to converse more
than to spend the whole day before the
computer screen and cellphone
or with business partners and colleagues
or friends and classmates.
Most of all,
as Ben Sirach and St. Paul
reminded us in our first two readings
today, make us realize that our
relationships in the family
mirror our relationship
with you, O God, our Father;
let all our love and charity,
kindness and care begin at home
because that is where Christ
comes first to us! Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Christmas Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thursday in the Octave of Christmas, 29 December 2022
1 John 2:3-11 ><000'> + ><000'> + ><000'> Luke 2:22-35
God our loving Father,
on this Thursday in the Octave of Christmas,
I pray only for the well-being of our beloved
Pope emeritus Benedict XVI.
I love him and deeply respect him for
his holiness characterized by his wisdom
expressed so clearly in his many writings
in defending our faith and proclaiming
Jesus Christ our Lord;
all these he had expressed in all humility
and simplicity with a life full of love
and fervent hope in you and eternity.
He is our modern Simeon,
so misunderstood and even maligned by many
yet, you have been in deep conversations with him
that he had boldly took the great sacrifice of stepping down
from the papacy to await his final call.
Now that Pope Benedict XVI is seriously sick,
I pray like Simeon for him,
"Lord, now you let your servant Benedict XVI
go in peace, your word has been fulfilled in him:
he has not only seen the salvation with his own eyes
but had enabled us all to see Jesus";
in his life and writings, Benedict XVI was clearly
in your light because all he lived and taught
is love for you, O God, and,
love for others and humanity.
Amen.
St. John Paul the Great,
pray for your faithful servant,
Benedict XVI.
The Lord Is My Chef Christmas Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Wednesday in the Octave of Christmas, Feast of Holy Innocents, Martyrs, 28 December 2022
1 John 1:5-2:2 ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> Matthew 2:13-18
Beloved: This is the message that we have heard from Jesus Christ and proclaim to you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say, “We have fellowship with him,” while we continue to walk in darkness, we lie and do not act in truth. But if we walk in darkness, we lie and do not act in truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, then we have fellowship with one another, and the Blood of his Son Jesus cleanses us from all sin.
1 John 1:5-7
God our loving Father,
thank you for sending us your Son
Jesus Christ, the light of the world;
we have experienced many times in life
especially during these three years of pandemic
that no matter how dark our lives may be,
for as long as we walk in Jesus Christ,
there is always light.
Forgive us, Father,
that many times we look for other lights;
we are so tempted and delighted in
following the lights of the world with its
vast array of colors that blind our eyes
or with klieg lights that put us on spot like stars
yet leave us groping in emptiness after;
forgive us, Father, in following other lights
that turn us away from one another and you;
until now, many of us act and think like Herod
and the experts of Jerusalem who refuse to
follow the light of Jesus that make us recognize
you on the face of one another.
Let the light of Jesus born on Christmas
enlighten our minds and our hearts to see
and follow you, O God our Father,
found on the face of every child still in the womb,
on the face of every child who must be cared and protected,
on the face of every woman, especially mothers
and grandmothers forgotten after nurturing us,
on the face of every dad especially those working
away from family and loved ones, rarely seen
crying and rejoicing for their loved ones,
on the face of young people so lost with no one
to listen to them, be with them, assure them of love,
on the face of our health workers considered heroes
yet still taken for granted and even forgotten,
on the face of farmers and fishermen marked with
so many lines of hardships and sufferings under the sun
to feed us yet totally left on their own,
on the face of others in the margins and the disadvantaged,
those forgotten by the society and unfortunately by families:
this Christmas, call us into our own Egypt,
into a retreat and soul-searching for enlightenment
to find your face anew within us
so we may find you on one another.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Christmas Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Tuesday in the Octave of Christmas, Feast of St. John Evangelist, 27 December 2022
1 John 1:1-4 ><000'> + ><000'> + ><000'> John 20:1, 2-8
God our loving Father,
we thank and praise you in
giving us a great saint in
John the Evangelist,
the beloved disciple of your Son Jesus Christ
whose feast we celebrate in this
Octave of Christmas;
it was John who declared that
"God is love" (1 Jn. 4:8, 16),
the most sublime assertion about God
not found in any other religion!
John did not merely said "God loves"
nor "love is God"; instead, John expressed
that you, O God, is love, your essence is love
that is why everything you say and do is love!
In his gospel and letters,
John showed us how your love, O God,
came down on us so that our love
may go up in you, with you, through you
in Christ Jesus who is the expression of your
love himself when you sent him to us this Christmas
for "God so loved the world that he gave us
his only Son" (Jn. 3:16);
when Jesus Christ was about to offer himself
on the Cross, his lowest point in life when he
suffered and died, he gave us his new commandment,
"that you love one another; even as I have loved you,
that you also love one another" (Jn.13:34).
How beautiful that John,
the only Apostle to have grown old
without tasting death as a martyr
unlike the others and remained standing
at the foot of the Cross to whom Jesus
entrusted his Mother,
was able to contemplate all these
wondrous movements of your love, O God,
so that our joy may be complete in Christ.
Open our eyes and our hearts of faith,
Lord Jesus Christ like John the Beloved
so that we may always believe even when
the tomb is empty, when you seem to be missing
and absent; teach us to love you more dearly
so that we may be true in our love in
loving our brothers and sisters whom we can see
as expression of our love to God whom we cannot see;
let us keep on loving so that love may be perfected in us
so we may see God in others
and God may be seen in us always.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Christmas Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Monday in the Octave of Christmas, Feast of St. Stephen, First Martyr, 26 December 2022
Acts 6:8-10, 7:54-59 ><))))*> + ><))))*> + ><))))*> Matthew 10:17-22
Photo by Mr. John Ryan Jacob, 24 December 2022 in Paco, Obando, Bulacan.
Dearest Jesus:
when I was a child,
I have always wondered
how did it happen you were born
in December then suddenly in April
you died on the Cross?
Now I have grown and learned
about history and most of all about life
and living, I have realized the beautiful
truth of your coming: you became like us
not to remove but to be one with us
in our sufferings even death
so that we may be one with you
in your Resurrection!
Thank you for this wonderful
reminder of your Christmas Octave:
your Nativity is also the feast of your final coming
when you will be surrounded by your angels
and saints like St. Stephen our first Martyr,
tomorrow by St. John the Apostle, your beloved,
and on Wednesday by the Holy Innocents.
Along came with Christmas comes also the
Cross of Good Friday!
Jesus said to his disciples: “Beware of men, for they will hand you over to courts and scourge you in their synagogues, and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake as a witness before them and the pagans. You will be hated by all because of my name, but whoever endures to the end will be saved.”
Matthew 10:17-18, 22
O Lord, indeed, let us
"beware of men" who forget
that looming behind your manger
is also the Cross;
let us "beware of men" who have
commercialized and trivialized
your birth, focusing more on
happiness and fun, not even joy as
you have described at your Last Supper;
let us "beware of men" who have taken you
away from Christmas, worshipping money
and things and all that glitz and glamour of the world;
let us "beware of men" who forget the poor
and marginalized, the old and infants especially
those in their mother's wombs;
let us "beware of men" who insist on changing
the rules of marriage and sex according to their
selfish and truncated views on life and relationships;
let us "beware of men" who deny your Cross!
Like St. Stephen, help us Lord Jesus
to always look up to you in heaven in
prayers and sacrifices, witnessing your gospel
and your Cross, remaining faithful and true to you,
upright and decent in living, defending life and justice
without condemning nor judging our persecutors.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Christmas Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Christmas Eve, 24 December 2022
Isaiah 9:1-6 ><}}}}*> Titus 2:11-14 ><}}}}*> Luke 2:1-14
Christmas is the busiest season for us priests. How ironic that as we keep on reminding the people to prepare more on the spiritual aspect of this most loved season, we priests are also caught in all the rush and busyness of Christmas, beginning with the Simbang Gabi and Misa de Gallo and other parish concerns.
But, God gives us the grace to hurdle all difficulties of sleeping late, rising early and in between, praying as we prepare for our homilies. Thank you too for your appreciation and prayers for us priests. Forgive us when sometimes we get too touchy this week for lack of sleep.
As usual, I woke up early today to pray and prepare for Christmas but unfortunately, I felt like waking up on the wrong side of the bed, feeling grouchy. Most of all, so dried in prayer. Yet, God is so merciful after being silent before him before noon, I just felt writing this prayer interspersed with my reflections of the scriptures which I have been praying over since Wednesday.
Dearest sweet Jesus:
I feel agitated.
Or excited?
So many things are coming
and filling me at this moment;
I could not be still to find you,
to experience you.
Come, Lord Jesus,
So that I may share you
with others!
Let me be your Christmas too
by being Your presence to others,
myself as a gift and present especially
to those grieving for the loss of a loved one
during this difficult years of the pandemic;
let me be your Christmas and presence,
myself as a gift and present to those nursing
fresh wounds or wounds that would not heal
because they are so deep and painful;
let me be your Christmas to those with nothing
this Christmas Day except their very selves
with that firm faith and fervent hope in you,
Lord Jesus, by being small and fragile like you
on the manger in Bethlehem.
How lovely is Luke’s presentation of the first Christmas, of Jesus Christ coming in a time of history that is so troubled, so inhospitable especially for children.
Just like today with this ongoing pandemic made worst by the many wars going on that have triggered so many other difficulties and sufferings, from poverty to homelessness. Yet, it is the most beautiful setting of Christ’s coming set at the background of many leaders feeling they are the savior of the world or of their country just like the Roman emperor at the time of his birth. In all their “larger than life” portrayal of themselves, there is Jesus Christ in the most ordinary yet powerful truth of God among us – coming as an infant, coming and starting small!
In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria. So all went to be enrolled, each to his own town. And Joseph went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of Bethlehem…with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. While they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
Luke 2:1-4, 5-7
We need not be famous nor have all the power and wealth to change this world. We all just have to be our true selves, little “earthlings” because in our being small when Jesus comes. We do not have to live in luxuries nor be in the cities or any country. Just be where we are, in our simplicity and humanity where Christ comes to fill us because he is God’s Firstborn in whom everything is created for him, with him and in him as St. Paul had noted.
Inasmuch as God believes in us by entrusting to us his Son Jesus Christ, let us believe also in God truly that he will work miracles in us, with us and through us! That is why Jesus came.
Let me be your Christmas to others, Jesus:
I may not be able to wrap any gift this Christmas,
let my arms and smiles wrap others in a hug
so they may experience your warmth and loving presence;
let me be your Christmas to others, Jesus,
by sharing food, and being the food myself to
those hungry and thirsty to give them strength
not only in body but also in soul;
I do not know how to bake cookies
and other goodies but, still make me your Christmas
to others by sharing your joy and kindness with them
so we could have memories of my love
no matter how imperfect it may be;
most of all, dear Jesus, let me be your Christmas light
this Christmas for others especially those in the darkness
of sin and evil, depression and confusion,
helplessness and despair, isolation and alienation,
of festering anger and recurring painful memories.
We have been through a lot of so many things these past three years. It is God’s will that since the pandemic started in 2020 that this time, we celebrate Christmas face-to-face, which is what Christmas is essentially all about – the Son of God coming to us in flesh to experience Father personally.
Christmas is a story of encounters, of God meeting persons, real people like me and you.
Jesus came as a baby so that we could easily and lovingly receive him as he entrusts himself to our love and care and protection. So many things have happened to us since 2020 but hey, we are still alive, still here celebrating Christmas. Let us dwell in this joy of Jesus coming to us so we may also share him with others still sulking in all the negative vibes brought by COVID-19.
May we imitate his Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary who “kept all these things, reflecting them in her heart” (Lk. 1:19) for it is in our hearts where Jesus comes daily.
How sad that with all the experiences we have had these years of pandemic that we lose sight of its meaning that amid all the darkness and hostilities of this world, Jesus surely comes to save us!
Dearest Jesus,
let me be your Christmas to others:
make me firm in my conviction and faith in you
"rejecting godless ways and worldly desires
by living temperately, justly and devoutly" (Titus 2:12);
let me be your Christmas,
be born in me every day as I strive
to follow you even to the Cross
so that "the people who walked in darkness
may see your great light to experience peace"
(Isaiah 9:1, 5) when I say your words
and do your works. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Simbang Gabi Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Saturday in the Fourth Week of Advent, Ninth Day of the Christmas Novena, 24 December 2022
2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8-12, 14, 16 ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> Luke 1:67-79
Thank you Lord Jesus Christ
for this Season of Advent,
for your words and presence
these past nine days of
Simbang Gabi.
Like King David in the first reading
and Zechariah in the gospel,
now I have seen clearly your light -
"In the tender compassion of our God
the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
to shine on those who dwell in darkness
and shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace"
(Luke 1:78-79).
Help me see your light, Jesus;
let me distinguish the true light
that shines on the face of every person
I meet and serve, especially the weak
and lowly and forgotten;
let me be wary of lights I see only on my face
like King David that no matter how noble are
my plans, it is your light, O Lord, that I must follow
for your light leads to love and kindness,
mercy and compassion, acceptance and forgiveness;
let me search and follow only your light
that makes me accept and embrace and own my past,
especially if it is painful and hurtful
so I may see also the brighter future
you are leading me to.
Most of all, dear Jesus,
like John, fill me with your light
to lead people to you
not to me;
I do not ask your light to make me see
the distance scene but just enough to make
me step closer to you each day
especially when darkness of sin and evil abound.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Simbang Gabi Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday in the Fourth Week of Advent, Eighth Day of Christmas Novena, 23 December 2022
Malachi 3:1-4, 23-24 ><000'> + ><000'> + ><000'> Luke 1:57-66
We are now in the penultimate day to Christmas and Luke is getting more dramatic in his narration of the events leading to the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. The scene is still in Judea, the house of Zechariah when Elizabeth finally gave birth to John the Baptist, the Lord’s precursor.
Everyone rejoiced and something so wonderful happened during the child’s circumcision when he was named.
When the time arrived for Elizabeth to have her child she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy toward her and they rejoiced with her. When they came on the eighth day to circumcise the child, they were going to call him Zechariah after his father, but his mother said in reply, “No. He will be called John.”
Luke 1:57-60
I love that part when Elizabeth suddenly spoke to her relatives and neighbors on the name to be given to her son, but his mother said in reply, “No. He will be called John.”
Beautiful! Another example of Luke’s artistry.
Recall that when Elizabeth was put into the scene by Luke last Monday after the annunciation of John’s birth to his father Zechariah, she was portrayed as soft and somewhat passive. In fact, after conceiving John, Luke tells us Elizabeth went into seclusion for five months to reflect on God’s wondrous deed to her, not to mention the “embarrassment” of an 80-year old woman getting pregnant. That was when Mary visited her.
Elizabeth was all praises to her younger cousin Mary and of course, to God. At the Visitation, we got a picture of Elizabeth as a kind and genteel woman until today when she suddenly roared like a lioness, standing her ground to protect her child! From being passive, Elizabeth is now portrayed as a very active person, a woman in the fullest sense, standing her ground on what she firmly believes and thinks best for her and her child when she adamantly declared to everyone “No. He will be called John.”
One of the things my mother had told me is learning to say NO especially if it has something do with sin and evil, something very bad, including expensive things. Later in life I realized the great value she had instilled in me of knowing to say NO, even of standing by it.
Many times in our modern time, we just go on with the flow, approving without even thinking whatever the world tells us as seen in many commercials and logo like “Just do it!” and “Obey your thirst”. It is what Pope emeritus Benedict XVI called as “dictatorship of relativism” – no more absolutes like God, almost everything is allowed from morals to fashion that many have lost any sense of truth and good, of beauty and decency and propriety.
Elizabeth showed us in the naming of her son something very vital in Christ’s coming: she herself was the finest example and model for John the Baptist in his mission of preparing the way of the Lord, of cleansing the world of its sins and excesses that nobody seemed to fight anymore. In the first reading, Malachi prophesied how the precursor would be like a “refiner’s fire, or like the fuller’s lye” (Mal.3:2) cleansing the people, preparing their hearts to receive Jesus Christ.
Any cleansing or conversion or repentance begins first with a decisive NO to sin and evil, to useless traditions and beliefs that forget God and his people.
See how Luke brought out this strong character of Elizabeth perfectly in the timing of the circumcision and naming of her child – right at the moment of the “cutting” of the foreskin, Elizabeth intervened and insisted on God’s plan that was contrary to everyone’s thought and belief. It was Elizabeth who “cut off” or broke off John and her self from the traditions and old rituals of the people at that time. She was a trailblazer in fact, a trait John must have acquired from her from the very start of his life.
Most beautiful scene here is when Elizabeth stood her ground to the point that her relatives and neighbors protested to her naming her child John. She really meant her NO despite their protests that they asked Zechariah to write on a tablet the child’s name.
And everyone was amazed, even shocked, when Zechariah who was deaf-mute at that time, affirmed that “John is his name” (Lk.1:63), affirming Elizabeth’s choice of name.
Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed, and he spoke blessing God. Then fear came upon all their neighbors, and all these matters were discussed throughout the hill country of Judea. All who heard these things took them to their heart, saying, “What, then, will this child be?” For surely the hand of the Lord was with him.
Luke 1:64-66
Imagine how those things happened simply because Elizabeth said “NO”.
John eventually would offer his life for saying NO to Herod’s taking of his brother’s wife, Herodias.
Lastly, our Lord Jesus Christ suffered and died on the Cross for saying NO too to the ways of the world, to sin and to evil. In a sense, he came to teach us to say NO to the world so that we may experience his love and mercy, freedom and peace and prosperity. Let us pray:
Lord Jesus Christ,
as your birthday fast approaches,
give me the courage to say NO like
Elizabeth, the mother of your precursor,
John the Baptist;
teach me to say NO to traditions and rituals
without meaning, full of pomp and pageantry,
most especially of our very selves and ego,
empty of meaning, and worst, disregard you
who are among the poor and suffering;
let us say NO to death and injustice;
NO to reducing life into mere lifestyle,
NO to divorce,
NO to abortion,
NO to same sex union,
NO to deviation from you,
our Lord and God.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Simbang Gabi Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thursday in the Fourth Week of Advent, Seventh Day of Christmas Novena, 22 December 2022
1 Samuel 1:24-28 ><000'> + ><000'> + ><000'> Luke 1:46-56
Christmas is a call for us to be grateful. Only a grateful heart can truly be emptied and be filled with Jesus Christ. A heart that truly praises God is first of all a grateful heart. Mary’s song, the Magnificat is a both a song of thanksgiving and gratitude to God for all his wondrous blessings to her and to mankind in general.
Yesterday we heard how Mary hastily went to visit her cousin Elizabeth in Judea to share with her the Good News she had received, our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. After being praised by Elizabeth, Mary responded today not by praising her cousin as we would always do; she instead praised and thanked God.
Again, we hear today wonderful stories of women – not just two like yesterday but three! – who were so blessed by God, thanking and praising God for blessing them with sons: Hannah in the first reading for her son Samuel who became one of Israel’s greatest prophet, Mary pregnant with Jesus Christ while visiting her cousin Elizabeth who was sixth month pregnant with John.
See how Hannah as a sign of her gratitude to God through the priest Eli who promised to pray for her to conceive a son gave Samuel at a very young age to serve in the Lord’s altar. The same is true with Mary in singing the Magnificat when she reaffirmed her fiat to God, of being his ever-faithful handmaid doing his will always.
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior. For he has looked upon his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name.”
Luke 1:46-49
Photo by Mr. John Ryan Jacob, 20 December 2022, Paco, Obando, Bulacan.
Gratitude is a virtue that works great wonders for everyone because it makes us live in the present moment. A grateful person is one who lives in the here and now, not in the past nor in the future. Look at the structure of Mary’s Magnificat that is in the present tense.
When our heart is filled with gratitude, we have no time to complain and nurse old wounds and pains in the past but simply learn from them and move on with life. Living in the present moment means making things happen, working hard on our dreams and aspirations to become a reality, exactly what the Magnificat is telling us! How are we going to continue God’s wondrous works like Mary? By remaining faithful to Jesus Christ all the way to his Cross on Good Friday.
People who refuse to be grateful in life are busy wishful thinking of how things should be or would be, always looking at the future as a fantasy that would just pop out of nowhere instead of working for it in the present moment.
Unknown to many, gratitude is the fount of all good vibes in life, enabling us to be more positive than negative. It helps us accept the reality we are into – whether it is good or bad.
And that is when we start growing and maturing as persons when we learn to accept our present realities.
Most of all, gratitude disposes us to more blessings and grace from God because a thankful heart is always the one that seeks relationships, with God and with others. See that Mary did not sing her Magnificat while with the angel Gabriel after announcing the birth of Christ nor after he had left, right in the comforts of her home. Mary went in haste to Judea to celebrate and thank God’s gifts with her cousin Elizabeth.
People who go out of their way to say thank you,
to express gratitude are person-oriented.
They see more the persons
not just the kind deeds done to them
and beautiful gifts given them.
Very often, people thank us priests especially for praying for them, enlightening and guiding them. That is why people lavish us with all kinds of gifts. Every time people thank me, I tell them, “kami po ang dapat magpasalamat sa inyo kasi lumalago kami kay Kristo!” In my 24 years as a priest, I have realized that the more faithful we are in serving God through his people, the more we are blessed and hence, the more we must be grateful!
People who go out of their way to say thank you, to express gratitude are person-oriented. They see more the persons not just the kind deeds done to them and beautiful gifts given them. When we say thank you, when we let others know of how grateful we are, we recognize their personhood that is why we reach out to them, trying to connect with them and befriend them. Or, to keep our ties alive and strong. As the old song says, “People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.”
Remember the ten lepers healed by Jesus Christ on his way to Jerusalem?
Only one returned – a Samaritan – to thank Jesus. He was the only one who was “saved” when Jesus told him, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you” (Lk.17:19).
Photo by Mr. John Ryan Jacob, 20 December 2022 in Paco, Obando, Bulacan.
Gratitude is a very practical virtue, “the parent of all virtues” according to the Roman scholar and statesman Cicero. It is the one virtue we need to recapture and reacquire in this time to make through the many challenges and trials this pandemic has brought us. Instead of complaining and being so sorry with the plight we are into due to COVID-19, let us start counting our many blessings in life to see the vast opportunities and lessons this crisis has given us. In fact, the more this pandemic has persisted, the more blessings we can find that we must be thankful too.
Because of the pandemic, we have learned to cherish more one another as we come to value persons and life again more than things. There are so many things we have to be grateful in life during this time of the pandemic, perhaps even more than the sufferings and trials we have gone through as it opened to us new views and perceptions about life itself.
Most of all, it had brought us back to the grounding of our being, to God who is life himself, the source of all good things we have long forgotten and now remember. And rightly praise and thank. That is why I keep on telling everyone, God willed Christmas 2022 falls on a Sunday so we may personally, face-to-face celebrate together. And thank him through the people he has given us! Let us pray:
My soul also proclaims
your greatness, O Lord Jesus Christ
like Mary your Mother!
Thank you for the gift of life
with all of its pains and hurts
that have strengthened me,
for all the joys that have enriched me.
Most of all, for the call to serve you.
Who am I, O Lord, to be called
and visited by you?
Many times I have failed you
yet you keep on coming, still calling me,
still believing in me, still trusting me.
What else can I say except
thank you from the bottom of my heart.
As your birthday approaches,
as my gift to you dearest Jesus,
enable me to remain faithful to you
like Mary your Mother and our Mother too
even up to your Cross.
Here am I, Lord, send me.
Amen.
Photo by Mr. John Ryan Jacob, 19 December 2022 in Paco, Obando, Bulacan.
The Lord Is My Chef Simbang Gabi Recipe by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Wednesday in the Fourth Week of Advent, Sixth Day of Christmas Novena, 21 December 2022
Song of Song 2:8-14 ><))))*> + ><))))*> + ><))))*> Luke 1:39-45
Photo by Mr. John Ryan Jacob, 20 December 2022.
Did you know that there is a funny story behind that lovely entrance hymn in all our Masses we have been singing since the start of the Advent Season rightly called Halina Jesus, Halina?
According to the story, when Jesus turned seven years old – that’s the seventh Christmas of the world! – the Blessed Mother decided to bake him a beautiful birthday cake. The child Jesus was busy playing with his cousins when his Mother asked him to buy some flour, eggs, butter, and sugar. Of course, the young Messiah obeyed her and went to the store to buy the ingredients for his birthday cake. But, as the Catholic Catechism of the Church attests that Jesus is truly human like us, he suddenly forgot the most important ingredient needed in his cake, the flour. He rushed back home and asked Mama Mary again what was he supposed to buy. This happened thrice that for the third time, Mary was exasperated, wrote it on a piece of paper, telling the child Jesus, “Harina, Jesus, harina!”
For our non-Filipino followers, harina is flour, very close to halina which is come as the song tells us.
Christmas is a story of people, real persons like you and me meeting, encountering God. So far since Sunday we have heard stories of encounters by Joseph, Zechariah and Mary with an angel. Today, we hear the beautiful encounter between two women so blessed by God, two mothers whose sons would usher in a new beginning of life on earth.
Mary set out in those days and travelled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”
Luke 1:39-43
The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to her cousin Elizabeth is in itself a proclamation of the Good News of Jesus Christ that presents us with the beautiful personages of two women who are “beloved ones of God” as well as “lovers of God.”
Both of them “believed” in the promised salvation from God through their mysterious maternity, Mary being a virgin while Elizabeth in her being old and barren.
They both love God so much that they were gifted with exceptional vocations, Elizabeth bore the Precursor of the Lord Himself born by Mary.
Most of all, both women waited patiently for the coming of the promised salvation in Christ Jesus.
Visit and visitation may seem to be one and the same in the sense that both have a common Latin root word, the verb to see or vidi, videre from which came the word video. But, a visit is more casual and informal without intimacy because it is just “a passing by” or merely to see. It is more concerned with the place or the location and site and not the person to be visited. We say it clearly in Filipino as in “napadaan lang” when it just so happened you were passing by a place and even without any intentions, you tried seeing someone there.
On the other hand, visitation is more commonly used in church language like when a bishop or priests come to see the parishioners in remote places. This is the reason a chapel is more known as a visita in our country because that is where priests visit and check on the well-being of people living in areas very far from the parish usually at the town proper. Aside from being the venue for the celebration of Masses, the visita serves as classroom for catechism classes and other religious even social gatherings in a particular place.
Thus, visitation connotes a deeper sense in meaning because there is an expression of care and concern among people, a kind of love shared by the visitator/visitor and the one visited like Mary and Elizabeth.
Visitation is more of entering into someone’s life or personhood as reported by Luke on Mary’s visitation to Elizabeth where Mary “entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth” (Lk.1:40), implying communion or the sharing of a common experience. In this case, the two women shared the great experience of being blessed with the presence of God in their wombs!
Visitation, therefore, is a sharing or oneness in the joys and pains of those dear to us. The word becomes more meaningful when we try to examine its Filipino equivalent which is “pagdalaw” from the root word “dala” that can be something you bring or a verb to bring. When we come for a visitation, we dala or bring something like food or any gift. But most of all we bring our very selves like a gift of presence wherein we share our total selves with our time and talents, joys and sadness, and everything to those being visited. And that is what Mary did exactly in her visitation of Elizabeth where she brought with her the Lord Jesus Christ in her womb, becoming the first monstrance of the Lord as well as His first tabernacle.
Today we are invited to become like Mary in the visitation of others to bring Christmas and Jesus Himself to others by allowing our very selves, our body, to be the “bringer” or taga-dala of Christ. The Lord Himself is the highest good we can bring as pasalubong in every visitation we make. And if we can only be like Mary in our visitations and dealings with one another sharing Jesus Christ, then we also bring with us God’s tenderness and sweetness to others.
That is why we have to rush, we have to go in haste like Mary for we have the best good of all – Jesus Christ – to share for everyone!
Come, Lord Jesus Christ!
Come in haste like your Mother Mary
so we may also have a visitation of
persons we have forgotten,
we have taken for granted
all these years!
Come into my heart, Jesus,
and let me see my connections
and links with everyone in you!
We do not need so many presents to give,
just our presence is more than enough
for others to experience your coming
especially on this Christmas.
Amen.
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