The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thursday in the Twenty-Ninth Week of Ordinary Time, Year I, 26 October 2023
Romans 6:19-23 <*((((>< + ><))))*> Luke 12:49-53
Photo by Dr. Mylene A. Santos, MD, 2022.
Your words, O Lord,
today sound old, even archaic
but they evoke so beautiful
feelings within that lead us
into deeper realities we often
ignore and take for granted:
slavery and separation.
But now that you have been freed from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit that you have leads to sanctification, and its end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:22-23
Many times we wrongly
choose to become slaves of sin
because of the belief that is when
we are most free in doing
whatever we want,
whatever we like,
whatever we desire
but always, we are proven wrong,
sadly wrong,
disastrously wrong;
being free O God is being
tied up to you,
being your slave
being at home with
what is true and good;
your laws and teachings
are not burdens but are
in fact what lead us to true freedom
without guilt,
without darkness,
without shame.
Most of all,
it is the slavery that leads
us to life and fulfillment in
Jesus Christ who had come
to liberate us from slavery to sin.
In the same manner,
to be your slave, O God,
is to be on your side,
to separate from those
against Jesus;
it is always painful
like every separation
but what makes it a good kind
of separation like slavery to you, God,
is how the fires of Christ's love
and mercy purify us into
better persons that enable us
to prosper,
grow,
and mature.
In the power of the
Holy Spirit,
let us choose always
slavery to you, dear Father,
and separation with you, dear Jesus
lest we become like the chaff
which the wind drives away
(Ps.1:4). Amen.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 23 October 2023
The president of our hospital where I serve as chaplain posted yesterday a beautiful reflection on his Facebook page about the war and hostilities in Gaza, calling on everyone to pray hard for its peaceful resolution.
What touched me was when he said, “I am a doctor and in my heart of hearts, I feel that hospitals should enjoy certain exemptions. I wish then as now, that hospitals should never have their electricity or water cut-off… I am thankful that the hospital I work in is not in any immediate danger of being bombed. Life is already fragile as it is.”
As I have been telling you, I am a hospital chaplain. And like our president, in my heart of hearts, hospitals should be exempted from any form of violent attacks at all times. Wherever.
The word “hospital” is from the Latin word hospis which means “to welcome” from which “hospitality” also came from.
Since my assignment as chaplain at the Fatima University Medical Center in Valenzuela in February 2021, I have realized it was only then have I truly “welcomed” human mortality, both as an individual and a member of the human race. I must confess that it was only when I became a hospital chaplain have I realized in the most existential manner the meaning of being mortal, that someday I could be one of those patients lying on those beds with tubes and monitors attached to my body, perhaps in coma. During these past two years of visiting our patients every Sunday, sometimes daily or at the middle of the night or early morning when that Latin phrase memento mori – “remember you must die” – has become so true like the sword of Damocles hanging over my head always.
But, it was also during these past two years as a hospital chaplain have I discovered the amazing beauty and wonder of human life, of every person. It is only now at age 58 I have experienced the true meaning of a baby as “a bundle of joy”, of how great are the love and courage of a mother in delivering an infant. It was in our hospital where I experienced that life, indeed, is precious because it is fragile and vulnerable that so moved me in pity, even cried at seeing patients so sick, so close to death, whether a new-born infant or a 90 year-old. I am most thankful to God in making me experience his mysterium fascinans in our hospital where I am awed in the most wonderful way of finding how the human spirit fight for life, assert life and choose or find life rather than death. And when it becomes inevitable, that great wonder of faith and hope within in facing and accepting life’s end here on earth to move on to eternity in God, whatever name he is called by anyone.
Photo by author, Sinai desert in Egypt, 2019.
When I saw the news of that bombing of a hospital in Gaza, I felt something deeply different within me. At first, I wanted to get angry and curse whoever did that. What the Hamas did in starting this war was totally inhuman and unacceptable but whoever caused that hospital attack is bringing this conflict including humanity in general, to the lowest level. (It is still disputed whether it was an airstrike by Israel which they deny or a misfired rocket of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad they also deny.)
Every time I would see footages of Gaza’s overcrowded hospitals said to be at their “breaking point” due to great number of patients, I could feel as if my heart is being rend apart, teared into pieces because every hospital is like a church building or a place of worship were everybody is supposed to be welcomed to be whole again, to be healed, and most of all, to be cared at. Like churches and any place of worship, a hospital is a sanctuary for humanity, a hallowed ground where a burning bush of Moses is planted somewhere. Any act of violence in a hospital anywhere in the world is a total disregard of life and the human person, a sad reminder not only of our inhumanity but also of how can be “unhuman” too.
Very close in sound to hospis is another Latin word, hostis, meaning “enemy” from which came the words “hostage” and “hostile”. When hospitals are held hostage in war or any other situation, then it becomes a most serious and severe blow to humanity because it means we have closed all doors in welcoming each other, that we have decided to live on our own in total disregard of one another. I pray that wherever there is a war going on, enemies spare hospitals of their hatred where they can always feel welcomed and hopefully, be reawakened of our being brothers and sisters in one God we call in different names.
May our hospitals remind us this whole planet we all share as our one home is a sacred ground, whether in war or in peace, where humanity triumphs even in small packets because life is held holy and divine, a gift and sharing in the life of God. Amen. Let us keep praying and working for peace everywhere.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A, 22 October 2023
Isaiah 45:1, 4-6 ><}}}}*> 1 Thessalonians 1:1-5 ><}}}}*> Matthew 22:15-21
Photo by author, Jerusalem, May 2017.
We are now getting closer toward the end of our liturgical calendar with our gospel scenes of Jesus still at the temple area in Jerusalem where his enemies were growing more intense in banding together to trap him for his arrest and crucifixion.
Many times, that same die-hard religious conceptions of the Lord’s enemies continue to distort our way of Christian living today. First of these is the apparent division between the realms of the world or Caesar and of God and his kingdom.
The Pharisees went off and plotted how they might entrap Jesus in speech. They sent their disciples to him with the Herodians saying, “Tell us, then, what is your opinion: Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?” Knowing their malice, Jesus said, “Why are you testing me, you hypocrites? Show me the coin that pays the census tax.” Then they handed him the Roman coin. He said to them, “Whose image is this and whose inscription?” They replied, “Caesar’s.” At that he said to them, “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”
Matthew 22:15-16, 17-21
Photo by Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images in Laoag City, 08 May 2022.
It’s election fever again in the country (does it ever end?) when talks on the separation of the Church and the state abound in every corner of campaigns and discussions. What is very funny is despite everyone’s insistence of such separation, candidates keep on going to every church and chapel of all faith to meet their religious leaders and followers who in turn endorse some of them!
Then and now, the division was more clearly in our hearts than in religion and political life. Despite everyone’s endless quoting of the Lord’s declaration to “repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God”, we remain more divided as a people and individuals right in our hearts where the first casualty is Jesus Christ. Then us and our loved ones.
The way of God as Jesus had shown and taught us is not found in opposing civil and religious or spiritual realms of life but in giving ourselves for the good of others in all areas of life, first to God and everything follows. Jesus Christ came to the word to heal our divided hearts, to make us whole again (and be holy) by showing us how we are all one in God, our origin and end. St. Francis of Assisi saw this unity of God’s creation and was so central in his life and teachings that he was able to literally live out the gospel values of both material and spiritual poverty.
Photo by author, Jerusalem, May 2017.
There are no divisions between the material world and the spiritual world because everything is created by God, came from God and will ultimately end in God. “Caesar” is everything of the world we so often give more emphasis in life, more attention and more focus. Primary is our own self as we consciously and unconsciously stamp with the image and inscription of “Caesar” as we try to hide and remove God’s image in us.
See how Jesus in many instances did not bother himself with our worldly affairs like being a judge to divide the share of inheritance of feuding brothers (Lk. 12:13-15) or of James and John asking him to have them seated at his sides when his glory comes (Mk. 10:35-45) because those things separate us from God and each other.
One tragedy of Christ’s time that continues today is when we the supposed religious leaders and guides are divided within each of us, so concerned with our own pride and other priorities in life like fame and wealth. Forgive us your priests and bishops whose lifestyle and way of relating to others betray like the Pharisees who and what is first in our lives.
Keep in mind how the Pharisees were not supposed to have anything that bears semblances of idolatry in the temple area like the Roman coin with image and inscription of the Caesar considered as god and emperor by the Romans. We priests and bishops still have that “Roman coin” today in the form of social media especially Facebook that show and prove more than ever how we are a church for the rich and not of the poor no matter what the gospel and documents say. What a scandal of our time to find priests and bishops shamelessly posted on social media always present, readily available especially for funeral Masses of the rich but never or so rare with the poor! These only prove to the people of the existence of the great divide among us Jesus had supposedly healed more than 2000 years when churchmen continue to play these days the very game of the Pharisees, scribes, chief priests and elders of Christ’s time.
Photo by author, Jerusalem, May 2017.
When we examine world history, it has actually felt easier for us to divide our lives into the material and spiritual realms by giving what is due and proper to each one. This has been the way of the world especially in the past 300 years at the start of the Industrial Revolution that resulted in so many inventions and scientific breakthroughs that have spawned various thoughts and philosophies.
On the outside or in the realm of Caesar, we seem to be better with more technologies and affluence but as persons, we have remained lost and more hurting inside that drive many into suicides and depression. How ironic when we are supposed to be better, crimes against human persons get worst these days with wars and atrocities still happening. Life may had drastically improved especially in the fields of medicine and communications but the gaps among us peoples have grown wider especially these last 20 years known as the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” characterized by digitization and robotics that include Artificial Intelligence or AI. Like in the parable of the wicked tenants, we have usurped everything from God, even our very lives and the world itself.
Of course, the obligations to Caesar and to God are radically different: to the state we pay taxes, but to God we give our undivided hearts, our total being. This is what Isaiah told us in the first reading that everything in history is directed by God for the good of his people. He is the God of history. Let no one mistake any god for God because “I am the Lord, there is no other” (Is.45:6).
When Jesus asked his enemies to show him the coin that pays the census taxes, he is also asking us this Sunday to bare our hearts before him to let him heal us of the divisions within that are reflected by the many wars and divisions in the world. The deepest divide within us in this time is when we live and act like the Pharisees and Herodians with insincere hearts living a big lie of living in “accordance with the truth” (Mt. 22:16).
Let me end this reflection with those beautiful words by St. Paul in our second reading today:
We give thanks to God always for all of you, remembering you in our prayers, unceasingly calling to mind your work of faith and labor of love and endurance in hope of our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father, knowing, brothers and sisters oved by God, how you were chosen. For our gospel did not come to you in word alone, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much conviction.
1 Thessalonians 1:2-5
Photo by author, Church of St. Anne in Jerusalem, May 2017.
So lovely! St. Paul is also talking to us today, assuring us how despite our many sins, of being slaves of Caesar and other gods like the Thessalonians who were pagans before, we too were willed by God to be called as his children in Jesus Christ.
We in the Church are a people despite our many flaws and imperfections especially us your priests were called out of sin and darkness to be God’s own people, beloved children. He has given us life in the Holy Spirit that when we look back in our lives, we are convinced in our hearts it was him who worked in us in the realm of material world. God has always been the “invisible hand” leading us when we felt so down and lost, defeated and almost dead. Here we are, still alive and forging on amid the many difficulties we encounter within and outside us.
When we cooperate with the grace of God and focus more on him than to the many Caesars, when we live in faith in Christ, laboring in his love for others, God becomes more present in our material world, enabling us to endure further life’s challenges in hopes that Jesus Christ will come again. Amen. Have a blessed week ahead.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Wednesday, Feast of St. Luke, Evangelist, 18 October 2023
2 Timothy 4:10-17 <*[[[[>< + ><]]]]*> Luke 10:1-9
Painting of “Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin” by Flemish painter Roger van der Weyden (1400-1464); photo from en.wikipedia.org.
Merciful Father,
thank you for sending us
St. Luke the Evangelist
whose feast we celebrate today:
a physician,
an artist,
and a disciple of your Son
Jesus Christ.
"The Lord appointed seventy-two disciples
whom he sent ahead of him in pairs
to every town and place
he intended to visit"
(Luke 10:1).
Regardless of our state
in life, we, too, like St. Luke
are called to preach
and write the gospel of
Jesus Christ with our
lives,
with our silent witnessing
of his glory and humility,
kindness and firmness,
art and humanity,
intimacy in prayer
and most especially,
special concern for
women and children
until now so abused in
in so many homes
and in every nation.
Help us, dear Jesus,
to be like St. Luke,
a physician
for this world so sick
with wars and other
inhumanity to one another
perhaps due to our lack of
genuine love and respect
for women; what a joy to
read and pray St. Luke's
gospel account teeming
from the very start with those
wondrous stories of Mary
and Elizabeth who brought
us into the New Testament
with their sons!
Help us imitate St. Luke
as a true physician
who accompanied
until the end his mentor
St. Paul the Apostle:
"Beloved: Demas, enamored
with the present world,
deserted me and went to Thessalonica,
Crescens to Galatia,
and Titus to Dalmatia.
Luke is the only one with me"
(2Timothy 4:10).
O God,
how painful to think
everybody is saying that
the world population has to be controlled
when so many among us everywhere
are suffering alone,
dying alone?
Let us realize like St. Luke
Jesus Christ's declaration that
"The harvest is abundant but the
laborers are few" (Lk. 10:2)
that we may go too to your abundant
harvest to heal and console,
comfort and assure the many people
in pain and suffering.
Amen.
St. Luke,
Pray for us!
Photo by author, La Trinidad, Benguet, 12 July 2023.
This is a long overdue prayer-reflection, a fruit of one of my prayer periods during that week leading to October first when the gospel was the parable of the two sons (26th Sunday in Ordinary Time).
Jesus said to the chief priests and elders of the people: “What is your opinion? A man had two sons. He came to the first and said, ‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’ He said in reply, ‘I will not,’ but afterwards he changed his mind and went. The man came to the other son and gave the same order. He said in reply, ‘Yes, sir’ but did not go.
Matthew 21:28-30
It was a Thursday, my day off I normally spend with a Holy Hour at the chapel of the PDDM Sisters at James Alberione Center in Araneta Ave., Quezon City. I usually present to God my Sunday homily every Thursday but that afternoon, I did not feel good. Maybe partly due to the weather that was so humid worsened by the afternoon drizzle. That was when I felt God telling me something about being “scattered” in life.
The word “scattered” has very picturesque translations in Filipino, sabog and kalat-kalat. Sabog is the direct translation of “scattered brain” or one who is disorganized and forgetful, could not think well clearly. Hence, sabog is also used to describe someone who is high on drugs or simply drunk and could not think seriously of everything. It came from the literal meaning of sabog which is an “explosion”.
Photo by author, summer 2021.
On the other hand, kalat-kalat means the same as sabog, could not think well because one is disorganized and messy, the literal meaning of kalat that may refer too to trash and dirt.
Many times we are like the two sons who were both scattered because their lives were not in order, both so concerned with one’s self, forgetting their father including their livelihood which is the vineyard. Many times in life, we get so focused with tasks and duties as well as obligations that we forget our relationships, forgetting the persons for whom our work are intended. That is why we also feel at a loss as we miss our bearings in life that are our relationships with God, with others and with one’s self.
Both sons indicated strained relations with their father. The elder son outrightly refused his father’s order because he did not see him that important, perhaps due to anger and resentments he harbored against him although deep down inside, he loves his father. That is why he was bothered by his conscience and later obeyed his father to work at their vineyard.
The younger son, on the other hand, was also scattered because his ego was so bloated in appearing so good to their father. He readily said yes to their father’s order just to look good before him but never fulfilled it because he never really had that deep love and respect for him.
Photo by author, 2022.
The first sign of being scattered, of being kalat-kalat is when we talk a lot that put us into trouble not necessarily with others but primarily with our self like the first son. We feel our inconsistencies and incongruence within ourselves with what we believe, what we know as right and good. We realize we are not walking our talk because of the great mess we are into, the mess around us like negative and other selfish thoughts that flood us. And all we wanted to do is to “pick up the pieces” of our selves, of our lives, and of our relationships. With God and with others.
Being scattered is something like a “soft depression” caused by burn out and lack of recreation and rest, a sign we have been losing grip of ourselves that we have to reassess anew our priorities and values in life. And always, the first person we forget is our very self as we get sickly, feel exhausted and tired easily, even grouchy and irritable for trivial even no apparent reasons at all.
First thing to do when we feel scattered is to naturally gather our self. Distance from our usual routine and people. Have that postponed medical check-up. And have quality “me time” like a movie or a short out-of-town vacation. We need to empty ourselves to be filled anew with God and his grace. Like Jesus, we need to go to a deserted place by ourselves, literally and figuratively speaking.
To gather one’s self is an invitation from God himself for more intense prayers to bond again in Jesus by laying aside all our plans and goals, forgetting all about ourselves even of others for a while to ask the Lord what he wants from us. It is easy to claim and convince ourselves what we are doing are for the Lord but the real thing necessary is that we simply do his works!
Christ had repeatedly said that “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters” (Lk. 11:23 or Mt. 12:30). If what we are doing are the works of the Lord, there will always be joy and fulfillment. Even despite difficulties and exhaustion.
Photo by author, 2022.
Overall, this feeling of being scattered is an invitation from God himself for us to put him back at the center of our lives and we start doing his works that are often simpler than what we envision and plan. Whenever there is this feeling of being scattered, I pray:
God our loving Father,
help me find my way back home
to you in Jesus your Son;
many times I talk too much,
even write a lot about you
and for you but often,
they are for me too
and against others;
help me, dear Father
in this mess and disorder;
when you created the world,
everything was in chaos;
breathed into me your
Holy Spirit
to make me alive again
in you and for you,
doing your work,
obeying your will
in the way you want it,
not mine.
Amen.
Yes! I have proven this most truest when we pray for the sick, especially for babies and children. And when we are also sick or, very sick.
The late Fr. Henri Nouwen said in one of his writings that “life is precious because it is fragile.” I have gradually grasped and experienced this most wonderful truth of life only these past two years when I was assigned as chaplain at the Fatima University Medical Center in Valenzuela City.
Every Sunday after Mass at the University chapel, I visit our patients to bring them communion (viaticum), hear their confessions and anoint them with oil. One of our patients last Sunday was a young mother named Rachel who delivered a sickly baby boy Saturday with difficulties in breathing.
Rachel was crying when we entered her room. After receiving the Communion, she asked me to visit and pray over her baby at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). I readily said yes to her request then asked her if I can baptize her baby and what name would she like to give him. “Daniel Steven, Father,” she said softly as she wiped her tears.
After putting on my hairnet and gown and slippers, the nurse led me inside the NICU where I saw two doctors and three nurses gathered around Rachel’s baby. Soon enough, both doctors came to me to explain the delicate – “toxic” – situation of the infant as we walked closer to him.
It was “solemnly silent” inside the NICU that morning with the warm light above the baby giving that holy feel like being before a Belen or a creche; the scene was so “disarming” that I just felt praying to God deeply from my heart, begging him to please bless and heal this baby who is much like Jesus Christ who was right away subjected to dangers upon birth in Bethlehem. I prayed too to God to remember Christ’s special love and concern for children, warning anyone who would harm them that angels look after them (Mt. 18:10) to keep them safe always.
At that moment, the baby opened his eyes – and sparkled as I saw his face lit up despite the little tubes connected to him. At that instance, I just felt something like a giant wave gushing within me like a tsunami and, boom! I burst into tears as if that giant wave inside washed me.
It was a very good cry, like a catharsis, so pure that seemed to have cleansed me resulting in joy within with the baby seemed to be looking at me, making sounds from his little mouth.
“My God, did he hear me praying?” I asked myself while standing there, praying with my arms still outstretched as tears rolled profusely to my face mask. After a few minutes, I wiped my tears and came forward to pour Holy Water on his head, saying, “I baptize you, Daniel Steven, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
I have visited many sick children in our hospital with the most unique even bizarre sickness and diseases and accidents. They have all moved me in pity but it was only Daniel Steven who had made me cry.
That moment when he opened his eyes and “looked” at me even though I knew infants could not recognize nor actually see, I felt God was ultimately the one really looking at me, listening to my prayers. At the same time, it was then when God fully opened my eyes and my heart to see him in baby Daniel as the One always listening to our prayers especially when we are facing dangers like death – the greatest and ultimate danger we all face in life. It is in such moments of great dangers when God is most closest to us in Jesus Christ who became human like us to be one with us in everything including death (but except sin).
Less than 80 days from now it would be Christmas but, have we realized this reality of how Jesus Christ have seriously faced death right after his birth being born in an “unsanitary” manger to being transported in harsh conditions to Egypt when Herod tried to kill him?
It is in sufferings and death when we truly experience the preciousness of life, the value of every person, no matter how small like a child or how old like any senior citizen. It is in the face of death when we are most human, truly and naturally weak and fragile that we also realize deeply, existentially the meaning of being alive when we are close to its end. That is when we feel life is precious because that is also when we feel it slipping away from us, slowly losing it.
That fragility of life is most evident when we struggle for breath, gasp for air, and reach out to someone’s hands to hold and clasp in order to rise again, to cling to another human and simply to be alive. From that we experience life’s meaning and value when it is shared and lived in God who is life himself through others. That is why we also feel closest to him at those moments when we see those sick and suffering and dying when we are close to God who comes most nearest to us in those grave moments.
Back in 2007 when I was in my first assignment as one of the teacher-administrators of a school in Malolos while we concurrently ran a parish, I felt burned out being there since 1998. One Friday afternoon during a Holy Hour, I begged God to give me one good reason why I should stay in that assignment when I was asked to answer a sick call in a nearby hospital. When I got in the hospital, the doctors and nurses were resuscitating the patient I was supposed to anoint.
Quickly upon seeing me, they let me come to the patient to pray over him and anoint him with oil. After that, I stayed in the room to watch the doctors and nurses struggled to revive the patient. Then another doctor arrived who turned out to be the son-in-law of the dying patient (also an ex-seminarian ahead of me in the minor seminary). After conversing with them, that doctor told them to stop the procedures as he would explain everything to his wife, the daughter of the patient.
Soon enough, the patient flatlined and died. His son-in-law called me and told me the patient had died and if I could bless him again. I did bless him again with Holy Water. As the doctor thanked me for being there at that crucial moment, I also thanked God for listening and answering my prayer in giving me a sign why I should remain in my assignment. What a precious sign he had given me, the first patient I have seen dying in front of me.
Now as a hospital chaplain, I have lost tracked of how many patients have died before me after praying and anointing them. But in each one of them, I have felt God present among us, saving their souls in eternity. But most of them, God had kept alive and healthy until now because he always listens to our prayers. Amen.
Photo by Mr. Red Santiago of his son Cayden praying in our former parish in January 2020.
*Daniel Steven is still in the NICU, fighting for his life that is so fragile, so delicate. And most precious. Doctors said these first 72 hours are very crucial. Please help us pray for him so he would get better and live life into maturity like most of us. Thank you.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A, 08 October 2023
Isaiah 5:1-7 ><}}}}*> Philippians 4:6-9 ><}}}}*> Matthew 21:33-43
Photo by author, San Juan, La Union, 25 July 2023.
A good friend recently came home from a 20-day Marian pilgrimage in Europe. I told him to get some rest and avoid reading the news, “Huwag ka munang magbasa ng balita baka masayang nalanghap mong hangin sa Europe.” He replied that with the very reliable internet service in Europe, they were all updated with the things happening in our country. He added, “parang ayaw ko nang magpunta sa Europe, lalo lang ako naaawa at nahihiya sa Pilipinas.”
Very true.
I rarely travel abroad but with what I have been reading and hearing especially from those visiting Japan and Singapore, the more I feel sad and hopeless for our country the Philippines. At least, God comforts us once in a while in sports like the recent golds in the Asian Games courtesy of EJ Obienna in pole vault, Annie Ramirez in jiu-jitsu, and Gilas Pilipinas in basketball. Aside from sports, nothing good seems to come from the news. Even the newscasts these days are depressing with robots “complementing” sportscasters.
Photo of a vineyard in Southern California by Dra. Carol Reyes-Santos, MD, 01October 2023.
Our readings this Sunday seem to speak of us Filipinos and the Philippines which is like a wonderful vineyard planted by the Lord, especially when we think of our vast, fertile lands and long coastlines with rich bodies of water but we have to import our food, from rice to galunggong. What a shame that our chicharon producers import pig backfat from the tiny island of Taiwan?! Like Isaiah, we find ourselves asking what happened to our country?
Let me now sing of my friend, my friend’s song concerning his vineyard. My friend had a vineyard on a fertile hillside; he spaded it, cleared it of stones and planted the choicest vines; within it he built a watchtower, and hewed out a wine press. Then he looked for the crop of grapes, but what it yielded was wild grapes.
Isaiah 5:1-2
The vine and wine are important signs widely used in the Old Testament and in the gospel accounts by Jesus. In Isaiah’s writings, the vineyard represented Israel as the chosen people of God, so loved and cared for, saved from Egypt and gifted with a land flowing with milk and honey. Despite these blessings, Israel repeatedly turned away from God with their many sins of infidelity that continued in the time of Jesus Christ who borrowed and perfected this parable of the vineyard of the Lord to make it timely in every generation.
Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the people: “Hear another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went on a journey. When vintage time drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to obtain his produce. But the tenants seized the servants and one they beat, another they killed, and a third they stoned. Again he sent other servants, more numerous than the first ones, but they treated them in the same way. Finally, he sent his son to them, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and acquire his inheritance.’ They seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.
Matthew 21:33-39
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 20 March 2023.
For the second straight Sunday, Jesus preached again at the temple area of Jerusalem and addressed this lesson to his enemies, the chief priests and elders of the people trying to find a probable cause to have him arrested.
See how this parable of the wicked tenants very similar with Isaiah’s but at the same time speaking a lot of ourselves and of our time, of how we have become like those wicked tenants taking the “vineyard” as totally ours like our body and country, arguing it is mine or ours that we can do whatever pleases us. Like those tenants, we have claimed of not belonging to God nor anyone at all, that we can do whatever we want because we are the owners of ourselves and the world. “It is my body, it is mine” and none of your business kind of thing.
How often we hear others claiming “this is my body, this is mine; therefore, I can do whatever I want with my body” like abort a baby, take contraceptives, or have a sex change, have those tattoos and body piercings? And we have spread this line of thinking to our environment with road rage spreading like a pandemic while bigger countries are grabbing territories ironically from their smaller neighbors.
The most tragic way of thinking that underlies this “mine mentality” is how so many of us have accepted – consciously and unconsciously – that most untrue statement of all that God is dead. Many would say they believe in God when actually what they mean is they know there is God and so often, they play that God, too. Pope Benedict XVI described it as “totalitarianism of relativism” when we see everything relative, no more morals and morality because we have made ourselves the measure and standards of everyone and everything – because, the “vineyard” belongs to us.
Photo of a vineyard in Southern California by Dra. Carol Reyes-Santos, MD, 01 October 2023.
More sad is the fact that we are beginning to see what happens next to us and the world with these things happening like families and relationships disintegrating, climate change and threats of wars, and more emptiness among us.
But, it is not that bad after all. Jesus not only updated Isaiah’s parable of the vineyard to speak to us in the present but also to promise us of a greater future. Notice the blessing and threat he used.
“What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants when he comes?” They answered him, “He will put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper times.” Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes? Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.”
Matthew 21:40-43
Once again, Jesus Christ’s parable asked a question to involve his hearers, including us today, in the story because the truth is, he had involved himself with us in his coming and eventually in his Passion, Death and Resurrection.
Unlike in Isaiah’s parable of the vineyard, God is distinct from the vineyard; but in Christ’s parable, we are in fact the vineyard of the Lord because Jesus is one with us being the son of the owner sent to gather his share of produce.
That is the good news, the blessing this Sunday and while there is also the threat of the vineyard being handed over to better tenants, there is the promise of better produce to be shared and enjoyed in all eternity, in heaven. There will always be darkness and difficulties in this life caused by selfish, arrogant, and self-righteous people who feel they own everything in this world. Many times, we too have wasted God’s bountiful blessings to us like our talents and abilities not put into use or never harnessed; health taken for granted and separation from our loved ones. Jesus Christ had died for us to repair ourselves and our relationships. Let us grab this opportunity today of taking care of the Lord’s vineyard, of sharing his blessings.
Most of all, like what St. Paul asked us in the second reading, let us be witnesses to others by remaining faithful to God, striving for “whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious” (Phil. 4:8).
Last Thursday was World Teachers Day. I told our teachers during Masses in our university this week to remember St. Augustine’s final lesson to Deogratias his deacon preparing candidates for baptism: “The teacher is the lesson himself/herself.”
Beautiful. If we are the Lord’s vineyard, every time we produce good fruits, every time we share these fruits with others, then we become signs of hope of Christ’s presence among us. That is the most important lesson we can share with others especially in these times of darkness. Amen. Have a blessed week ahead!
The Lord Is My chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Wednesday, Memorial of St. Francis of Assisi, 04 October 2023
Nehemiah 2:1-8 <*{{{{>< + ><}}}}*> Luke 9:57-62
Photo by author, “Homeless Jesus” at Capernaum in Galilee, Israel, May 2019.
Praise and glory to you,
loving God our Father
on this most joyous day
of the Memorial of St. Francis
of Assisi, one of those who
truly followed your Son Jesus Christ
in complete freedom to be poor
and empty for him and others.
Grant us the same gift of freedom,
Father; teach us to be like St. Francis
who was totally free for Christ,
living in poverty and simplicity,
renouncing the lures of this
world so he can be solidly
faithful in Jesus and his gospel.
Many times in this life,
in this world with so many things
meant to lighten our lives
to be able to do and accomplish much,
the opposite happens; we save
so much time in doing our jobs and
other tasks easily but the more we
get tied even enslaved to our gadgets,
selves, and other preoccupations
that separate us from one another,
especially our loved ones and you;
we save money and earn so much
by doing less but the more
we desire to earn more,
to have more wealth in all its
forms, becoming more selfish.
Free our selves,
purify our intentions
and cleanse our dispositions
to be free for Jesus,
free from persons
and things that hold us
to truly follow Christ.
As Jesus and his disciples were proceeding on their journey someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus answered him, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.”
Luke 9:57-58
Thank you, dear God
for the desire within for
Jerusalem; what we lack is
the willingness,
the drive,
and the enthusiasm
to search and follow you
in Christ to Jerusalem
where the sick and the poor
are like what St. Francis did;
we lack the deeper longing and
resolve to rebuild our destroyed
Jerusalem of relationships and
intimacy with you like
Nehemiah in the first reading.
Like St. Francis,
may we be free
and faithful in Jesus
always, finding him not
only in others and nature
but most especially at the
Cross where you have redeemed
us as your people.
Amen.
Photo by Fr. Gerry Pascual, Sculpture of the young St. Francis in Assisi, Italy, 2019.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Tuesday in the Twenty-Sixth Week of Ordinary Time, Year I, 03 October 2023
Zechariah 8:20-23 <*(((>< + ><)))*> Luke 9:51-56
The old city of Jerusalem with the Golden Dome Mosque seen from the inside of the Church Dominus Flevit (the Lord Cried); photo by author, May 2017.
Today O Dear God
our loving Father,
I pray for those going
through many difficulties
and sufferings in life;
those travelling the road
to Jerusalem,
even inside Jerusalem
already, one with Jesus
without them knowing
carrying their Cross
to the Calvary.
When the days for Jesus being taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem.
Luke 9:51
Open our eyes,
open our hearts,
dear Father to recognize
Jesus our companion
to Jerusalem,
in Jerusalem;
help us to be "resolute"
like Christ in going to
Jerusalem to face
Passion and Death
to eventually realize our
Resurrection in him
too!
I pray, dear God,
for those giving up,
have given up to
continue the journey
to Jerusalem: those
who have been living
all these years with
dialysis or chemotherapy,
those with never-ending
rehabilitation due to stroke
and other accidents,
those living daily with
medications and motivations
to fight depression,
to resist suicide;
those nursing so much pains
and hurts within not only
due to physical trauma but
especially emotional and
spiritual traumas;
Lord, I pray also for their
caregivers, their family
and loved ones so
often pushed to the limits
physically, emotionally,
and spiritually; console and
comfort them with the warmth
of the Holy Spirit, strengthen them
and assure them of your love;
tap their shoulders and whisper
to them they are doing well.
I pray dear Father
for those grieving,
those still grappling with
the loss of a loved one;
those suddenly thrown into
emptiness within and without
with the death of a wife or
husband, a mother or a father,
a brother or a sister;
Jesus Christ knew so well the
deep hurt and emptiness every
death creates; accompany them
in the eerie silence and darkness
of suddenly not seeing
nor hearing, not embracing
nor serving a beloved departed.
God,
life is a journey;
thank you in giving us Jesus
our companion; like
the two disciples going
back to Emmaus in
sadness and disappointments,
ignite our hearts anew with
Christ's loving presence,
to go to you, to seek you
right in our hearts,
our little Jerusalem
until we come to you in heaven,
the new Jerusalem.
Amen.
Facade of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where one finds inside another church enclosing the very site of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ; photo by author, Jerusalem, May 2017.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A, 01 October 2023
Ezekiel 18:25-28 ><}}}}*> Philippians 2:1-11 ><}}}}*> Matthew 21:28-32
White roses for devotees of St. Therese whose feast is today, October 01; may she intercede for your much needed miracle!
American writer Anne Lamott wrote in one of her books that “The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty.” This is most true in our gospel this Sunday as we shift scene when Jesus finally entered Jerusalem and preached in the temple area among his enemies, the chief priests and elders of the people.
Again, we are familiar with today’s parable of the man who had two sons he asked to go and work at their vineyard. The first son refused but later changed his mind and obeyed the father; the second son said “yes” but did not go to the vineyard. Like the chief priests and the elders, we too can easily answer Jesus Christ’s question, “which of the two did his father’s will?” Of course, the first son – but, Matthew’s story did not end there as he recorded the Lord’s words to his enemies that say a lot to us too today:
Jesus said to them, “Amen, I say to you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you. When John came to you in the way of righteousness, you did not believe him; but tax collectors and prostitutes did. Yet even when you saw that, you did not later change your minds and believe him.”
Matthew 21:31b-32
Photo by author, 2019.
Keep in mind that Matthew insists in his gospel account the matching of our words and actions because “not everyone who says ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 7:21).
In the next three Sundays, we hear parables having this as its theme: the two sons today, the evil tenants next week and the wedding banquet after that. Notice too that although we still have nine weeks to go before Advent Season in preparation for Christmas, our gospel setting beginning this Sunday will be at the temple area just before the Lord’s Passion, Death and Resurrection. That means Christ’s teachings are getting more intense and challenging to everyone as well.
The sin of the chief priests and elders that Jesus mentioned today – “you did not later change your minds and believe him” – was their refusal to change their minds to accept him as the Christ despite the overwhelming proofs and evidence they have heard and seen, even experienced. They were fixated with their own beliefs and interpretations of the Laws and scriptures; nothing and no one, not even the Son of God Jesus Christ could change their minds, perspectives and opinions.
The same is true with us Christians today! Many times our faith has become so static, could not be changed anymore to become deeper and stronger and vibrant to recognize God present in the changing times. The danger we have today is not only many people are losing their faith but a greater number of us faithful have come to believe more in ourselves than in Christ and his Church led by the Pope! How sad that since last year, there have been so many people, including clergymen casting doubts and refusing to recognize the synod of bishops set to begin this month in Rome.
Photo by author, 2019.
Faith in God is a process that grows and deepens through time. It calls for openness to God in his daily coming to us even in the most unusual people and circumstances. Faith is a daily process of conversion, of kenosis or self-emptying like Jesus which Paul beautifully expressed in our second reading today:
Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interest, but also for others. Have in you the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness.
Philippians 2:3-7
Here we find faith is about relationships and commitment, both to God and to one another. It is never static. That is one of the lessons Jesus is emphasizing in his parable today about the father and two sons. Obedience to their father is an expression of their relationship with him. Many times, we are either like the first or the second son. God our Father gives us all the chances and opportunities to make up for our lapses and sins.
That is why in the first reading, God reminds us through Ezekiel that his ways are not unfair because he gives us all every chance to change and become better, the very same principle we have heard in the three teachings of Christ recently about fraternal correction, forgiving, and generosity.
Have you noticed how often people seem unreasonable when they tell us we have changed or have not changed at all? I find those comments insane, even stupid because only change is permanent in this world. We always change. And we must change for the better.
One of my favorite series in the 1980’s was the American comedy “Newhart” starring Bob Newhart. In one of its episodes, Bob and his wife celebrated their anniversary amid so many mishaps and quirks. As usual, Bob saved the day at their renewal of vows when he told his wife that indeed, he had changed through their years of marriage as he had come to love his wife more than ever. So sweet and beautiful, and true!
Many times in weddings, I tell newly wed couples this prayerful wish, “May this day be the least joyful day of their lives.” Weddings and ordinations call for a lot of daily conversions, of growing and maturing, of finding Jesus in our loved ones and people we serve, and in new directions in our lives and ministry.
Photo by author, La Trinidad, Benguet, 12 July 2023.
Every relationship with God and with others can never be fixed for it must grow daily. Don’t worry, we will never run out of space for maturity and deepening of faith and commitments with God and with others. The more changes and flexibilities we go through no matter how difficult they may be physically, emotionally and spiritually, the more surprises and joys and fulfillment we shall experience.
Everyday, ask yourself, “Where did I see God today?” And, what does it mean to me?
Our answers to these two questions will determine how we live differently each day as Christ’s disciples because of what God has revealed to us! Amen. Have a fulfilling week in Jesus this start of October!
