Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Monday in the Seventh Week of Easter, 02 June 2025 Acts 19:1-8 <*[[[[>< + ><]]]]'> John 16:29-33
Photo by author, mountains of San Antonio, Zambales from the side of Anawangin Cove, 2024.
Lord Jesus, teach me and help me understand you.
I really wonder if the disciples truly understood you on that Last Supper:
The disciples said to Jesus, “Now you are talking plainly, and not in any figure of speech. Now we realize that you know everything and that you do not need to have anyone question you. Because of this we believe that you came from God.” Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe” (John 16:29-31)?
Oh how easy it is to claim I have understood you Lord Jesus when in fact more often I misunderstand you when difficulties and sufferings come my way that I complain a lot; when pains and disappointments happen I lose interest in following you; when frustrations come because I cannot know fully what is to come after following you.
There are times mediocrity seeps in me that I become lackluster making no effort to learn more, to be more daring, and to be a better person and disciple in following and imitating you, Lord.
To understand you, Jesus means to experience peace always in you, to keep on choosing you still no matter what because that is when we truly enter in your presence with nothing else important but do your will.
Understanding you Jesus is being open and ready not to understand everything about you and still believe you and trust you. Amen.
Photo by author, mountains of San Antonio, Zambales from the side of Anawangin Cove, 2024.
Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Friday in the Sixth Week of Easter, 30 May 2025 Acts 18:9-18 <*((((>< + ><))))*> John 16:20-23
Photo by author, Cabo da Roca, Pundaquit, San Antonio, Zambales, 14 May 2025.
In a few days you are going to "leave" us, Jesus; this Sunday is your Ascension, your physical departure from us and you described so well our situation:
Jesus said to his disciples: “Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy. When a woman is in labor, as she is in anguish because her hour has arrived; but when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the pain because of her joy that a child has been born into the world. So you also are now in anguish. But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. On that day you will not question me about anything. Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you” (John 16:20-23).
What has been "born" in me in your Rising from the dead? What is that joy like a woman in the pangs of childbirth suddenly becoming a joy so incomparable?
Oh, it is that joy of having you in my heart, Jesus: I have found joy more in my heart than outside of me; your joy is that assurance you are with me always no matter what, as certain as the rising and the setting of the sun, as lovely as the blooming of flowers, soothing like the hush of the wind or the gushing of water in a river or the rush of the waves to the shore.
Keep that joy in my heart, Jesus that no one can take away; a joy in my heart that even if I do not receive the things I ask in prayer, I still believe, I still hope, I still rejoice in you.
Sorry, Jesus, I still question you on anything despite that joy of knowing you, of having you but many times I wonder why all the pains and sufferings with me and those close to me; there are times, Lord that I lose my heart that I could not feel that joy of you when you don't answer my prayers.
But, to still keep on praying even if it not answered at all is already pure joy in you, Jesus!
Like peace, true joy is so difficult and elusive when not found in you, Jesus that we always have to wait for you, feel you, suffer and cry with you and sometimes die in you so that joy shall be born in us again and again and again. Amen.
Photo by author, Cabo da Roca, Pundaquit, San Antonio, Zambales, 14 May 2025.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 28 May 2025
Photo by author, Cota da Cabo, Pundaquit, San Antonio, Zambales, 15 May 2025.
Salamuch for the very positive response to our blog Praying to “do no harm” where we underscored the need for more sensitivity among us to be able to respond to those being pushed to the limits in life (https://lordmychef.com/2025/05/27/praying-to-do-no-harm/) .
Sensitivity is the condition of a person (or thing) being sensitive that in the positive sense means someone who is quick to detect and appreciate other’s feelings while in the negative sense, one who is easily hurt or delicately affected by other’s feelings and attitudes.
For this sharing, we refer to the positive sense of the need for sensitivity especially in these days when it has become more of a rarity as more and more people seem to becoming numb and even callous. It is maybe a sign that points to one reality we have been seeing but refused to acknowledge these years – the dwindling number of people praying these days.
Prayer is more than reciting certain formal prayers we have learned by heart since childhood or reading novena prayers to a host of our devotions and practices. Prayer is primarily a relationship we keep with God. We pray because we love God.
Photo by author, Cota da Cabo, Pundaquit, San Antonio, Zambales, 15 May 2025.
This is the reason that in prayer, it does not really matter we are able to say or tell God everything because He knows them so well even before we asked Him (Mt.6:8). What really matters most in prayer as St. John Paul II used to say is that we are able to hear and listen to what God wants from us. That we surely do not know at all that is why we need to pray.
Just like in our relationships with others when we simply have to be sensitive with their presence when each one’s presence is more than enough. Or in fact, is everything!
When we pray more and cultivate a prayer life – a relationship with God – it is our sensitivity that is most heightened. The more we become sensitive of our ourselves and surroundings, we become more aware of God’s presence in us and among us. The more we become sensitive of ourselves and of God, then, we become sensitive of others too. Then our relationship with God flows naturally into our relationship with others which becomes the fruit of our prayers: have we become more kind and understanding, more loving and forgiving, more just?
Another beautiful thing with prayer that heightens our sensitivity is the gift of being proactive when we are able to “predict” the future without really predicting it! Our Filipino expression of magdilang-anghel says it so well that whatever we say happens or turns out to be true because we can feel everything and everyone with our heightened sensitivity.
Photo by author, Cathedral of St. Catherine of Alexandria, Dumaguete City, 07 November 2024.
Prayerful people are always sensitive in the positive sense. They are the ones most in touch with the realities of life, literally and figuratively speaking. They are always “present” like God who calls Himself “I AM WHO AM” – the perfectly present. Without sensitivity, there can be no presence at all.
See how kids these days do not mind at all nor pay respects or at least recognize anyone – whether family member or guests – when they are engrossed in their computer games or watching movies or simply scrolling their cellphones. Sorry as I find many of these kids are growing disrespectful as in, bastos.
Experts have long been warning us of the dire effects especially to children of these gadgets and social media itself that make us insensitive, numb and callous practically with the world around us.
How sad and sickening to see young people literally so absorbed and immersed as in subsob in their cellphones, wired with those pods stuck in their ears living in a world of their own, unmindful of the sounds and commotion, of the people and everything happening around them.
Going back to that beautiful scene after an earthquake shook the prison cell of Paul and Silas in yesterday’s first reading, see how the apostle’s sensitivity and presence saved and converted their jailer.
The crowd in Philippi joined in the attack on Paul and Silas… After inflicting many blows on them, they threw them into prison and instructed the jailer to guard them securely. About midnight… there was suddenly such a severe earthquake… When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, thinking that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted out in a loud voice, “Do no harm to yourself; we are all here” (Acts 16:22, 23, 25, 26, 27-28).
Speaking of earthquake, I just found it quite amusing how some students did not feel at all the “jolt” when the 5.1 earthquake struck us before noon yesterday. After we have evacuated our building, I met some students who were laughing at themselves to have not felt at all the earthquake, saying they were caught by surprise when the alarm went off that signaled the evacuation.
Sorry and please excuse us as this may be extending too much the earthquake this noon but, it isn’t funny anymore when we are jolted by news of some people we hardly know taking their lives for various reasons. We wonder and even search our souls wondering what happened they “harmed” themselves until we realize that partly because, we were not there at all when they most needed us.
Photo by author, Cota da Cabo, Pundaquit, San Antonio, Zambales, 14 May 2025.
This is why we need to recover our vanishing sensitivity through prayers to be aware, to notice and feel others around us, especially those silently screaming for help when many are so absorbed in their own little worlds. Every time we become sensitive of God’s presence and reality, we become sensitive of ourselves and of others too. Let us pray:
Forgive us, Jesus for being far from those in pain and sufferings, for being insensitive to those crying in silence, for being indifferent to the realities of mental health and total well-being of everyone.
Give us a chance, Jesus to be like Paul and Silas of saving one life from doing no harm to one's self by first being sensitive to your presence in prayers because the more we pray, the more we become sensitive of you and of others. Amen.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 26 May 2025
Photo by author, Northern Blossoms Farm, Atok, Benguet, 26 December 2024.
Human love is imperfect; only God can love us perfectly.
Many times we get disappointed with our loved ones for not loving us enough or not loving us at all when in fact, they do love us! They come in different forms like strict parents or teachers, an OFW who has to leave his/her loved ones behind for better earnings so the children can go to good schools or an eager-beaver colleague who sometimes gets to our nerves for the things he/she does for us not to irritate us but to help us actually. And yes, parents who give away their children in the belief they can have a better future if they grow up not with them.
We all want to love perfectly or be loved perfectly but that is not possible because we humans are not perfect. We err, miscalculate situations and misjudge persons. Many times, we do not understand nor comprehend situations for we cannot know everything right away nor at all.
The good news is, the more we realize the imperfections of our love, that is when we are perfected, when we become better persons, when we actually become more loving with others by being patient and understanding, kind and forgiving. Our efforts to love though imperfect shall perfect us.
Photo by author, Northern Blossoms Farm, Atok, Benguet, 26 December 2024.
It is in our imperfect love we also learn how to sacrifice and let go because we love. The beloved disciple of Jesus wrote that “No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us(1 John 4:12). Every time we are bothered, when we feel guilty of not loving much or not being loved, chill. Be patient. And wait for everything to clear up. There must have been a breakdown in communication or too much presumptions on anyone’s part. Be open. Most of all, even if you felt not loved or no one loves, keep loving. For as long as we love, we grow. We mature.
Love, love, love!
It is the most potent force in the universe. We came into being because of love. We live to love. For as long as there is love, we shall not perish.
Stop loving, then we die.
Photo by author, Sakura Farm, Atok, Benguet, 26 December 2024.
When we do not love, that is when we perish because we no longer hope and believe in anyone nor anything. That is the end.
St. Paul said it perfectly, “So faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13). After we have died, only love remains in heaven: we do not need faith nor hope because love is everything we believe and hope. Even those we leave behind will just keep on loving that life will continue until we all come together in eternity. Still loving.
Hence, love cannot be defined. Love is infinite and can only be described. And though it is imperfect in human terms, our expressions of love has no limits. That is why, “tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” (Lord Alfred Tennyson in 1849). Bow. To love.
Photo by author, Angels’ Hills Retreat and Spirituality Center, Tagaytay City, 18 April 2025.
Lord My Chef Sunday Music by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 25 May 2025
Photo by author, Angels’ Hills Retreat and Spirituality Center, Tagaytay City, 18 April 2025.
We shift this Sunday into jazz with Earl Klugh’s sophisticated Living Inside Your Love to slow cool down our simmering summer and to feel more the meaning of the Mass readings today as we enter the penultimate week of Easter.
We were already in our early teens when we discovered Earl Klugh along with other jazz greats with the opening of the country’s first and only jazz radio station 101.9 WK-FM in the late 70’s. Maybe it was part of growing up when we experimented on a lot of things for more adventures that I found myself venturing into jazz from rock and pop music, switching from RJ to RT and then WK.
For me, Earl Klugh was the jazz version of rock’s Eric Clapton or Carlos Santana. Klugh has that certain touch or pluck in his guitar that can make you be in love, not necessarily be in love with anyone. It is a nakaka-in love ma-in love na feeling! That is why we remembered his Living Inside Your Love piece from his second studio album released in 1976 by the legendary Blue Note Records and Liberty Records produced by another jazz great, Dave Grusin.
Actually, we just realized today Living Inside sounds like a prelude to the turn of the century’s new age music where Klugh’s masterful playing of the guitar taking the centerstage of a great symphony backed up with cool vocals repeating just a few lines and stanzas of simple verses over and over that is similar with the vision of John in this Sunday’s second reading from the Book of Revelation when he saw and experienced the “new heaven, new earth” in the great luminous light of God who is himself the temple in the city (https://lordmychef.com/2025/05/24/easter-is-god-dwelling-in-us/). See how Klugh inserted the vocals into his great guitar music enhanced by a symphony like John’s vision of heaven:
Can't get over the feeling Living inside your love I never want to lose the feeling Living inside your love
Baby, you made my life so free Living inside your love You're just where I want to be Living inside your love
Baby, you made my life so free Living inside your love You're just where I want to be Living inside your love
Very interesting with his wonderful guitar music, Klugh’s lyrics – though sparse and repetitive – were loaded in meaning. Consider the line “living inside your love” which is exactly what Jesus said at the Last Supper, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him” (John 14:23).
“Living inside one’s love” is what we call as “Divine indwelling”, that is, our home is in God – and with any one we love!
Moreover, consider also Klugh’s first line in his next stanza, “Baby, you made my life so free/ Living inside your love/ You’re where I want to be/ Living inside your love.”
When we love, we enter a relationship that becomes our dwelling, our home where we become free – free to love more, free to be faithful. When we truly love like Christ, the more we find ourselves more free to love, more free in everything because being free is choosing always what is good. We believe that more than a stroke of genius, it was also a kind of divine inspiration about true love that made Klugh at put at the end of this 1976 classic the longer stanza that actually repeated inn order to stress the truth of his first two stanzas.
Can't get over the feeling Living inside your love I never want to lose the feeling Living inside your love Can't get over the feeling Living inside your love I never want to lose the feeling Living inside your love I can't get over the feeling Living inside your love I never want to lose the feeling Living inside your love I can't get over the feeling Living inside your love
Here is Earl Klugh’s lovely Living Inside Your Love. Have a lovely Sunday and week ahead.
Lawiswis ng Salita ni P. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Ika-22 ng Mayo 2025
"Sunrise, fried rice
Sunset, pancet!"
ang aking laging sambit
ngunit ang aking favorite
ay sunrise
maski wala nang
fried rice kasi maaga
akong gumising;
sa mga "madrugeño"
na katulad ko (early riser
sa wikang Kastila),
mayroong kakaibang alindog
itong pagbubukang liwayway
kung saan ang liwanag ay unti-unting
sumasagitsit na kahit hindi mo
tanaw ang araw
banaag ang buhay
saan ka man lumingon
mayroong sorpresa;
kakaiba ang dapit-hapon
na palaging inaabangan
sa makukulay na tila isang palabas,
sa pagsikat ng araw
papalaoob ang landas na
tinatahak
kayat hindi lamang
ito tinitingnan kungdi
dinarama sa kalooban.
Kaunti lamang marahil ang nagpapahalaga sa pagbubukang-liwayway bukod sa mahirap gumising ng maaga, walang masyadong nakikita ngunit narito ang ganda at hiwaga ng bawat umaga: kinikilala ito katulad ng isang bagong kakilala, kinakaibigan hanggang sa hindi mo na namamalayan iyo nang nakakapalagayan at maya-maya ay dadantay ang katotohanan kayo ay kailangan nang maghiwalay; kaya rin naman mas marami ang nabibighani at nahahalina sa dapit-hapon: malinaw na sa iyo ang katuturan ng maghapon na lumipas kaya iyo na lang inaabangan paglisan ng mabuting kaibigan bago balutin ng dilim ang kapaligiran sa pagtatakip-silim.
Sunrise, Sunset hangganan ng bawat araw sa ating dumarating bagama't magkaiba sa pandama lalo na sa ating paningin nagtuturo ng katotohanan na hindi lahat nakikita ng mga mata; gayon din, naroon palagi ang dilim sa piling natin upang higit nating mahalin at laging hanapin tunay na liwanag na hindi napaparam, si Jesu-Kristo na dumating sa pinaka-madilim na gabi ng buong taon at muling nabuhay habang madilim-dilim pa nang unang araw ng sanglinggo; sa pagbubukang-liwayway at sa dapit-hapon o takip-silim man, palaging naroon ang Panginoon tinitiyak sa atin sa bawat ngayon at dito tuloy lang ang buhay!
*Mga larawan kuha sa aking iPhone16 sa Cabo da Roca, Pundaquit, San Antonio, Zambales Mayo 14-15, 2025.
Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II' Monday in the Fifth Week of Easter, 19 May 2025 Acts 14:5-18 ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> John 14:21-26
Photo by author, Cabo da Roca Villas, Pundaquit, San Antonio, Zambales, 15 May 2025.
Your words today, O Lord are very amusing: in the first reading we have the people at Lystra insisted on making Paul and Bernabas as "gods" after they have healed a crippled man from birth while in the gospel we felt you personally speaking to us too along with your disciples at the Last Supper of how in our love for you and with each other that we become divine like you.
Judas, not the Iscariot, said to him, “Master, then what happened that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him” (John 14:22-24).
How lovely, dear Jesus are your words: you never left us, you continue to speak to us in the Holy Spirit you sent to enlighten our minds and our hearts so we may continue to love you in one another; more than a feeling as most people believe these days, love is a response to a loving, meaningful relationship in you; love is our deeper connection with you and with each other; without love, we are mere humans, not persons, without relationships, most of all, without meaning and direction in life.
Let us love, love, and love more, Jesus so we may find and recognize you in ourselves and in others, especially the weakest and poorest among us. Amen.
Photo by author, Cabo da Roca Villas, Pundaquit, San Antonio, Zambales, 15 May 2025.
Lord My Chef Sunday Music by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 20 April 2025
Photo by author, Atok, Benguet 27 December 2024.
Blessed happy Easter everyone!
We have long been planning to have this instrumental piece in our featured music every Sunday but it was only now we have realized this is most perfect during Easter when Jesus Christ in his Resurrection is telling us to “pick up the pieces” of life amid its many darkness and emptiness.
That is the grace and surprise of Easter: in Christ’s dying and rising to life, death has become a blessing to us all as we have come to share in his glorious resurrection too.
Despite that feeling of emptiness within and in our homes, of the irrevocable reality they are gone forever never to join us in our meals and bonding like Christmas, of never hearing their voices again nor be able to hug and embrace them can be shattering, the angel’s reminder to Mary Magdalene and companion women at the empty tomb echoes in our hearts too: “Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised. Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and rise on the third day.” And they remembered his words (Luke 24:5-8).https://lordmychef.com/2025/04/20/easter-is-god-surprising-us/
Released in 1974 in the UK by a group of Scotsmen musicians who called themselves as Average White Band or AWB, “Pick Up the Pieces” did not perform well in the charts until it was released later in October that same year in the US where it stayed on the top singles in February 1975. According to the late Molly Duncan who was the band’s saxophonist, he had disagreed in releasing the song that had no lyrics only other than the shout “pick up the pieces.”
Moreover, the title spoke so well of their situation at that time when they were hardly noticed in the music scene, not making any money at all until it was released in the US where radio stations took notice of its funky beat’s good vibes. The single eventually became AWB’s turning point that is why the more we find it so appropriately Easter in nature.
We have been aware of the music itself in the 1970’s but it was only in 2010 when we found out its artists –AWB – after Daryl Hall guested AWB bassist-guitarist and co-founder Alan Gorrie in his internet show Live From Daryl’s House. It was a superb performance as usual by Daryl Hall and his musicians but of course, we always prefer the original. Here is AWB with their classic “Pick Up the Pieces” which we believe Jesus would also approve as part of his Easter soundtrack. Amen.
Good Friday Reflection by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 18 April 2025
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 17 March 2025.
Twenty-seven years ago today, I was ordained as priest with my six other classmates at the Malolos Cathedral by Archbishop Rolando J. Tria-Tirona. I was 33 years old at that time (and less than 200 pounds in weight).
One thing prevailed in me on the eve of that most beautiful event in my life: Jesus Christ died on the Cross when he was 33 years old. Is my ordination my crucifixion too? Maybe. But due to the euphoria that followed after my ordination, I forgot all about it until I approached the age of 40 and my honeymoon stage in the priesthood waned with all the trials and difficulties – and crises – that followed.
It was at that time every year my birthdays and anniversaries came, I prayed only one thing from God – that I would have a more worry free year, that the following year would be a banner one for me. “Sana naman Lord ngayon ako naman ang panalo, ako naman ang bida, ayoko na sa ilalim ng gulong ng palad. Sana ako naman ang nasa itaas.”
God never heard my prayers. They never came. Actually, the opposite happened as I went through more trials, more difficulties, more pains and hurts that many nights in my prayers I felt like Jesus Christ crying on the Cross on that Good Friday, “I thirst” (John 19:28).
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 17 March 2025.
Many times in life, our prayers to God are cries like that of Jesus on the Cross, “I thirst.”
Those are the times we thirst for love and kindness, for care and understanding, sometimes the most simplest recognition as a person or a brother/sister or a friend from our family and friends.
This is the second time Jesus felt thirsty in the fourth gospel. The first time was when he asked the Samaritan woman for water at Jacob’s well where in fact, it was Christ who gave her the “living water” – himself – in the wonderful conversation that followed.
See that in the fourth gospel, water is one of the significant signs used by the evangelist to portray Jesus Christ like in his first miracle at the wedding at Cana when he turned water into wine. In his conversation with Nicodemus one night, Jesus spoke of the power of water in cleansing us into a new person in Baptism.
The thirst of Jesus Christ on that Good Friday on the Cross is also our thirst for love, for kindness, for faith, for life and for one another. And here is the mystery and paradox: that thirst can only quenched by Christ if we too remain in him, with him on the Cross. That is why after he head died, blood and water flowed from his side pierced with a lance by a soldier. All throughout his life, especially while on the Cross, Jesus never ceased from being good, from doing good, from loving us all, giving us even at his death life and love.
After 27 years as a priest now on my senior year, I have realized this as the only thing I desire most in life – Christ, the only water who can quench all my thirst as a person, as a priest. Life is love which is following Jesus on the Cross. To thirst for love is to desire more the Cross which is to love more the one Crucified, Jesus Christ.
The joy and meaning, the peace and fulfillment we long for in life, we thirst for always are found in the Cross, not in material things nor in fame and glory as the soldiers had mistaken on the Good Friday. Unfortunately, many of us are exactly like those Roman soldiers who give money and material things to those crying “I thirst” to us.
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 17 March 2025.
The Cross of Jesus Christ has always been described as a paradox. And that is really what the Cross is – a paradox and mystery of life at the same time.
When you are on the cross, like this sweltering summer, what is one thing you desire or cry for? Water, is it not?
It is during that time when we are on the Cross of intense pains and sufferings when we truly feel how valuable every drop of water is. It is when we are up against the wall when we realize the most important, the most essential in life like love found in persons who all enable us to feel God’s reality in his loving presence.
This Friday is called Good. The only Friday that is Good in the whole year because that is when we remember, when we make present again in our very lives our being one with Jesus at the Cross like the beloved disciple and his mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary when in our intense thirst, there we experienced the refreshing and life-giving living water Jesus Christ himself. This Good Friday as we reflect on the suffering and death of Jesus on the Cross, what is that one thing you also desire from God?
Photo by author, National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, Valenzuela City, Good Friday 2025.
We all thirst.
When we thirst, thank God because that means we desire him who is love himself. When we truly thirst like Jesus, that is when we too are on the Cross with him; then, you are at the right place at the right time because it is only on the cross can our thirst be truly quenched in Jesus. Let us follow him always in the Cross for that is what to be loving in the first place which is to be with the One who died on the Cross this Good Friday. Amen.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 17 April 2025
Photo by author, Sacred heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 17 March 2025.
I have always loved Thursday since my first job in 1986 at GMA-7 News and Public Affairs. It was the day-off given to me by our office because I have to write news for our radio stations DZBB-AM and DWLS-FM even on Saturdays and cover news for television on Sundays.
After resigning from my job to enter the seminary in 1991 and got ordained as priest in 1998, I still chose Thursday as my day off from the ministry.
The reason for this is from a news I have found from the wires of United Press International during my GMA days that reported the findings by researchers in a US university that people are more kind on Thursday. According to the report which I used in our two radio stations, people are normally grouchy on Monday because of hangover from the weekend. They only start working on Tuesday, getting so tired on Wednesday, the two most toxic days in the week. Friday is TGIF when employees shelve their work in preparation for the weekend.
It is only on Thursday when people are most human and kind as they wanted to get everything done before TGIF. Hence, it is also the best day in the week to ask for a raise or to ask for favors from anyone. It is also on Thursdays when traffic is lighter because people are more relaxed, not so stressed out than the other days of weekday.
Photo from wikipediacommons.org of Christ’s washing of feet of Apostles at Monreale Cathedral in Palermo, Italy.
Perhaps it is no coincidence at all, in fact truly a part of the mystery of Jesus Christ’s Incarnation, i.e., his becoming human like us in everything except sin that he gave us his new commandment during their last supper also on a Thursday.
“I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).
This is the reason Holy Thursday is called Maundy Thursday from the Latin word mandatum or commandment when Jesus gave us his commandment of love.
Love is the only thing we all have to do in life. This love is expressed in our love for God through one another. That is why Jesus clarified that during his ministry: love of God is always expressed in our love for one another. Love as a commandment is like a face with two cheeks always together. Isang mukha, dalawang pisngi.
Every time we sin, it is not only a breaking of a law of God or human but most of all a refusal to love, a refusal to obey Christ’s commandment to love. Our Tagalog word for sin says it all: kasalanan from the root word sala which is “to miss” or “to fail”. Every sin – a kasalanan – is a failure, a missing (sala) of our one task which is to love. Every time we sin, we become less of a loving person.
It is indeed a very tall order from the Lord, to love like the way he loves us.
So when he had washed their feet and put his garments back on and reclined at table again, he said to them, “Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master’, and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master ands teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you shouild also do” (John 13:12-15).
From gettyimages.com.
However, Jesus is not the stiff nor strict at all in demanding that we totally be like him right away in our love for one another. All he asks us is to try, to persevere in his love. He knows very well that our love is imperfect, that only him can love us perfectly.
Many times we complain (rightly so!) as we get hurt emotionally, physically and even spiritually from people we look up to like priests and teachers and to those supposed to love us most like parents and siblings and friends.
It is part of the mystery of life and of love specifically that the ones we love most are the ones we hurt most too and vice versa. That pain is from that love that ironically fails always. And that is because we are not God. Our love is always imperfect. We need to have some room within us for others’ sins and failures.
Photo by author, last supper scene of our youth’s senakulo, 15 April 2025.
We are all imperfect that is why our love is also imperfect. There are times we think the love we share or give is the very best but to our beloved, it could be misconstrued as not love at all like parents being too strict with their children. There are times when we think our beloved would love our gifts as expression of our love but unknown to us they were expecting something else.
Only God can love us perfectly. That is the love of Jesus Christ for us on the Cross so vividly portrayed in his last supper on Holy Thursday evening when he washed the feet of his disciples.
Jesus washed the disciples’ feet because he knew they would get dirty again. And that would need constant washing by those he would leave behind, including us. To wash another’s feet is the highest or deepest form and expression of love because it is an imitation of Jesus Christ.
Imagine how Jesus bowed down to each of the Twelve that Holy Thursday evening. Every day, Jesus does that to us too!
Normally, we look up to God in the heavens to pray, to beg his mercy, to ask for his favors, to praise and thank him. Jesus reversed this at his last supper: with him washing our feet, Jesus is the one looking up to us mere mortals and sinners?!
That is the love of Christ for us he proved the following Good Friday when he plunged himself to the lowest point of life, of dying on the Cross because of his immense love for each of us that led to his Resurrection at Easter.
Photo by author, Holy Thursday 2020.
At the start of the Mass of the Lord’s Supper this afternoon before sundown, the rubrics instructs that “the tabernacle should be entirely empty, but a sufficient amount of bread should be consecrated in this Mass for the Communion of the Clergy and the people on this and the following day.”
This is a beautiful reminder too for us as we come for the celebration of Jesus Christ’s supper and sacrifice, we too must empty ourselves of our pride, to accept our own imperfections in order to have some room for others also imperfect just like us. Let us empty ourselves of our sins for us to be filled with Christ’s love and mercy, kindness and forgiveness.
This Maundy Thursday, let us reflect on how deep is our love for Christ and for one another. Look at your feet and admit how difficult it is to even wash our own feet. Whose feet do not get dirty in this life’s journey? Everyone does. Let’s admit that and start helping each other in washing our feet. That is love. We do not stop loving because that is all we have to do in life and afterlife. Amen.
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