The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music by Fr. Nick F. Lalog II, 01 May 2022
Photo by Ms. Jing Rey Henderson in Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental, 27 April 2022.
Every Gospel proclaimed in our Eucharistic celebrations is always about the immense love of God for us expressed in the Passion, Death and Resurrection of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
But there is something so lovely in this Sunday’s story about the third appearance of Jesus to his disciples at the shores of Lake Tiberias that calls us to be in love with the Lord also in order to see and experience his daily coming to our lives, something which the Stylistics expressed in their first gold disc that sold over one million copies in 1971, their song “You Are Everything”.
Today I saw somebody
Who looked just like you
She walked like you do
I thought it was you
As she turned the corner
I called out your name
I felt so ashamed
When it wasn't you,
wasn't you, oh, oh
You are everything and everything is you
Oh, oh you are everything and everything is you
Oh, oh, you are everything and everything is you
You Are Everything tells us of our common experience of always seeing, even hearing the ones we love even after they are long gone. It is love’s most unique power and quality that enable us to find our beloved everywhere because they are everything to us.
After a fruitless night of fishing, Jesus appeared to the disciples before dawn, telling them to cast their net to the right of their boat when suddenly they could not pull it with the plentiful catch! Seeing the great catch, John the beloved recognized the man at the shore as Jesus, telling Simon Peter “It is the Lord”! Only him recognized the Risen Lord after seeing the plentiful catch because he was the only one of the Twelve who truly loved Jesus by remaining at the foot of his Cross on Good Friday while the rest went into hiding.
Later after their breakfast, Jesus asked Peter thrice by addressing him in his real name of Simon, “Do you love me?” We are told that Peter was distressed after the third question by Jesus because he knew so well it had something to do with his three denials of the Lord on the night of his arrest and questioning by the Chief Priests. Peter’s response was so beautiful, admitting his guilt while at the same time professing his faith and love in the Lord by telling him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”
So many times, we are like Peter: we know so well that Jesus knows even our most guarded sins and yet, we know that he perfectly knows too that despite our sins and weakness that we love him.
This is the grace of this third Sunday in Easter, that we remain in love with Jesus. We cannot follow nor meet Jesus whether in our blessedness or sinfulness unless we love him first of all. Jesus perfectly knows human love is imperfect; only he can love us perfectly. We do not have to pretend to be perfect before him; just be our true selves, sinful yet sorrowful, to surely meet him who never leaves our side for he alone is our everything.
Have a blessed week ahead!
*We have no intentions of infringing into the copyrights of this music and its uploader except to share its beauty and listening pleasure.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thursday in the Second Week of Easter, 28 April 2022
Acts 5:27-33 ><))))*> + <*((((>< John 3:31-36
Photo by author, 20 April 2022.
Lord Jesus Christ,
in this season of Easter,
help me make my fragmented
life whole again in you.
So many times, I feel like
the many members of the
Sanhedrin in the first reading
today demanding so many things
from myself that I fail to obey God;
grant me the courage like of Peter
and the Apostles who boldly declared,
"We must obey God rather than men"
(Acts 5:29).
Like Nicodemus in the gospel,
I am still afraid to come to you
in broad daylight, still hiding in the
night because I am afraid of what
people would say and tell about me
in being faithful to you, in being one
with you.
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him.
John 3:36
To believe in you, dear Jesus,
is to enter into a relationship with
you at the center; to believe in you
is to live and abide in you, Lord.
And that is why our lives are fragmented:
we are so divided and broken because
we follow the world, not you; we are
easily tempted and enticed to the
many lures of pleasures the world
offers that only leave us more empty,
and more lost.
This season of Easter,
help me go back to you, Lord,
in prayers and silence;
let me focus on you again.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Wednesday in the Second Week of Easter, 27 April 2022
Acts 5:17-26 ><]]]]'> + <'[[[[>< John 3:16-21
Photo by Cristian Palteng, 16 April 2022, Easter Vigil at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, Valenzuela City.
Praise and glory to you,
Lord Jesus Christ for making
this Easter Season so special:
our first major celebration since
the pandemic began in 2020 with
our church gatherings always the
target of lockdowns and restrictions;
but this Easter, we have risen with you,
dear Jesus, when we were finally allowed
to gather and celebrate the Eucharist
without much restrictions.
Make us realize this fundamental truth
of your Resurrection, Lord Jesus: that Easter
is more of coming out than getting in.
The high priest rose up and all his companions, that is, the party of Sadducees, and, filled with jealousy, laid hands upon the Apostles and put them in public jail. But during the night, the angel of the Lord opened the doors of the prison, and led them out, and said, “Go and take your place in the temple area, and tell the people everything about this life.”
Acts 5:17-20
So many times, you have come
to set us free, Jesus, from our prison
cells of self-doubts, cynicisms,
hopelessness, pains and hurts,
guilt and sins but we refuse to
believe you are risen, that you
have conquered evil and sin, darkness
and death; open our minds and our
hearts, Lord Jesus, to believe and accept
the love you have freely given us.
Let us go out to you, sweet Jesus,
to bask in the warmth of your light
and truth that we are loved. Amen.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nick F. Lalog II, 26 April 2022
From Google.
The word “touch” is a very touching one, connoting so many meanings while at the same time gives us a “feel” of what it really is. Its literal and figurative senses always go together with the most touching reaching deep down inside us that are also the gentlest and simplest.
We are touched by words and gestures, by sights and sounds, and literally speaking, we are touched most when touched by another person. Experts claim that a five second touch is equivalent to about 300 words of encouragement so that for us to be emotionally well, we need at least three hugs a day.
Photo by author, Mirador Jesuit Villa and Retreat House, Baguio City, January 2019.
Reflecting on the very few stories of the Easter appearances by Jesus to his disciples, we find how the gospel writers did not need to write so much details to convince us that the Lord had risen for it is not the number nor length of his appearances that matter but its inexpressible intensity. Especially in the fourth gospel, we notice – and we are touched, too like the disciples – the deep intensity of Christ’s appearances that resulted only in silence and adoration among them.
And that is one very true characteristic of Jesus – he touches us. Always. Even if we can not touch him nor see him. There is always that joy of Easter bursting forth within us in moments of prayers, of intimate conversations with loved ones and friends, or upon seeing a beautiful sight or experiencing nature.
It is Jesus Christ who touches us most that is why we believe in him even if we cannot explain how it all happened. It has always been like that since he rose from the dead. In fact, I doubt Thomas really touched Jesus when they met on the eighth day because he was so “touched” upon seeing the Risen Lord that he said, “My Lord and my God”, the most intense expression of faith in the bible!
See that nothing is said if Thomas indeed touched the wounds of Jesus for he was caught up in the experience and sight of the Risen Lord.
Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
John 20:27-28
“The Incredulity of Saint Thomas”, a painting by Caravaggio from commons.wikimedia.org.
Like Thomas, Jesus touches us in the most personal and unique manner that deep inside us we also cry with intensity “my Lord and my God” to him. Though we can enumerate many reasons and persons who have led us into believing in Jesus, we also admit at the same time that there is no specifically single reason nor person for our faith in God except our very selves, of our personal conviction that transcends all proofs and logic because, we were so touched.
The gospels teem with so many stories of Jesus touching especially the sick when healing them and surprisingly, as we reflect on these stories, we too are touched, even by the Lord. And our perspectives and lives eventually change because we have experienced Jesus.
The same is very true with the many people we have known and met, the few perhaps we have befriended and loved: so many things in our lives have turned for the best simply because we were touched, literally and figuratively speaking.
When I was still teaching in our all-girls’ school in Malolos City, I used to remind my students in high school to never be fooled by a man’s looks and “porma”, to always look for a man who really loves you, respects you, and touches you as a person, as a woman. And they would always ask me how can they determine that? My usual response was they would “feel” that because a man or any person with integrity would always “touch” you.
Then I would play to them Lisa Stansfield’s 2004 He Touches Me:
He don’t bring me anything but love
He don’t bring me anything but love
If you offered me the stars I would decline
I don’t need ’em I got mine
I don’t know where to start
But I know what’s in my heart
So keep your silver and your gold
’cause I got my man to have and hold
As our lives gradually return to some semblance of normalcy following the decrease in cases of COVID-19, it would be nice that we try to remember and recall those many experiences we have had since the start of the pandemic in 2020, the people who touched us.
One beautiful lesson this pandemic had taught us is that even if we practice social distancing, we can still be emotionally close with one another in so many ways and means. And even if we still have to maintain that social distance as minimum health protocol in this pandemic, there are so many occasions for us to touch one another to express our love and concern, our gratitude and apologies to any one who have touched us.
From QuotesGram.com.
It is about time that we touch base with them again, and this time, let us get in touch with one another in the most meaningful and loving way, with intensity, so that no matter what happens next, we may have that deep sense of joy and fulfillment of being truly human, of having experienced “the warmth of a loving face” as Camus expressed in The Plague.
Everyone is drained and exhausted by COVID-19, with many still out of touch following their many losses during the pandemic – loved ones, career, studies, goals and plans in life that were disrupted, permanently or temporarily.
Let us help each other to regain composure and directions in life by being kind with everyone. Most of all, let us touch one another with our simplest gestures of a smile or a wave of hand that here is another person – also struggling, also trying to pick up the pieces of life, moving on to start anew. Many times, the simplest things have the most lasting impact on us because they are also the most touching. And that is because, with our kindness, that is also when people feel being touched and loved by God most.
I hope you were touched… a blessed day ahead of you!
Photo by author, Puerto del Sol, Bolinao, Pangasinan, 19 April 2022.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Second Week of Easter-C or Divine Mercy Sunday, 24 April 2022 Acts 5:12-16 ><]]]]’> Revelation 9:1-11, 12-13, 17-19 ><]]]]’> John 20:19-31
Photo by author at Puerto del Sol, Bolinao, Pangasinan, 20 April 2022.
Admittedly, Lent is easier to experience and express than Easter due to its many practicalities. Lent is easier to understand and embrace with the many penitential practices we can undertake like fasting and abstinence, penance, and alms-giving that all came from and directed to our daily living. Remember our expression last season that “life is a daily Lent.”
Easter is different. It is not easily understood especially in our country when it is the hottest season when everything is dried and seems to be dying unlike in Europe and North America where it is springtime with a dazzling display of wonderful colors evoking life everywhere.
Our gospel this Sunday shows us how Easter had confronted the Lord’s disciples with an entirely new reality that was far beyond the limits of their experience, something which continues to our days, in our very lives. Christ’s Resurrection has opened new possibilities in our existence that affects everyone and leads us to a new kind of future so difficult in explaining and expressing but something very true inside us perfectly captured in our Filipino expression of “ah basta!”
See how simple are the accounts of the Lord’s appearances to his disciples without much details and descriptions:
Photo by author, Holy Sepulchre Church, Jerusalem, 2017.
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
John 20:19-23
Last Sunday we have mentioned the need for us to be open and empty at the same time to truly experience the joy and grandeur of Easter, exactly what our gospel tells us today. Nothing much is said about the reactions by the disciples of Jesus except that they “rejoiced” upon seeing him breaking through locked doors and windows.
But, if we try to dwell into the scene, we can feel a certain amount of energy bursting forth, an inexpressible intensity found in Jesus and in his disciples as well on that evening of the first day of the week.
John did not tell us how long Jesus stayed with the disciples nor how they rejoiced upon seeing him but we can imagine and feel the intensity both in Jesus and among the disciples on that evening and eventually the following Sunday when Jesus appeared anew in the same manner with Thomas already present.
See in both instances how John simply stated Jesus broke through locked doors and windows that caught the disciples in deep silence and adoration of the Risen Lord, of how their fears were allayed by the the gift of peace, of how sins were forgiven and doubts erased by Christ’s presence that eventually led to their seeing and believing in him.
And what happened? Jesus rose from the dead! He did not merely resuscitate from death but broke out into entirely new form of life, a life no longer subject to death and physical realities paving the way for us to enter into new dimensions in life too.
Like Thomas, Jesus touches us in the most personal and unique manner that deep inside us we also cry with intensity “my Lord and my God” to him especially during consecration at the Mass. In the second reading, we have heard how John who was then a prisoner at Patmos Island off the coast of Greece was also touched by Jesus with his right hand and told not to be afraid (Rev. 1:17) in proclaiming his gospel of salvation.
Though we can enumerate so many reasons and persons who have led us into believing in Jesus, we also admit at the same time that there is no specifically single reason nor person for our faith in God except our very selves, of our personal conviction that transcends all proofs and logic as well. Again, that expression we have of “ah basta!”
Photo by author at Puerto del Sol, Bolinao, Pangasinan, 20 April 2022.
The grace of this second Sunday of Easter which is also the eighth day of the octave known recently as “Divine Mercy Sunday” is how God through Jesus Christ comes to us as someone so small and invisible. And so intense in his love for us, breaking all barriers just to be with us especially when we too feel so locked inside with fears like the disciples.
As we have reflected last week by becoming empty and open, we often find our mighty God in little things we usually dismiss or disregard like the mustard seed.
On that evening of Easter, Jesus came in all silence and simplicity, leaving us with not much material proofs except the testimony and works of his witnesses, the disciples.
Such is the mystery of the Resurrection by Jesus that is beyond descriptions and reason because it is of another dimension and world; but, we know it is true because we ourselves have experienced the Risen Lord in so many ways sometimes so plain and simple, even sometimes too funny to mention.
One undeniable fact of the veracity of the Resurrection of Jesus is the shift by the early Christians from the Sabbath day of worship into Sunday, the first day of the week. Remember the first Christians were all Jewish like Jesus; for them to abandon the Sabbath day worship and replaced it with Sunday means something so intense must have happened on that day itself and with them as well.
Because of Christ’s Resurrection, life is forever changed for the best amid all the many problems and chaos we have been through in the past 2000 years, giving us with so much hopes for a better tomorrow despite the many darkness coming our way. The key is to remain intense in our faith in Jesus Christ.
Dearest Jesus,
grant me the intensity to proclaim
you and your gospel of salvation
in both words and deeds;
use my hands
to do many signs and wonders
among your people like your Apostles
but never to replace you;
let my mission be an intense
proclamation always that you alone
is my Lord and my God.
Amen.
Video by author at Puerto del Sol, Bolinao, Pangasinan, 20 April 2022.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
The Easter Vigil in the Holy Night, 16 April 2022
Easter Vigil 2021 at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, Valenzuela City.
Every summer when we were growing up with all our cousins home for the vacation, we would always play bahay-bahayan underneath the many fruit-trees at our Lola’s garden. We would use palm leaves and whatever pieces of wood we had for our playhouses where we used to have our merienda and lunch.
One major concern we always had was making the “night scene” when we were supposed to “sleep” and the inside of the playhouse must be really, really dark by covering its walls with thick blankets. But, no matter how hard we tried to keep the lights out of our playhouses, there would always be a streak of light bursting forth inside, thus, teaching me an important lesson that has guided me through adulthood and priesthood: no matter how dark life may be, nothing can stop nor prevent even the smallest amount of light in penetrating every space and corner. And once light had burst through any darkness, all we have to do is just to spread that light until the whole place is basked in pure joy and glory like this Easter Vigil!
After three days of darkness when Jesus suffered and died and was buried, tonight we celebrate his Resurrection, his being our Light who has conquered the darkness of sin and evil that have enveloped the world for so long.
Easter Vigil 2021 at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, Valenzuela City.
Jesus Christ is the Light of the world, symbolized by the Paschal Candle we have blessed earlier outside the church. Jesus is the Light who dispels all darkness in this life, the Light who clarifies everything to mankind that we are so loved by God our Father.
Our many readings tonight remind us of God’s fidelity to his promise to save us. When we try to look back especially in these past two years, the COVID-19 pandemic is our new exodus. And thought we are still in the wilderness wandering like the chosen people, we are now more certain of God’s presence with us in the present and the future because right now, we have felt the salvation of Jesus Christ.
Yes, we may have loss many of our loved ones but we are still alive continuing the journey of life. Some of us may have lost our jobs but the light of Christ had led many of us to new careers and business opportunities. Students are finally looking forward to their F2F classes to resume while many of those who kept their lights burning through the darkness of online classes have finally graduated with this year’s batch becoming the first to have F2F commencement exercises.
The light of Jesus Christ was never extinguished during these dark moments of pandemic. And tonight we are challenged to share Christ our Light amid the darkness we are still into like this pandemic and the coming elections.
Easter Vigil 2021 at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, Valenzuela City.
Let us recall the beautiful rites we have just celebrated tonight. May I invite you to recall the gradual lighting of our own candles from the Paschal Candle after it was blessed outside. First to light from it were us your priests, then as we entered the church, one by one, everybody was able to light from the Paschal Candle, passing on the light to others until we illumined our church.
That gradual lighting of candles at the altar after the singing of the Exsultet and later the turning on of all lights after the Gloria evoke so many wonderful truths about God always present in our lives especially when there are darkness of sin and evil, failures and disappointments, sickness and sufferings, life and death.
Tonight we are asked to share and spread Jesus Christ, his light to others especially those in the darkness of sins and sufferings, of ignorance and blindness to truth, and other forms of darkness that prevent us experiencing the joy of being free in the Lord.
The most beautiful sight of all when all the lights in the church were turned on while our own candles were extinguished is the Paschal Candle still burning, prominently placed near the ambo, reassuring us of Jesus Christ remaining with us throughout the year as our light present in every celebration of the Sacraments in this church especially when we are nourished in his Word and Body and Blood in the Sunday Eucharist, in welcoming every new Christian during baptism and accompanying our departed ones in their journey to eternal life in him.
Easter Vigil 2021 at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, Valenzuela City.
Beginning tonight, every time we see the Paschal Candle, may we remember the challenge of Jesus to share his light with others, to be open to welcome him who has risen.
While they were puzzling over this (the empty tomb), behold, two men in dazzling garments appeared to them. They were terrified and bowed their faces on the ground. They said to them, “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.”
Luke 24:4-7
Stop seeking the living among the dead! Perfectly said by the angels as they reminded the women looking for Jesus at the empty tomb on that Easter morning. And these are the words they are telling us still since that Easter!
Sharing the light of Jesus Christ is reminding ourselves too and others the same words of the angels to stop seeking the living among the dead.
Be kind and be gentle with yourself. Jesus had forgiven you, forgive yourself for your sins and mistakes in the past if you have confessed these or gone to confessions this Lenten season.
Move on with the present moment, dare to go out and challenge yourself to learn again, to work again, to love again, to dream again! COVID-19 may still be around but Jesus Christ is stronger, so let us rise again from our sickness and diseases! Let us not be afraid of the dark anymore for the Light can never be dimmed anymore.
May the light of our Risen Lord illumine your dark corners in life, enable you to empty yourself of sins and pains of the past to bask in the warmth and brightness of each new day in Christ! Amen.
Easter 2021 at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, Valenzuela City.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Holy Wednesday, 13 April 2022
Isaiah 50:4-9 + Matthew 26:14-25
Photo by author, St. John the Baptist Parish, Calumpit, Bulacan, 31 March 2022.
It’s Holy Wednesday, also known as Spy Wednesday, the night Judas Iscariot agreed to betray Jesus Christ to the chief priests in exchange of 30 pieces of silver (Mt.26:14-15). Tonight is the night of traitors, of betrayers, of those not true to us!
This is the reason why in most parishes after the Mass tonight, there is the ritual of tenebrae or gradual turning off of lights and extinguishing of candles in the church to show how momentarily darkness and evil prevailed in the world when Judas sold Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
Photo from saopedroesaopaolo.com.br.
To betray literally means to hand over a loved one to pain and sufferings like when a husband is unfaithful to his wife, when we spill the secrets of our friends, when we answer back our parents or refuse to obey them, when children waste their money on their vices and other non-essential things instead of studying their lessons while their mother or father is toiling day and night abroad as an OFW.
Betrayal is so painful and most unkind because we exchange or “sell” our loved ones like commodities for someone or something less in value; imagine the pain a betrayer inflicts on the someone who gave everything, with all the love and care only to be “traded” for lesser value? It is said that during the time of Jesus, a slave can be bought for 30 pieces of silver; how foolish Judas must have been in exchanging Jesus who loved and cared for him for a slave! And that is what we are too when we betray God and our loved ones – fools to replace someone so precious for anything else!
Betrayal is rebelling against a loving God, a beloved one, turning our back from them who are most true to us. And that is the short of it: betrayal is not being true.
Holiness is being true; holiness and truth always go together.
The word true is from the Anglo-Saxon treowe or tree. For them, truth is like a tree that evokes a sense of firmness, of being rooted in the ground. When our words and actions are not firm, shaky and always changing, flimsy or “pabago-bago” as we say in Filipino, then it must not be true. It must be a lie and not true at all because it is always changing or shifting.
Photo by author, St. Paul Spirituality Center, La Trinidad, Benguet, 2019.
Truth is always firm, does not change and remains true forever. It may be concealed or covered by lies for sometime but sooner or later, truth will always come out. It cannot be deleted. That is why the Greeks referred to truth as aletheia or phusis, the blooming of a flower that cannot be hidden and would always manifest or show. Jesus himself assured us that “nothing that is hidden will not be revealed; nor anything secret that will not be known and come to light” (Lk.8:17).
Closely linked with the word true is trust which also came from treowe: the Anglo-Saxons saw in the tree not only firmness but also rootedness or connectedness. The firmer the tree, the deeper are its roots. And that is what a true person is – always trustworthy, someone who can be trusted, someone who values relationships or ties and links. Traitors betray their loved ones because they do not value their relationships; a true person is always trustworthy because he values his relationships. A true and trustworthy person is one who would always listen to God and others, not insisting on his own plans and agenda like the Suffering Servant of God.
The Lord God has given me a well-trained tongue, that I might know how to speak to the weary a word that will rouse them. Morning after morning he opens my ear that I may hear, and I have not rebelled, have not turned back. I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; my face I did not shield from buffets and spitting.
Isaiah 50:4-6
Photo from Pinterest.
Remember the scene of the scourging at the pillar in the film The Passion of the Christ (2004)? Biblical experts say that gory scene was very true as it was the most painful aspect of the Lord’s passion next to the crucifixion; every time the knuckles would hit the body of Jesus, a piece of his flesh is torn off. Pilate ordered Jesus to be flogged in the belief that people might pity him when seen so tortured and bruised, perhaps agree to let him go freely.
But it did not happen as the people shouted more for his crucifixion.
And that is what happens when we betray our loved ones, including Jesus: the more we become indecisive in life like Pilate, the more we also betray them because we could not stand for what is true. That is also when we hurt them more and ourselves in the process too.
So often, traitors are not aware of their betrayals, believing in their wrongful and misplaced convictions, forgetting the people who love them most. Many times, we absolutize the truth, forgetting that only God is absolute. Most of all, that truth is a Person, Jesus Christ who said “I am the way, the truth and the life” (Jn.16:6). Being true, being holy is always directed to a person, not just a conviction.
So be careful by being true always with one’s self, with others and with God.
What makes you forget the truth and be untrue to others?
Lord Jesus Christ,
teach me to be true and holy
not only to you but most especially
to the people you give me,
those who love me truly and dearly;
make me like a tree,
firm and reliable,
dependable and trustworthy,
most of all, deeply rooted in you
through then people I love and care and serve.
Amen.
Photo by Mr. Raffy Tima of GMA7-News, January 2022.
40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Third Sunday in Lent-C, 20 March 2022
Exodus 3:1-8, 13-15 ><}}}*> 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12 ><}}}*> Luke 13:1-9
Photo by author, July 2020 in Bagbaguin, Santa Maria, Bulacan.
As I have told you at the start of this 40-day journey, Lent is like a coming home to God with Ash Wednesday until Saturday after as the porch and each Sunday a door leading us into the inner rooms closer to God.
At each door these past two Sundays, we were opened to God’s majesty and wonder, love and mercy in Jesus Christ who had come to help us triumph over many temptations in life, to be transformed and transfigured in him.
With Luke as our guide this year, he had opened to us each Sunday a very unique door to experience God’s majesty and mystery, his love and mercy offered in Jesus Christ.
This becomes most pronounced this Third and Fourth Sundays when we find his gospel stories as exclusively his alone: Christ’s call to repentance following the news of Pilate’s massacre of 18 Galileans during a temple worship and the parable of the Merciful Father more known as parable of the Prodigal Son.
Some people told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices. Jesus said to them in reply, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners than all other Galileans? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did! Or those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them – do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!”
Luke 13:1-5
Photo by author, parish Via Crucis, 11 March 2022.
Our “blaming game”
At first hearing, our gospel today sounds like a news broadcast of brutalities and mishaps, trials and sufferings happening almost daily around the world. So many times, they happen closest to us personally or within our own circles of family and friends.
Only Luke has this account of teaching by Jesus; nowhere would you find in the gospels any account of Pilate ordering this massacre of Galileans but the Jewish historian Josephus had recorded many instances of the Roman governor’s ruthless reign.
And here we find the artistry of Luke in inserting this scene in his gospel the Church has chosen as part of our Lenten itinerary. So often in life, we keep on blaming somebody else except our very selves for every negative things happening to us and around us, even considering it as “divine chastisements” or karma to those people we consider as evil.
It is true that evil begets evil, but the seeming dominion of sin and evil in the world is so wide for us to attribute blame only to certain persons as if others, including ourselves, had no part in it. It always takes two to tango!
Worst case of this “blaming game” of ours is to even link our sufferings and trials with God.
Nothing bad can ever come from God like disasters and catastrophes, sickness and turmoils because God is love. God offers only life, never death nor destruction for he does only what is good. It is very wrong to think at all that God has something to do with any of these problems happening in the world like the pandemic or in our personal lives.
Photo by author, Sinai Mountain Range in Egypt, May 2019.
This is the gist of the Lord’s response to the people bringing him the bad news of the 18 Galileans ordered massacred by Pilate, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners than all other Galileans? By no means!”. God does not punish at all! Bad things happen because of sins and that is what we always have to look inside us, how have we contributed to the evil happening.
And to make it clearer that God has nothing to do whatsoever with all these bad things happening to us, Jesus added, “Or those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them – do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? By no means!”.
However, Jesus is not telling us to be resigned to the absurdities of the world and of humankind. We can all do something to greatly prevent and reduce all these misfortunes and sufferings around us and that is the way of repentance, of conversion – the very calls of the prophets in the Old Testament and by John the Baptist.
Now, Jesus our Savior, the Son of God, is voicing out this call of repentance with urgency and new authority not only because it is the only way back to God but precisely due to his very nature of being loving and patient, merciful and forgiving.
The kind of God we have, the only one there is
The grace of this third Sunday of Lent is the revelation of the kind of God we have, the only one there is: a very loving and patient, merciful and forgiving God who is also perfectly present among us in Jesus Christ.
Photo by author, site of the burning bush in Sinai now inside St. Catherine’s Monastery in Egypt.
In the first reading, we are told of that unforgettable scene of Moses at the burning bush where God revealed himself as “I AM WHO AM” – the One who is always present with us in the past, in the future, and most especially in every here and now, the present moment.
When we think of God, what comes to our mind, what do we say about him?
God told Moses “Thus you say to the Israelites: The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, has sent me to you” (Ex. 3:15) to remind them that this God has always been present with his people.
With Abraham, God first made the promise of being the father of all nations (last Sunday’s first reading), to Isaac he revealed himself in the stairway to heaven, and to Jacob that he would bring them to Egypt and liberate them after. Now in Moses, everything is coming into fulfillment of this great nation to be set free by God, a prefiguration Christ and his saving mission.
Throughout history, God never left his people, working great marvels in the past to deliver them from slavery, a passing over and exodus, assuring us of his presence and salvation in the future by remaining at our side.
History is cyclic, everything seems to be happening again but with an upward trajectory towards God; in every repetition of history, the question is where are we standing with God, are we still the same the first time we encountered him, descending to vice and sins or have we grown in virtues and holiness?
Salvation history and secular history continue to unfold for both are one in God; hence, we must not waste every moment to return to God, to repent and be converted. Beware of Paul’s warning, “Therefore, whoever thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall” (1 Cor. 10:12)! Remember those Galileans massacred by Pilate or those 18 people at Siloam crushed to death by tower that had fallen – anything can happen with us, so be ready. Never leave God who is always with us, assuring us with salvation in Jesus.
Beginning this Sunday, continuing to next week with the parable of the prodigal son and finally on the fifth Sunday of Lent when we skip Luke’s gospel to borrow from John for the story of the woman caught in adultery, we are being immersed into the deeper mystery of this God we call Father made known to us by Jesus Christ through his own passion, death and resurrection.
The more we enter God’s mystery every Sunday of Lent, the more his “height, breath and depth” (Eph. 3:18) appear to us, making us realize he is real, very true like another person we can feel and hear, always with us, patiently waiting for us to bear fruit like the owner of the fig tree in the parable.
How have you experienced God’s presence this past week?
What else do we need to be convinced of his love and mercy that we still refuse to repent and be converted in Jesus Christ?
The time is now, not yesterday or tomorrow for God is I AM WHO AM, one who is in the present. Amen.Have a blessed week.
Thank you for the prayers; I am home trying to recuperate from my surgery.
Photo by author, inside St. Catherine Monastery with Mt. Sinai at the background in Egypt, May 2019.
40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
First Sunday of Lent-C, 06 March 2022
Deuteronomy 26:4-10 ><}}}*> Romans 10:8-13 ><}}}*> Luke 4:1-13
Photo by author, view of Israel from Mount Nebo in Jordan, May 2019.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI used to say that the imagery of the desert during the season of Lent is an invitation for us to remember, to revisit and to return to our very “first love” of all – God.
Yes! God is our first love for he is the first to love us, always calling us to come to him to have more of his love. Pope Benedict wrote in his first encyclical in 2005, Deus Caritas Est, that “Love can be commanded (by God) because it has first been given by him”, and that “love grows through love”.
And that is why every first Sunday of Lent, we hear the story of the temptation of Jesus by the devil in the desert as he invites us to go back to our first love, God our Father, teaching us and giving us the grace to overcome temptations that have brought us apart from God and everyone.
Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they were over he was hungry.
Luke 4:1-2
Photo by author, view of Israel from Mount Nebo in Jordan, May 2019.
Let your love flow.
Of the three evangelists who recorded the temptation of Jesus in the desert by the devil, only Luke gives us a more detailed and sober version that you could feel Christ’s docility to the Holy Spirit; Matthew and Mark were both abrupt, as if Jesus was hurriedly led by the Spirit into the desert after his baptism at Jordan.
Luke’s version gives us a sense of peace and tranquility in Jesus who obeyed the Holy Spirit spontaneously which he would always do throughout his ministry; this his disciples would imitate as we shall see in Luke’s second book, the Acts of the Apostles.
This short introduction by Luke to the temptation of the Lord in the desert teaches us the first step in every Lent and ultimately in life: our docility to the Holy Spirit like Jesus Christ.
Photo by author, Mount Nebo, Jordan, May 2019.
And there lies the problem with us as we refuse to love God, when we refuse to mature in love as we keep on looking even inventing our own loves that in the end leaves us empty and alienated.
In this age of too much gadgets and instants plus emphasis on freedom and independence, we have forgotten to be docile and submissive in the good sense as we keep on asserting our very selves, always trying to be in command of everything.
Experience tells us that the key to truly experiencing love – to love and be loved – is to let yourself be led by your beloved, by a loved one. To simply let your love flow.
The three pillars of Lent: prayer, fasting and alms-giving rest on our willingness to submit ourselves to God, to trust him and rely only in him.
To be filled with the Spirit is to be filled with love that we first search God to love him and have more of his love to share with others.
The three “faces” of power that ruin love
Too often, we resist God by subduing our inner call to love, preferring to control everything and everyone. We prefer power than love, thinking wrongly that we can force or impose love on others.
Remember the movie “Bruce Almighty” about 20 years ago?
The turning point of the movie happened when Jennifer Aniston left her boyfriend Jim Carrey who could not submit himself and follow his heart to propose to her; Jim could not understand why can’t just God played by Morgan Freeman impose love on his girlfriend Jennifer to save him all the efforts and time in proving his love and proposing to her. Freeman as God simply told Bruce he cannot force love because that’s the way it is, so free that is why love is so wonderful!
Love and power cannot go together. Love is ruined when power and control come in any relationship. Adam and Eve desired the powers of God that led them into sin and be banished from Paradise.
This we see in the three temptations of Jesus Christ by the devil which is centered on power; notice how Jesus resisted temptation by choosing the path of love of God which is the path of powerlessness.
Photo from commons.wikipedia.org, Basilica di San Marco, Venice, Italy.
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.”
Luke 4:3-4
The first temptation of power is the ability to do everything. Every suitor is guilty of this when he tries to do everything just to win the heart of the woman of his dreams which often ends sadly, even miserably or tragic.
Too often, we feel and believe that it is love when we try to do everything just for the beloved.
No! We are not God. We cannot do everything. Love is not about doing but being.
Jesus could have turned that stone into bread but he did not do it because it is not the proof of his being the Son of God. His docility to the Father, his fidelity to his words and will expressed by his self-sacrifice at the Cross proved that he is indeed the Christ.
At the same time, his love for people is not in doing everything, especially in giving us the quick-fixes to our many problems and sufferings. In the wilderness, Jesus fed more than 5000 people from just five loaves of bread and two pieces of fish after he had found the people ready to love, ready to accept him and one anther.
The problem with power to do everything is we cease from becoming a person who “feels” and experiences pain and hunger, sadness and failures that eventually make us stronger and deeper in love and convictions. When we keep on doing everything believing in our powers, then we get burned in the process, becoming resentful and bitter later after skipping the normal courses of life.
We are loved not by what we can do nor achieve but what we could become – a nicer, kinder, forgiving and understanding and loving person.
Then he took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a single instant. The devil said to him, “I shall give to you all this power and their glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I may give it to whomever I wish. All this will be yours, if you worship me.” Jesus said to him in reply, “It is written: You shall worship the Lord, your God, and him alone shall you serve.”
Luke 4: 5-8
The second temptation of power is to dominate others. If you cannot do everything, subjugate others who can do things for you. Entice them with everything and whatever you have; buy their souls like our politicians who shamelessly forget history and values of freedom and democracy for the sake of winning an office.
Photo by author, 2019.
Love begets love. Jesus had no need to be popular, to be viral and liked by everyone. He loves us so much and the love he offers us is a love that is willing to die in one’s self, a love that goes for the Cross because that is true love. Never convenient nor comforting. Love is always difficult because it is a decision we keep and stand for every day.
This is the gist of the first reading when Moses reminded the people to always remember and review their history to be aware of how God had never left them, loving them despite their sinfulness. Remembering keeps our love alive because it always reminds us of the persons behind every events in our lives, keeping us united to the person in love even up to the present moment. Recall those time you have “lover’s quarrel” or LQ: what is usually the first thing that comes to your mind? Is it not your love story, of how you met and dreamt together, of how you love each other?
Love is about persons, not about things like wealth and fame. The Beatles said it so well in the 60’s, All You Need is Love.
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 4:9-12
The third temptation of power is to manipulate, even God, the all-powerful. This is the most insidious temptation that hides its sinister plans in a lot of “loving” and “caring” facades of fakeries.
It is the worst of the three as it enters one’s psyche, the highest degree of brainwashing. See how the devil had chosen the site of the temple, citing the scriptures in tempting the Lord.
The devil does the same with us, especially those toxic people who would try to massage our egos, trying to win us over unto them only to manipulate us and when worst comes to worst, play victims to us.
Love is never manipulative; the more you love, the more you become free to be your true self, your better self. Love is always a desire to become like the one you love, a movement to becoming like the beloved, not imposing one’s self to another. Love is always an invitation to journey, to be a companion, to come and follow without hidden agendas and plans.
Love is self-emptying, of giving, of baring one’s self to another to share life, never to take advantage or pull-off a big gain or profit from another. That is why St. Paul reminds us in the second reading that God is never far from us for his word is “near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (Rom.10:8).
The grace of this First Sunday of Lent is Jesus taking the first step by coming to us out of his great love for us so that we can begin the journey back to the Father, our first love, helping us overcome the many temptations not to love. May we follow his path of powerlessness, of docility to the Holy Spirit to truly experience God’s abounding love for us. Amen.
40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Ash Wednesday, 02 March 2022
Prayer based on Papal Message for Lent 2022
Photo by author, an oasis near the Dead Sea, May 2017.
For the third straight year
since 2020, we enter the season
of Lent, O Lord, in the most realistic
or surreal manner as our lives were thrown
off-balance, altered in so many ways,
and some ruined by this COVID-19
pandemic made worst recently by
Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
As we begin our 40-day journey
back to you, loving God our Father,
we pray to you on this Ash Wednesday
to raise us up "from the ash heap,
to make us sit with princes and
inherit a seat of honor" (Ps.113:7-8) because
"now is the acceptable time" (2 Cor. 6:2)
of salvation in Jesus Christ.
Together with Pope Francis,
help us "not to grow tired of
doing good, while we have the
opportunity to do good to all"
(Galatians 6:9-10) despite the
great difficulties especially
in this time of the pandemic,
elections fever, and war in Ukraine.
Let us not grow tired of praying
because in these times of trials,
the more we need you, dear God;
help us remember the lesson of this
pandemic that we are fragile
as individuals and as a society,
that without you, O Lord, we cannot
stand firm and make it to this Lent again.
Let us not grow tired of uprooting
evil in our lives through our lenten practice
of fasting to fortify our spirit in the fight
against sin; let us not grow tired of
fighting against all forms of addictions
that drive us to selfishness and all
kinds of evil like too much social media that
has made us forget to cultivate authentic
human communications based in
"authentic encounters", face-to-face,
and personal.
Let us not grow tired of doing good
in active charity towards our neighbors
especially the poor and needy,
the marginalized and abandoned
in whom Jesus is most present.
Give us the patient perseverance
of a farmer who awaits the fruits
of the earth (James 5:7), always
persevering in doing good,
one step at a time; may we realize
that in cultivating fraternal love to
one another, we become united to Christ
who gave his life for our sake and enabled us
to have a foretaste of the joy of heaven
when you, O God,
will be "all in all" (1 Cor. 15:28).
Amen.
lordmychef.com 