Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 10 March 2025
When the devil first tempted Jesus "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread" the devil tempts us too to forget our being beloved children of God by doing everything and anything for us to be reduced to human doing forgetting we are human being.
And so, Jesus told
the devil, "One does not live
by bread alone",
he tells us too today
even if we cannot do anything
because we are weak and sick,
even if we fail to do something
because we have forgotten or
was so afraid,
we are still loved
for God is greater than
our hearts who cannot be seen
yet so true and so real,
fulfilling not just satisfying
than any bread.
Photo by author, Timberland Highlands Resort, San Mateo, Rizal, 08 March 2025.
When the devil tempted Jesus the third time, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here", the devil tempts us too to totally forget God because, after all, whatever we do, God still loves us; of course, that is true: we are humans loved and cared in our being not in our doing.
And so, Jesus told the devil "You should not put the Lord, your God to the test", he tells us too today for us to stop pushing the limits of morality and decency, and simply let the mysteries of God and of life wrap us because they are greater than us, not problems to be solved nor principles to be understood.
Photo by author, 10 March 2025.
Life is a daily Lent, a journey towards Easter, a return to our first love, - God in Jesus Christ his Son in whom we have been baptized and adopted as his beloved children as our being and identity: so let us simply be our true selves - his beloved since the beginning - loving him totally in our loving service to others.
This Lent let us journey in Jesus in prayer to be one in him; in fasting to create space for him within; in alms-giving to be one with fellow human beings for we are not human doings who cannot do everything who cannot know and explain everything except to wonder more, to love more, to appreciate more, to believe and trust God more.
*Collage are photos of our students last February 09, 2025 spending a Sunday afternoon of love with children with cerebral palsy and family.
**Special thanks to our sister in faith, Nicola who gave us the idea for this poem, the beautiful terms "human being, human doing" from her blog https://eaglesight.blog/2025/03/02/rest-and-replenish/.
40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Monday, First Week in Lent, 10 March 2025 Leviticus 19:1-2, 11-18 + + + Matthew 25:31-46
Photo by author, view of Metro Manila from balcony of Timberland Highlands Resort, San Mateo, Rizal, 08 March 2025.
Then the righteous will answer him and say, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?" (Matthew 25:37-39)
How I long and pray I would someday be asking this same question to you, Lord, totally surprised, wondering what happened when all I did was do something naturally as second nature, without much thinking and ado in being kind and charitable, in responding to anyone who is hungry or thirsty, stranger or naked, ill or in prison.
You are so great, dear Jesus in teaching us not to think of kindness and being Christian as a list to be kept and checked always but simply a way of life in doing what is right, what is good for we are all your kin in one God and Father who is Lord of all (first reading).
Photo by author, same view taken later that night,Timberland Highlands Resort, San Mateo, Rizal, 08 March 2025.
Then they (the accursed) will answer and say, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?" He will answer them, "Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me" (Matthew 25:44-45).
Forgive us, Jesus when our being Christian is more on duties and tasks like a code of ethics; teach us to be utterly different from others as your followers reflecting the Father and his love in a whole new way especially in this time when everyone seems to be so cold and numb even callous with others around them; animate us with your warm presence of joy and love to everyone for them to realize there is one true Lord God above all. Amen.
Photo by author, same view taken with different exposure,Timberland Highlands Resort, San Mateo, Rizal, 08 March 2025.
On this first Sunday in Lent, we find our Lord Jesus Christ led into the desert by the Holy Spirit after his baptism at Jordan for forty days to pray and later tempted by the devil. It is exactly the picture of our daily life wherein the closer we come to God, the more we strive to be good and holy, the more we are intensely tempted by the devil.
Indeed, life is a daily Lent of spiritual battles with the devil and as we enter the first Sunday of this 40-day journey, Jesus reminds us we too can overcome this temptations if we remain in God by taking into heart his words that give life.
Of course, Jesus was tempted by the devil not just thrice but many times until his crucifixion; however, turn your attention my dear friend to the first and third temptations that are very similar:
The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, One does not live by bread alone” ….. Then he led him to Jerusalem, made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written: He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you, and: With their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.” Jesus said to him in reply, “It also says, You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test” (Luke 4:3-4, 9-12).
In this scene that comes right after the baptism of Jesus at Jordan by John the Baptist, Luke wants us to see how the devil would always challenge the identity of Jesus Christ, “If you are the Son of God.”
Recall that after his baptism while praying, the heaven opened with the Holy Spirit descending on him in the form of a dove with a voice declaring “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Lk. 3:22). Everyday the devil tempts us too in that way, always challenging us with the same line, “if you are the Child of God, do this, do that” as if our identity is on doing than being.
In our baptism, we have become the beloved children of God in Christ which is our identity and being that is an inherent gift from God no one can take away which the devil works so hard to destroy. The devil’s devious line of challenging us “if you are the child of God” to prove ourselves by doing certain actions is designed to wear us off and eventually for us to self-destruct for not keeping up with the demands of the world and of others.
Our worth is not found in what we can do; we are worthy because God made us in his own image and likeness, giving us the unique identity as his beloved children in Jesus Christ. Even when we get old and sick in the future, not able to do anything worthwhile for the economy or the family, we remain worthy and valuable in God’s eyes.
Photo by author, Sakura Farm, Atok, Benguet, 27 December 2024.
Like Jesus we face intense spiritual battle with the devil daily, tempting us in various ways with desires for wealth and fame, power and pleasures. He tempts us in our personal and professional lives, in our relationships with God and with others, even with our very selves with long lists of things to do to prove our worth.
Remember, the devil tempts us not just to sin but ultimately to destroy our lives by separating us from our grounding, our root who is God our Father.
The devil’s dare to Jesus that “If you are the Son of God… turn this stone into bread” is echoed daily in our own temptations when the evil one through people aided by the consumerist culture ask us to prove our worth by doing many things without any regard to the values of life and human person, or the importance of virtues and spirituality.
When the devil repeated the same line of temptation to Jesus “If you are the Son of God… throw yourself down from the parapet of the temple”, the same trick is played on us by the world luring us to forget morals, to disregard traditions that in the process we already deny the value of life and persons by pushing the crazy, modern ideas of relativism and wokism.
How sad in this world today when everyday we are dared to prove our worth in doing not realizing that our worth remains even if we can’t do so much. That is why youth and strength are glorified while sickness, disability and old age are frowned upon these days simply because we can’t do as much, including life in its earliest and weakest stage in the mother’s womb. Our worth as a person is in our being, not doing.
It is so crazy that eventually we have replaced life with lifestyles, while persons are degraded as objects and commodities to be possessed than loved and cherished. In our desire to prove our worth with everything we can do and accomplish, we end up more empty and lost in the process, reduced to nothingness.
Now see the ways of Jesus which is the theme of Lent every year – conversion of sinners, a return to God our Father by trusting his words again as our source of life and being.
When Jesus answered the devil that man does not live by bread alone, the Lord is inviting us to have a more wholistic view on life, on those hidden and not seen, on the mysterious that makes us experience life more not just skin-deep but within no one can snatch nor steal. In a world so amazed with big, spectacular things, the truth remains that the most wonderful things in life are those found within our hearts and lips, those words that build and comfort us as St. Paul tells us in the second reading.
In the third temptation, Jesus thwarted the devil completely when he declared you must not put God to the test. It is a clear reminder for us to keep in mind always that we are the creatures not the creator, telling us all those vain attempts of playing God since time immemorial have gone to nothing.
We can’t just do anything nor everything in this world and in this life. All of the mysteries around us and within us are not meant to be solved but simply accepted and embraced, allowing ourselves to be wrapped in God to find him deep inside us that in itself a vast universe of beauty and majesty.
This is what Moses was telling the people in the wilderness as they prepared to enter the Promised Land. See how the first reading is like a dream sequence, of the many beautiful scenarios that could happen once they entered the Promised Land. Moses was telling his people and us today to be ready with God’s many surprises if we abide in him and trust him. No need to test God nor play God because we are all covered in God’s grace!
This first Sunday, Jesus invites us back to the wilderness of our lives to be still, to rest in God, to trust his words as we experience and appreciate our giftedness in him even if we can no longer move and do things because more than anything else in this world, each of us is precious in God’s sight and presence. Amen. Have a blessed week! Keep yourself hydrated this summer.
Photo by Dra. Mylene A. Santos, MD, somewhere in Palawan, 2023.
40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 07 March 2025
Photo from nationalshrine.org of Prophet Isaiah at the crypt church inside the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC.
While praying last night the first reading this Friday after Ash Wednesday, my attention was drawn to the Prophet Isaiah’s very strong words declaring, Thus says the Lord God: Cry out full-throated and unsparingly, lift up your voice like a trumpet blast; tell my people their wickedness, and the house of Jacob their sins” (Is. 58:1-9).
Immediately my imaginations ran high with images of Formula cars racing full-throttle on tracks with their deafening sound waxed by the odorous burning of their tires that segued into the cool, opening synth music later with drums and bass of Tears of Fears’ 1984 hit Shout.
Whoa! It was really a rock and roll moment with the Lord last night that was suddenly punctuated with an emergency sick call in the ICU of our hospital where I serve as chaplain. After half an hour when I got back in my room, I finished my prayer and listened to more music by Tears for Fears that I realized Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith are modern Isaiahs!
But first, the Prophet Isaiah who is one of the four major prophets of the Old Testament.
Photo from nationalshrine.org of Prophet Isaiah at the south entrance of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC.
While in third year high school seminary in the early 80’s, our religion teacher Msgr. Narsing Sampana assigned me to report this great prophet. I thought it was a punishment because the Book of Isaiah is one of the longest and most difficult in the whole Bible. But looking back as I would always tell Msgr. Narsing, I learned a lot from him that after nine years of leaving the seminary, I have always loved Prophet Isaiah and his book that eventually helped me rediscovered my priestly vocation later in life.
It was Isaiah who prophesied the birth of the Messiah by the Blessed Virgin that he is widely read during the Advent Season as he warned the people too of the coming judgment of God for their sins; hence, his frequent reading in this season of Lent.
It was from his book that the lyrics were taken in one of the most loved Filipino Church music Hindi Kita Malilimutan by Jesuit Father Manoling Francisco that came out on the year we graduated in high school, 1982.
Isaiah was a very bold prophet who spoke strongly against evil and sins particularly injustice among the Israelites of his time, including of their king. He minced no words in speaking for God like today when he said “Cry out full-throated” which is to express confidently through shouting, with strong feeling and without limits.
That was Isaiah, a bold speaker yet also spoke with words filled with hope in God’s love and mercy on us. He is the kind of witness we need these days when many Christians especially Catholics disturbingly quiet about the many issues going on like wokism pretending to be for equality and justice through the social media.
In the Church, we need an Isaiah with some bishops and priests selectively silent in disciplining the clergy so immersed in abuses not only sexual in nature but also pertaining to finances and even our liturgy. How sad when bishops and priests attack government officials and politicians for their corruption but keep their eyes and mouth shut with clerical abuses in all forms. These rampant abuses within the Church is manifested in the ever growing abuses of the liturgy itself. Check your social media feeds to see how some priests contradicted the very spirit of Lent with their pompous novelties in imposing ashes on the faithful two days ago. No wonder, even those in other sects and cults came out in the streets with their “own” kind of Ash Wednesday rituals as if it is kanya-kanya lang style like what some priests did.
An Isaiah is what we really need in the Church in this time of synodality that sadly this early could end up as another set of documents to gather dust in parish bodegas.
Photo from bbc.com 2022 before the release of Tears for Fears “The Tipping Point”, their first since 2004.
This is where we find the enduring duo of Orzabal and Smith who make up Tears for Fears a modern Isaiah with their prophetic songs.
With everybody wanting to rule the world – pun intended – their Shout is so Lenten in nature. It is exactly what Isaiah meant 2800 years ago when he said “cry out full-throated” that Tears for Fears perfectly first sang in 1984:
Shout Shout Let it all out These are the things I can do without Come on I'm talking to you Come on
Shout Shout Let it all out These are the things I can do without Come on I'm talking to you Come on
In violent times You shouldn't have to sell your soul In black and white They really, really ought to know
Those one track minds That took you for a working boy Kiss them goodbye You shouldn't have to jump for joy You shouldn't have to jump for joy
Shout Shout Let it all out These are the things I can do without Come on I'm talking to you Come on
They gave you life And in return you gave them hell As cold as ice I hope we live to tell the tale I hope we live to tell the tale
From imdb.com.
From their second album Songs from the Big Chair, Shout is Tears for Fears second biggest hit after Everybody Wants to Rule the World released in 1985. Orzabal admitted on many occasions that Shout was a “simple song about protest”.
Their lyrics are clearly prophetic, a witnessing of their very lives since the 80’s until now. We are so glad that Tears for Fears have rereleased Shout recently with both of them still having the energy and conviction in playing this song despite their shorter and white hair. Being prophetic is witnessing or walking our talk like Orzabal and Smith. Like a good wine, they sound better in their latest music videos with their song taking a life of its own that gladly many young people have embraced too like us 40 years ago.
Let us join Tears for Fears shouting and standing for the same calls for justice they first shouted in 1984 that was also shouted full-throated by Isaiah in 800 BC. Have a blessed weekend, everyone!
Here’s Tears for Fears original music video for Shout for your rock and roll reflection this first Friday of Lent 2025.
40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Friday after Ash Wednesday, 07 March 2025 Isaiah 58:1-9 + + + Matthew 9:14-15
Photo by author, Hidden Springs Valley Resort, Calauan, Laguna, 20 February 2025.
I love your words today, Lord God our Father through the Prophet Isaiah:
Thus says the Lord God: Cry out full-throatedand unsparingly, lift up your voice like a trumpet blast; tell my people their wickedness, and the house of Jacob their sins (Isaiah 58:1-9).
So strong was the word your great prophet had used, "full-throated" which is to express confidently, with strong feeling and without limit; to shout our loudly in no uncertain terms; to mince no words, to emphatically declare what it really is.
Photo by author, Hidden Springs Valley Resort, Calauan, Laguna, 20 February 2025.
O God forgive us, as a nation and as a church, as a community of your disciples for being so soft, so disturbingly quiet and selectively silent in denouncing injustice and abuses happening not only around us but even by those among us; we have been so lax, overly lenient, always trying to please everyone that we have forgotten to stand for you in Christ Jesus that so many among us your priests have abused your worship, your prayers, your liturgy.
Teach us to be like your tall trees, so magnificently imposing minus the pride and airs many of us exude; simply rooted and grounded in you, O Lord, firm and unshakeable, truly a presence in Christ.
Photo by author, Atok, Benguet, 27 December 2024.
Let us take the challenges of the Prophet Isaiah to see fasting not just as refraining from food and drink but about how our behavior affect others; let us empty ourselves first of the bonds of wickedness that bind us so that in our fasting we set the oppressed free by breaking every yoke (Is.58:6); let us be one with the hungry and homeless by realizing our nakedness in you, that more essential than food and things are those of the Spirit to experience you among the poor like the hungry and the homeless (Is.58:7); let us be your presence in this world by shouting full-throated not just with our voice but most especially with our actions and witnessing of your justice and love.
Loving Father, you have given us with so much and we have given so little if not nothing at all; teach us the essence of fasting which is to give more of ourselves with others and to give more of you and your love, and kindness, and mercy, and joy and life. Amen.
40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Thursday after Ash Wednesday, 06 March 2025 Deuteronomy 30:15-20 + Luke 9:22-25
Why always the Cross, Lord Jesus Christ? Many times I grapple not only with myself but especially with others at how to explain, what to tell them the need for your Cross when all in our lives has always been the cross. Even the simple act of choosing, of deciding is a cross.
And yet, we still foolishly choose death in the process by avoiding your Cross, Lord.
Moses said to the people: “Today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and doom” (Deuteronomy 30:15).
In this Season of Lent, let me appreciate anew the beauty and majesty, nobility and divinity of your Cross, Jesus; always looming in our lives is your Cross because that is where you are always found, that is where you stay most of the time to heal us, to forgive us, to save us. There is always the Cross in our lives because it is the direction to life, to fulfillment, to fruitfulness in you, Jesus who was the first to suffer and die on the Cross for us so we can have life. Let us carry our Cross to make that crossing into life in you. Amen.
40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Ash Wednesday, 05 March 2025 Joel 2:12-18 + 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2 + Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18
As we begin our 40-day journey to Easter this Season of Lent with Ash Wednesday, I pray only for one thing, dear Lord Jesus: let me find my way, my direction to you.
Rend my heart, Jesus: take away my pride and fill me with your humility, justice, and love; let me enter my heart more often these days to commune in you to be one with you as you dwell here in my heart.
Help me create a space for you, Jesus and for others I have taken for granted especially those who truly care for me, those at the margins those I avoid; let me be reconciled with you, Jesus beginning today a very acceptable time, a day of salvation in you.
May this ash on my forehead direct me to my origin and destination in the Father in heaven through you, Jesus, who suffered, died and rose again for me. Amen.
40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Ash Wednesday, 05 March 2025 Joel 2:12-18 ><}}}*> 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2 ><}}}*> Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18
Life is a daily Lent, a journey towards Easter.
We go through a pasch everyday like Jesus Christ’s Passion, Death and Resurrection when we “pass over” from sin into grace, from darkness into light, from death into life.
Life is a daily Lent because everyday, we go through an “exodus” from another day to the next new day, from sunset to sunrise. However, Lent as a journey is about direction, not destination. This we find clearly at the start of our 40-day journey of Lent with Ash Wednesday.
“Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God” (Joel 2:12-13).
It is strange that while Jesus Christ asked us in the gospel to “Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father” (Mt.6:1), what we are doing this Ash Wednesday is exactly the opposite!
Alam na this… that if you meet anyone with ashes on his/her forehead, definitely he/she is a Catholic who had gone to Mass or at least had observed Ash Wednesday.
There are some who would surely be teased by friends as being too serious as they practice abstinence by avoiding meat today and on Fridays this Lent. Most likely too, many would be giving alms today in the collections for the poor in the parishes all because for the reason it is Ash Wednesday.
These three pillars of Lent – prayer, fasting and alms-giving are not only meant for this Season that lasts only for 40 days but something we are hoped to practice the whole year through until we are slowly transformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ.
The purpose of Jesus in asking us in the gospel to do these all in secret is to avoid falling into the trap of the people of His time who flaunted to everyone their prayer, fasting and alms-giving, forgetting God in the process because focus had been on them. And yes, it continues among us that we have religiosity without spirituality, devotion without evangelization.
Moreover, to practice these in secret is actually to enter into our very selves, into our hearts where God dwells, where we meet Him personally.
Our Lenten journey becomes a direction when we take it into our hearts, when we open and rend our hearts to let Jesus come and dwell within by letting Him empty us of our pride to be filled with His humility, justice and love.
Lent then becomes a direction leading us not only to daily Easter but ultimately to our eternal salvation not just in heaven or any “place” but to be one with the Person of God Himself and the persons along the way we shall meet with whom we are called by Christ to be one with in Him.
Therefore, Lent as a direction is an inner transformation as companions in Christ.
In this age of WAZE and GPS, we can easily seek directions to a particular destination. Problem with being focused more on destination is we miss the fun and adventure of every journey. When we reach our destination, what do we do?
We cross out from our list of travel goals every destination that we make and start looking for new places to visit until we have been to every place on earth that we plan to visit the Moon and Mars next! Eventually we get tired with travels and after covering so many distances and destination, we still feel lacking and incomplete. There is no more destination to go to that we confront ourselves with the existential question, is this really what I need most in life? Is this all?
To see life more as a direction means to find its meaning in God that we keep on maturing, we keep on sustaining our journey in Him and with Him. It does not matter wherever He leads me or where I go or stay because what matters most is I am in and with God.
Lent is entering God in and through Jesus Christ. It is going back to Him, staying in Him and with Him in love. This is the reason why we fast, we empty ourselves even our sights and other senses so that we become more sensitive to God’s presence. There are no flowers, no decors, no Alleluia, no Gloria in the church and liturgy. Everything is bare essential so we are not distracted in finding and following God right in our hearts.
Recall the first time you truly fell in love, when truly loved that you literally see and hear even smell your beloved everywhere and in everyone. You always thought it is your beloved whom you saw walking or speaking somewhere but it wasn’t really she! Akala mo lang…
When we truly love, the time and place are not important because all we have are the here and the now together.
Oh how easy to say we love God or somebody! But if we try to probe deeper into ourselves, we find that we have not truly loved God or anyone that much because in many instances, we always prevail over them. We choose our own will than God’s or our beloved’s.
That is when we sin as we turn away from God and our beloved. To sin is not just to break laws and turn away from God and our beloved but ultimately a refusal to love which is actually losing one’s direction in life.
Lent is the wonderful season of finding again our direction in life, our true love, God. Love needs no justifications. And we can only love persons, not things. Hence the need for oneness, for reconciliation as St. Paul asked us in the second reading to be “reconciled with God” (2 Cor.5:20).
Working together, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says: In an acceptable time I heard you, and on the day of salvation I helped you. Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:1-2).
Now is the best time to find our life direction in God in our personal and communal worship and practices this Lent. When you find your direction, you find God, yourself and others. And that is when you find joy and peace which is Easter, the direction of every Lent and life. Amen.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 09 May 2024
Our mother had always loved flowers and shades of pink, especially pink carnation her favorite.
It has been said death is the greatest equalizer. But with my mom’s recent passing, I realized too that death is the best explainer of life. Death is life’s final joke on us that answers, clarifies the many questions we have been asking in our lifetime.
Consider these:
Dad died on June 17, 2000, my mom’s 61st birthday; we celebrated his 40th day of death on his birthday, July 26, 2000. He died on a Saturday, the eve of Father’s Day.
Mommy died May 07, 2024 with her 40th day coming on June 15, two days before her 85th birthday and dad’s 24th death anniversary. This Sunday after her burial is Mother’s Day.
Ever since my father died, I have realized that death weaves a certain pattern in our lives, telling us a lot of things about us and our loved ones. And about life itself if we would have faith in God by setting aside our fears and superstitions.
Photo by author, somewhere in Bgy. Kaysuyo, Alfonso, Cavite, 27 April 2024.
See how Jesus spoke to His disciples about His coming death during their Last Supper:
“Now I am going to the one who sent me, and not one of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I told you this, grief has filled your hearts. But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you… But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming.”
John 16:5-7, 13
It is always after someone had died when things and life itself become clearer for us. In every death comes an unfolding of truth in time, in persons. It is after a beloved had died when we realize how much we do not know of their goodness or kindness that often we are surprised at the outpouring of love by those who come to their wake. Many times, strangers know more of the brighter side of a person when he/she dies. Along this line of mystery of the person we find too how death happens on days that at first seem to mean nothing at all but at closer look, or later as we moved on in life after the demise of a loved one, we see how every death points to something about us and our family and friends!
Hence, we say death is not the end but the beginning of eternity. Actually, with the deaths of my father and now of my mom, I have found death is life. No wonder St. Francis referred to death as a person, calling him “cousin Death.”
This became more clear to me when I became a chaplain at the Fatima University Medical Center (FUMC) in Valenzuela City.
Last year I took care of an elderly priest, Msgr. Teng Manlapig when he was confined in our hospital for almost a month. Two days before he died on February 26, 2023, he asked me to hear his confession. It was a Friday and February 26 last year was the first Sunday in Lent when the gospel was the temptation of Christ in the wilderness.
It was on that Sunday evening after seeing Msgr. Teng for the last time before he was taken to the funeral parlor when I remembered another priest I had cared during his dying days, Msgr. Macario Manahan who died in front of me in his retirement home on March 16, 2014 – the second Sunday in Lent when the gospel was the Transfiguration.
What a tremendous gift from God for me to care until their deaths of two monsignori in the Season of Lent. From them I have realized that our final altar as priests are our deathbeds where even to the end, we celebrate Mass and the Sacraments. From that day on too, I have prayed to God to allow me to go home to Him not during Lent but on Easter. Or, preferably on Ascension Sunday when my time comes.
Have a blessed day celebrating life, finding its meaning and beauty in the prism of cousin Death in Jesus Christ. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Good Friday Recipe, 29 March 2024 Isaiah 52:13-53:12 > + < Hebrews 4:14-16;5:7-9 > + < John 18:1-19:42
Photo by author, Chapel of the Holy Family, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, June 2016.
The evangelists tell us that Jesus died on the Cross on a Friday at about 3PM. And they tell us too that our Lord died praying, exactly what most of the Seven Last Words expressed.
But from the gospel we have heard this afternoon written by the beloved disciple, we discover something very beautiful about the death of Jesus, that He was very calm and peaceful in His prayer unto death.
After this, aware that everything was now finished, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I thirst.” There was a vessel filled with common wine. So they put a sponge soaked in wine on a sprig of hyssop and put it up to his mouth. When Jesus had taken the wine, he said, “It is finished.” And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit.
John 19:28-30
Photo by author, Chapel of the Holy Family, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, June 2016.
When we are deep in suffering, in severe pain like Jesus on the cross, what do we usually pray? Most often, we pray that the terrible ordeal we are going through would finally end, would be finished.
And sometimes, due to desperation, we even pray for death, of how we wish God would finally end our life to be free from all the problems we are going to.
One of the things I keep telling to sick people I visit came from Meryl Streep who acted as mother of Winona Ryder in the 1990’s movie “House of Spirits” when she said, “Do not pray for death because death surely comes.” Sometimes in our desperation, we feel death is the solution to our problems and sufferings. But when Jesus died on the Cross, He made death an offering, a gift of self in love.
Photo by author, Chapel of the Holy Family, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, June 2016.
In the original Greek text, the word used to express Jesus Christ’s final prayer “It is finished” is tetelestai from the root word telos meaning the final end and direction. It is not just an ending but a direction too.
From the very start, Jesus was clear with His mission and how it would be accomplished. He has always been sure of Himself, of who He is. Notice how the beloved disciple repeated many times in his account of the Last Supper how Jesus was “fully aware” of everything that was going to happen to Him that He was actually in control and never left to the whims and powers of His enemies when He went through His Passion and Death.
Last night we heard how Jesus knew everything was coming to end that He washed the feet of His disciples after their supper. Most of all, Jesus was so composed and serene that He even gave bread to His betrayer Judas Iscariot during their meal. In fact in the washing of the feet of His disciples to His agony in the garden, Jesus calmly and courageously faced death that in the end, on the Cross, He had the upper hand that He was able to pray “It is finished” because He was never made under the power of death completely as He would rise again on Easter.
In praying “It is finished,” Jesus consecrated not only Himself but also all humanity to the Father so that we are able to bear and face death squarely like Him. Very notable in this part is how we find only in the fourth gospel how Jesus died by “handing over his spirit to the Father.”
Remember the verb to hand over is the literal meaning of the Greek word used paradidomi or betrayal. But here at the death of Jesus, handing over has no negative connotation but purely positive; Jesus never betrayed or handed anyone over to sufferings. He bore all sufferings and handed these over to the Father. That is true passion in the active sense when we let things happen not because we are helpless and resigned to the situation but we passively take everything in the positive sense because we have that firm faith and deep conviction that being silent, being patient, being persevering will eventually bear fruit for us like the death of Jesus that led to Easter.
Suffering and death thus are not resignation nor mere surrender but submission to the higher power of God to convert darkness into light, sadness into joy, and death into life. There on the Cross Jesus showed that true power is in weakness.
Photo by author, Chapel of the Holy Family, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, June 2016.
After the consecration of the bread and wine into Christ’s Body and Blood in the Mass, we proclaim “Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.” We call it as “the mystery of our faith” because when we say “Christ has died,” we admit that truly, the Son of God went through all kinds of sufferings in life we all go through like betrayal, rejection, loneliness, sickness, hunger, thirst, and yes, even death. And His sufferings continue as we suffer more in this world marred by evil and sins, making us cry, asking when would these end and be finished.
There lies the mystery of our faith on the Cross that led to Easter: when we look at Jesus Christ on His Cross, we see our own pains and agony as God’s pains and agony too. Jesus joined us in our anguish and death so that we could experience all the more His immense love for us. Without Jesus and His Cross, we would never be able to bear or even face the many deaths we go through daily. May we recognize God’s immense love for us again this afternoon when we venerate the Cross and see it as the merging point of human and Divine suffering. Keep praying with Jesus who has the final say with death in Easter. Amen.
Photo by Ka Ruben, National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, Valezuela City, August 2022.
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