Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Friday, Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus-B, 07 June 2024 Hosea 11:1, 3-4, 8-9 ><}}}*> Ephesians 3:8-12, 14-19 ><}}}*> John 19:31-37
Being tender and caring are essentially your works, O God, made known to us by your Son Jesus Christ in His Most Sacred Heart where there is enough room for each one of us wounded and hurting to find healing; bitter and disgusted to have rest and solace; lost to find way back home.
Thus says the Lord: When Israel was a child I loved him, out of Egypt I called my son. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, who took them in my arms; I drew them with human cords, with bands of love; I fostered them like one who raises an infant to his cheeks; Yet. though I stooped to feed my child, they did not know that I was their healer.
Hosea 11:1, 3-4
I must admit, O God, that I have not yet really known You that until now, I lack your tenderness and care for others; to have tenderness like You, Lord, is first of all for me to be intimate with You, my Father, my Life, my Mission; You have nurtured me as your son but I never recognized You fully that is why many times I followed my doubts and negative thoughts than You. So many times I pray yet still so far from You, O God!
Lord Jesus Christ, "dwell in my heart through faith so that I may be rooted and grounded in love" (Ephesians 3:17) because when my love with God is superficial, all my relationships are also skin-deep that make me forget my love experiences, giving more emphasis on others' shortcomings, expectations, and returns; tenderness is being like You, O God, of having a big heart able to accommodate those suffering because You know and realize the gravity of what others are going through; more than a feeling, tenderness is love and mercy in action because it is to feel what others are going through.
Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like Thine, close to the Father, close to His children. Amen.
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 20 March 2024.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Friday, Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus-B, 07 June 2024 Hosea 11:1, 3-4, 8-9 ><}}}*> Ephesians 3:8-12, 14-19 ><}}}*> John 19:31-37
You must be wondering why this photo of a quote from Tom Hanks’ 1994 character Forrest Gump on the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. What’s with shoes and the Sacred Heart of Jesus? Let me explain…
Last Tuesday while checking on my Facebook, I saw the post of a former seminarian who said, “Buying us shoes has been the love language of my parents to us… It will not change.” Posted below were photos of him buying two kids with new pairs of shoes.
How I admired him for being a father to those less fortunate kids! And that’s why I remembered Forrest Gump too who said how his mother used to tell him that shoes tell a lot about people, “Where they are going. Where they been.”
There’s something special with our feet, with the shoes we wear. Or do not wear. One is clear, though: our feet being at the lowest part of our body are most cared when we are growing up but later forgotten though overworked. That is why, it is so wonderful to go back to those days of childhood when our parents used to buy us with new pair of shoes, of how they would stoop down to help us fit the right ones for us. Just like God who is a Father to each one of us!
Thus says the Lord: when Israel was a child I loved him, out of Egypt I called my son. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, who took them in my arms; I drew them with human cords, with bands of love; I fostered them like one who raises an infant to his cheeks; Yet, though I stooped to feed my child, they did not know that I was their healer.
That’s the tenderness of God, so Fatherly to us in taking care of us, teaching us to walk, taking us to his arms, lovingly raising us to his cheeks while we burst in laughter. Try reading that whole quotation to include the second verse skipped by our lectionary today, the more you can feel God’s tenderness. And our sinfulness.
Thus says the Lord: When Israel was a child I loved him, out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the farther they went away from me.
Hosea 11:1-2
Is it not this is how our love relationship is with our parents and family including God?
When we were kids, we loved running to our parents, taking pride for being their son or daughter, always clinging to their big hands. Or, like couples at their early years in marriage who seem to be inseparable and always together. Then, as years passed by as we find new friends and new relationships, we drift apart from our parents or spouse, including God. And worst, we drive them away, even feeling ashamed of them especially when they come near us with their gestures of love and concern. But, when problems arise like betrayal and infidelity, failures and losses, we return to our parents or to our original spouse or family, and most especially to God, rediscovering their genuine love that is so tender and very comforting again: “I took you in my arms, drew you with human cords with bands of love. I fostered you like one who raises an infant to his cheeks; yet, though I stooped to feed you my child, you did not know I am your healer” (Hos.11:3-7).
From GettyImages.com.
That “stooping down” by God He had spoken to Hosea hundreds of years earlier took its deepest plunge when He sent us Jesus Christ His Son as our Savior by dying on the Cross. In fact, Jesus literally “stooped down” on the night He was betrayed when He washed the feet of His disciples to portray to them the depth of His love for us all.
From His birth to His passion and death, Jesus Christ, therefore, is the Father’s love language.
This was very evident on Good Friday as John narrated how the soldiers broke the legs of the other two thieves crucified with Jesus to hasten their death; but, when they saw Jesus “already dead, they did not break his legs, but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out. For this happened so that the Scripture passage might be fulfilled: Not a bone of it will be broken. And again another passage says: They will look upon him whom they have pierced” (Jn.19:33-34, 36-37).
Jesus Christ is the Father’s love language to us all because His death on the Cross is the most tender moment of love in history when our God who personally loves us by becoming like us in everything except sin loved us until the last drop of His blood because we are His beloved brothers and sisters in His loving and faithful Father in heaven we have always deserted in our many sins.
Photo by author, Baguio City, 2023.
Indeed, when blood and water flowed out from His pierced side on the Cross, the ocean of Divine Mercy flowed out for us, forgiving our most grievous sins, regardless of our many weaknesses.
In His Most Sacred heart, Jesus is inviting us to have tender moments with Him, to have the same “love language” of sacrifice and giving of self for others so that “He may dwell also in our hearts through faith so that once we are rooted and grounded in His love, we may have the strength to comprehend the breadth and length and height and depth of His love that surpasses knowledge and be filled with the fullness of God”(Eph.3:17-19).
Unlike us humans, God makes no mistakes in loving. He remains faithful to us with His love, even “allowing” us often to sin and commit mistakes so that eventually, when we hit rock bottom, we rediscover Him and His love that is so real and so personal.
That is why we must heed St. Paul’s admonition in the second reading to be “rooted and grounded in His love” because human love is always imperfect. Only God can love us perfectly in Christ Jesus who offered Himself on the Cross to fulfill what we have failed since the beginning – that is, to love God and others.
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 20 March 2024.
Today we complete the series of three Solemnities in Ordinary Time right after the great season of Easter: Trinity, Body and Blood of Christ, and now, the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. All three Solemnities tell us how great is this God we believe in, someone so immense and powerful, yet so loving and so gentle; most of all, a God so personal that He is much like us but at the same time so different from us.
This Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is an occasion for us to meditate deeply on how God touches us in the most intimate manner when He stooped down in Christ through the Cross to experience His love and mercy so that we could make others feel that too.
Like John who witnessed everything on the Cross, we need to see more with the eyes of faith the realities of God’s immense love for us who gave His Son Jesus as the new Lamb offered for our many sins and that is why, in accordance with the Jewish law and with the Old Testament, not one of His bones were broken on the Cross. May we learn to stoop down like God in Jesus by looking down to our feet by first examining our hearts as we pray, Jesus meek and humble heart make my heart like thine! Amen.
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 20 March 2024.
Here is our second instalment of our contribution in reflecting why divorce should not be allowed because it is against the plan of God and therefore, a sin. Please, we are not judging anyone here.
It is the simple truth that for the longest time people have refused to accept in their hearts that they have continuously sought ways of justifying divorce because right in their hearts, they are the first ones bothered. They had their chance to confront Jesus Christ about it 2000 years ago but the Lord minced no words when He declared the painful truth any pro-divorce would not discuss, “Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so” (Mt.19:8).
How sad when articles come out trying so hard to dilute this truth by deliberately interpreting it in their own terms especially the many statements by Pope Francis which he had repeatedly clarified including that of the same sex union.
Most sad is when a news report supposed to present all sides chooses to cite only the questionable teachings of some experts in religion or theology without citing the Sacred Scriptures, the Catechism of the Catholic Church and Church documents for official teachings on marriage. Worst, the same report highlighted views of Catholic theologians silenced long ago (may they rest in peace) by the Church for their misleading views on morality!
Divorce is against God’s plan. Marriage is only between a man and a woman as created by God, not invented by any one that is subject to changes or whims. Jesus explained this clearly in the same gospel scene which we shall echo today and forever: “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’ and he said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate” (Mt.19:4-6).
As a creation of God, marriage is a sacrament, a sign of His saving presence in this world in Jesus Christ who had come to reassert this truth. The problem remains the hardness of the hearts of people, especially of those getting married who are so preoccupied with the accidentals of marriage without realizing that they are an icon of Jesus.
Photo by author, 2019.
My first assignment after ordination in 1998 was to teach at the Immaculate Conception School for Boys (ICSB) in Malolos City. We also run an all-girls high school and an elementary school for boys and girls.
Marian was my student from elementary to high school whom I have known so well including her parents. We call our students ICONS, from the initials of our school name. Here are parts of my homily to Marian’s wedding last June 29, 2019 at the Malolos Cathedral.
Congratulations to you, my dearest Marian and Matt!
God willed that you get married today on the Solemnity of St. Peter and St. Paul, the two pillars of the Church established by our Lord Jesus Christ.
Like you, Marian and Matt, St. Peter and St. Paul are two people of opposite personalities, of different social and cultural backgrounds but were able to overcome these to work together for Jesus Christ. We celebrate their feast together because despite their many differences, they were united in their love for Jesus Christ. It was Christ who brought them together and kept them together so his Church would grow and be what it is today.
The same is true with you, Marian and Matt: Jesus Christ brought you together in spite of your many differences to be united in his love. Most of all, Marian and Matt, Jesus wants you to be his ICONS or images in the world today that has become individualistic.
An icon or image of Jesus like St. Peter and St. Paul is to be one in the Lord. A man and woman get married to become disciples of Christ, to become one in Christ, to look like Christ. That is the meaning of the word sacrament, visible sign of the saving presence of Jesus in the world.
And that is why the gospel you have chosen for your wedding day is so perfect, the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus gave us his Beatitudes that are actually directions for discipleship… let us reflect on the sixth Beatitude of Jesus: “Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God” (Mt.5:8).
Remember the Little Prince where the fox told him that “What is essential is invisible to the eye; it is only with the heart one can truly see”?
We can only see God with our hearts. The intellect alone is never enough.
And so it is with any person.
We can learn and know so many things about another person with our intellect but nothing will be enough for us to truly love him or her unless we let our hearts see the real him or her.
The heart is the wholeness of the person. Yesterday we celebrated the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Sometimes, when we use our minds, we see the world as so dark and so evil. But, if we have hearts that can see, we will be more surprised that there are more goodness, more beauty in this world than what we hear and see in the news and around us.
Marian and Matt, always have a clean heart to see each one’s goodness and beauty.
Always go back to those early days when you first saw each other with your hearts. Aside from the kilig factor, you felt and realized something deeper with each other. The beloved disciple, St. John, wrote in our first reading, “No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us” (1 Jn. 4:11-12).
And that is how we see God and others: always with our hearts when we love.
To have a clean heart, Marian and Matt, is to enter into the mind of Jesus Christ and that is to embrace his Cross. Having a clean heart is becoming one with Jesus Christ, especially in his love and fidelity.
A clean heart is a loving heart that always gives life, other-centered, veritable and enduring. Always in communion with Jesus Christ who gave us the new commandment to love like him by being rooted in the Father.
The love of Christ is the fire that purifies and cleanses our hearts, unifying our intellect, will and emotion that enables us to see oneness in ourselves before God. We see not only the good and the bad sides in ourselves but also among those around us, especially those we love.
Look back at your many experiences, Marian and Matt. Look at your past lives, your struggles, your mistakes and sins. Despite all these, you have also seen and experienced God’s loving presence in you in spite of your many darkness and divisions within.
That is why you are so “blessed”, Marian and Matt, because today on your wedding day, you enter God himself and you are able to “see” him with your loving hearts despite your pains and hurt, failures and shortcomings. Keep your hearts clean in Jesus Christ so you may always see God in each other. Amen.
My dearest married couples, please do not forget that fact, that reality: you are an image, an icon of Jesus Christ. And what a great honor!
That is why Jesus made His first miracle in a wedding at Cana to show your special place in God’s plan. You have chosen a most difficult kind of life but that is why you chose to get married in the Church – to be blessed by God.
God keeps His promise. Keep yours too! Praying for all couples especially those going through difficulties these days.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 26 May 2024
Photo by author, San Juan, La Union, 25 July 2023.
Mysteries are like gifts wrapped so beautifully but not meant to be opened to be explained nor understood; rather, we simply have to let ourselves be wrapped by the gift of life’s mysteries to discover its many gifts that can enrich us in the process.
Just like the mystery of God, His being One in Three Persons called the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity which we celebrate this Sunday. Contrary to common beliefs, mysteries can be explained and understood but, not fully.
Yet, why live explaining and understanding everything?
That is why when God revealed Himself to us, He did not come explaining terms and concepts to us humans and instead conducted Himself in a most unique, personal manner. God related to us in a very personal way like another person by letting us experience His loving presence, His kindness and mercy, His justice and salvation, His healing and liberation as Father, Son and Holy Spirit (https://lordmychef.com/2024/05/25/the-gift-of-persons/).
That is why we have chosen for this Sunday’s music the 2016 Is It Any Wonder? by the American contemporary and R&B soul trio of singer Durand Jones, singer/drummer Aaron Frazer and guitarist Blake Rhein who call themselves as Durand Jones & The Indications. I accidentally discovered them along with other young musicians during the 2020 lockdown of COVID-19 pandemic. Their music is so cool coupled with lyrics so thoughtful. And mysterious. Like Is it Any Wonder? that sounds so matured yet so young, reminding us of our first crushes or first love when we got so lost in what to do and say whenever near the girl of our dream.
This road Is gonna take us back now You look so fine I don't know how to act now They say, "My child Don't stroll off easy 'Cause when it's time You gonna hear what she said"
Is it any wonder? Is it any wonder?
If you ever leave me alone I'll be cryin', wishin' you'd come home
When I look in your eyes I see you starin' at me, girl And when it's time I see you holdin' on me, girl
'Cause you You got a hold on me, yeah So, I'm Gonna make you see, yeah Aw, yeah
Is it any wonder? Is it any wonder? Is it any wonder? Is it any wonder?
With its classic tune and laid-back beat of guitar, drums and horns in the KEXP live version we prefer, Is It Any Wonder? speaks so well of life’s many mysteries that wrap us and move us at the same time to greater heights in believing more and loving more. Very often when we meet people, our tendency to welcome them is a result of their conduct with us, like this girl in the song Is It Any Wonder? Is she warm or cold, inviting or reserved and closed?
See how the song speaks so little – but heavily – of his experiences with his crush, leaving everything into wondering and awe, repeatedly singing, Is it any wonder?
To wonder, to be awed like a child is the beginning of love, of discovery of God and of the other person who fills the emptiness and longings within us. That is the gift of person, of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – there is always that mystery we can’t explain right away but we feel disarmed, wondering why we are drawn to God and others because of their conduct, of their kindness, of their offer of relationship. The key is to always wonder and bask into the beauty and gift of the other person, especially of God. Have a relaxing rainy Sunday!
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity-B, 26 May 2024 Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40 ><}}}*> Romans 8:14-17 ><}}}*> Matthew 28:16-20
Photo by author, the Holy Trinity as depicted at the Parish of St. John the Baptist, Calumpit, Bulacan, March 2021.
We are now into the Ordinary Time and for the next two consecutive Sundays we are celebrating three important Solemnities in the next three weeks.
First in these series of Solemnities in Ordinary Time is that of the Most Holy Trinity, the highest truth in our faith which is our belief in One God in three Persons. Contrary to common beliefs, mysteries can be explained and understood, but, not fully well. After all, mysteries are not really meant to be solved but simply be lived and enjoyed like the mystery of the person which is in the heart of the Most Holy Trinity: How can there be three Persons in one God?
Moses said to the people: “Ask now of the days of old, before your time, ever since God created man upon the earth; ask from one end of the sky to the other: Did anything so great ever happen before? Was it ever heard of? Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live? Or did any god venture to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, with his strong hand and outstretched arm, and by great terror, all of which the Lord, your God, did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?”
Deuteronomy 4:32-34
Photo by author, sunrise at the Lake of Galilee in Israel, May 2019.
Our first reading this Sunday invites us too to examine ourselves and our lives to see how God has been so personal, so relational with us. As we say in Tagalog, “Sigue nga, paano mo naranasan ang Diyos?”
How did you experience God? Was it not just like the way we experienced other people in our relationships?
Very often when we meet people, our tendency to welcome or accept them were a result of their conduct, of their approach to us. If they are kind and good natured and warm, we are easily disarmed and we feel like knowing them.
That is what Moses was telling his people at that time, including us today: recall how personal was God in dealing with us with all His warmth and love because they indicate relationships and therefore, another person to relate with.
“The Trinity” (1425-27), an icon by Russian artist Andrei Rublev from wikipedia.org.
Remember how the books of the bible were written: the first questions the biblical writers asked were not the origins of the world but those asked by Moses today. After they have experienced the kindness and love of God that they eventually asked and reflected on the origins (genesis) of everything on earth and the universe.
In that experience, they felt a relationship with a Father as source of all life like dads giving life as well as protecting life and giving back life to those who may have lost it. That personal experience of God as a Father so loving and caring moved the biblical writers too to ask and reflect on the presence of evil and sufferings as we find in the Wisdom books like the Psalms and the Book of Job.
There is always the primacy of God’s personal relationship and of His conduct towards us humans that prompt us to “know” Him, to believe Him. Like people dear to us, God first revealed Himself to us in the most personal manner through a succession of events and other people we have met and known. That is why when we say “I believe in God”, we not only express a concept but also a relationship. Most of all, in this relationship is a commitment too to get to know God as a person! Before knowing any details about God or people, we first have relationships no matter how little it may be at the start. Later, we get phone numbers and other contact details with people we meet because we feel “committed” to getting to know them more in the future. In a sense, we believe them that is why we keep in touch with them. The same is true with God.
Photo by author, St. Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Mt. Sinai in Egypt, May 2019.
The word person means “a conscious relating being”. Whether with God or with others, we experience the person and the relationship unfolding through time. There is always first the experience of a conduct like kindness before questions and details of a person come.
That word “kindness” actually indicates a relationship because its root is kin that means “one of us” or “of same tribe”. When we say “he is so kind to me”, it means he treats me as one of his family or his own. In that kindness and whatever good conduct present, there seems to be an “invisible line” linking us with people we meet. Or with God which the Holy Spirit does.
Of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is the most elusive in nature and yet, it is the most frequently and concretely in contact with us. It is the principle of unity in the Trinity and among us as we have reflected last Pentecost Sunday. Today, St. Paul explains to us how the Holy Spirit as a Person keeps these relationships among us and with God united and strong, enabling us to cry out “Abba” or “Our Father”. It is the Holy Spirit who gives us the courage to keep our relationships as persons and with God especially at this modern time when some people refuse to recognize God and worst, some are bent in deleting God entirely from life.
That is why in today’s gospel, Jesus instructed His disciples including us today to “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mt.28:19-20). Persons always presuppose relationships; hence, the need to gather others always like what God did and continues to do in His Church.
It has been three weeks since my mother peacefully passed away. People ask me how am I doing. Truth is, I am not so well. I miss mommy so much. It is true we only realize the value of a person after he/she is gone. And it is most difficult with mothers!
Photo by author, Mt. Sinai in Egypt, May 2019.
Every time I come home, I have that strange feeling, wondering deep inside me of that great mystery, how did it happen that it was my mom – just one person – who had left us but our home has become so empty? Since May 7, that image of mommy’s empty room after her body was taken to the funeral had remained in my mind and as days passed, I have noticed how our home has been so hollowed when there are still my siblings and niece staying in the house?
That is the gift of person. A person fills not only spaces and homes but most of all, fills us. Every person fills another person in the same manner God first fills us with His love through persons dearest to us. That is why we believe in God.
Let us have good relationships with others so they may experience God too in their lives. Let us gather in the Father’s love in Jesus Christ to celebrate the gift of life together in the Holy Spirit through one another. Let us pray:
God our loving Father, thank you for the gift of life, for my gift of person and for the gift of so many persons in my life; dwell in me, Holy Spirit, fill me with your fire and life, animate me with the Son's justice and love so that in myself the mystery of the Blessed Trinity be alive. Amen.
I have reflected last Sunday that Pentecost is not just an event in the past but a daily coming of the Holy Spirit upon us, enlightening us of so many things in life we used to take for granted. Like the value of every person, especially when there is a death of a loved one.
In fact, death is a Pentecost when the Holy Spirit comes to remind us that we never – and can never – replace our departed loved ones. Every person is irreplaceable, especially family members. The sooner we realize this, the better for us to avoid those guilty feelings later that we should have been more loving and kind, that we should have said “I love you” more often because we never know for how long we can be with our loved ones. One thing is for sure: we do not replace our deceased loved ones but simply re-member them.
Photo by author, Bgy. Kaysuyo, Alfonso, Cavite, 27 April 2024.
The word “remember” is very interesting.
It is from the root word “member” or “part”. When we put the prefix “re” which means “again”, “remember” means to make a part again of the present moment.
Every time we remember a person or an event, we make them part of our present moment. And they are most real, most present when our re-membering happens in the context of a family or a community. Re-membering someone by one’s self surely does happen a lot but very often, it is more of looking back to the past, recalling the days we used to be together. But when we remember somebody as a family or a community, the one we remember is indeed re-membered in our present, becomes real in everyone around celebrating his/her memory. Something concrete happens and the joy is more intense, leading to freedom from past, from pains and hurts of losing a loved one.
That is when death becomes a Pentecost. When the Holy Spirit came down upon the Apostles and the Blessed Virgin Mary in Jerusalem 50 days after Easter, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity did not come to replace Jesus. The Holy Spirit is a distinct Person of the Trinity in whose power all the followers and believers of Christ have been empowered to make Him present until now in our collective re-membering of Him in the Church and the Sacraments. In the Holy Spirit who comes to us daily, we overcome and transcend every death we go through in life, enabling us to re-member our departed loved ones by being a member of those left behind.
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 18 March 2024.
Since mommy’s death, I have gone home thrice already. How I loved to walk inside her room, trying so hard to get those feelings or vibes when she was still alive I miserably miss most as the days moved on.
One thing I have noticed, though, is that strange feeling of our home suddenly so empty as in “kakalog-kalog” as we say in Tagalog. Mommy ko lang nawala sa amin pero parang nawala ang lahat sa bahay?
Now I know better why the mother is the light of the family or “ilaw ng tahanan” because after she had died, her light in our home was turned off that seemed to have made our home so dark, so light and hollowed. However, when we gathered as siblings together with our nieces and nephew and relatives, the warmth of our home returns as if mommy is with us , still with us.
That is when the Holy Spirit comes amid the darkness of every death. A Pentecost when we are reminded of those still with us who must band closer together to make our departed more present in our collective re-membering. No wonder, it was also the final instruction of Jesus to His disciples at their Last Supper when He told them as He gave them the chalice to “Do this in memory of me” or “in remembrance of me”. In Greek, it is called anamnesis which is more than remembering or recalling but making present, making a reality.
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 20 March 2024.
And the reality is this – every person is valuable beyond measure.
So fragile too! Because we can easily lose them in a snap.
We realize and feel this most true in death when we experience deeply “someone like me” whom I love, whom I care for is gone because in every death of a beloved, a part of us dies too. Even if he/she is an enemy or somebody we are not in good terms with, we feel a loss within because for better or worst, the deceased made us feel our humanity.
It is said that “one life is too many.” Very true. Today God gives us the gift and power to re-member those not with us by connecting with those still living with us. Make that connection now and soon you too shall see the face we sorely miss together. Have a blessed remaining half-week!
The Lord Is My Chef Easter Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Pentecost Sunday-B, 19 May 2024 Acts 2:1-11 ><]]]]'> Galatians 5:16-25 ><]]]]'> John 15:26-27, 16:12-15
Illustration from istockphoto.com.
Blessed happy birthday to everyone this Pentecost Sunday, the “birthday” or official coming out party of the Church! In the Ascension of Jesus last Sunday, we have an upward movement that was a “leveling up” in our relationships with God and one another, calling us to be light to rise.
Today’s Pentecost Sunday is opposite, a downward move that “presses” us to “spread” like in compressing a sandwich to make it wider or bigger, calling us to be small and be “dissolved” so we can be mixed or shared with others.
Sorry for sounding a recipe but that’s how we are all as the kingdom of God here on earth – the Body of Christ we His disciples make up as the Church in the power of the Holy Spirit whose very image is us.
When time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire hose in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.
Acts 2:1-4
Pentecost is not just an event in the past but a daily reality calling us to be “dissolved” in ourselves, to be little and small so that we can be one with others to be united in Christ through the Holy Spirit.
Being a Christian is being united, being one in Jesus; remove “Christ” in the word Christian, we are left with the letters -ian that stand for “I-am-nothing”.
That is why we as the Church is the image or icon of the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity promised by Jesus to come after His ascension. It is the principle of unity in the Trinity because the Holy Spirit is the love that exists between the Father and the Son. This union between the Father and the Son happens also among us, the community of believers despite our diversities and differences when we allow the Holy Spirit to empower us in our daily dying to ourselves that Jesus likened to the grain of wheat that falls to the ground in order to grow and yield bountiful harvest (Jn. 12:24-26). This is the reason why St. Paul calls us to live in the Spirit in the second reading:
I say, then: live by the Spirit and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh. For the flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you may not do what you want… Now those who belong to Christ have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit. Let us not be conceited, provoking one another, envious of one another.
Galatians 5:16-17, 24-26
Jesus is inviting us today to go through daily Pentecost by allowing the Holy Spirit to “burn” us with its fire, to dissolve our old selves to become new in Him. It is a process of conversion, of daily dying in our flesh in order to build up His Church.
Here we go back to one of the central theme of Jesus of becoming like a child, becoming small which is true greatness because that is when we no longer live but Christ in us as St. Paul experienced. Today he tells us some of the works of our old self we must turn away from like “immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like” (Gal. 5:19-21).
See how all his examples lead to disunity and divisions instead of unity that is happening today. Some people call for inclusivity but the opposite happens as we get divided so sharply that anyone who opposes them is accused of “gaslighting” or worst, end up being “cancelled”! So sad that some people are exaggeratingtruth when in fact they are exaggerating themselves as new standards of truth, insisting themselves and their beliefs on us.
Why change the rules of grammar or beauty pageants or genders just because they are different? Worst, they want to change even religious feasts like Santacruzan or the praying of the Our Father! Where is the unity in diversity if there is one group insisting on themselves? What happens is a repeat of the Tower of Babel, not of the Pentecost.
Losing ourselves in the Holy Spirit does not hinder our search for truth. The Holy Spirit actually leads us to the whole truth of Jesus revealed in His coming but He is too big to be grasped wholly that He continues to unfold, telling us we can only arrive at truth when we think in Him, with Him, and through Him in the Holy Spirit.
“I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak wht he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming. He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. Everything that the Father has is mine; for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.”
John 16:12-15
The key here is being small, being dissolved in the Holy Spirit to see the larger whole who is Jesus Christ found in the face of every person next to us. See how we find in the first reading the reality of the Church starting out big right away as “catholic” or universal when it began on Pentecost speaking all the languages of the world, uniting the peoples as one in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Stained glass of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove as background of the Chair of St. Peter in the Vatican in Rome; photo from wikipedia.
The Church never started small like a club spreading into federations to become one. We become a part of that big reality of the Church in Christ by becoming small, by being dissolved by the fire of the Holy Spirit by letting go of our selfish selves.
The Holy Spirit continues to come down to us in daily Pentecost explaining and revealing to us the truth of Jesus through the many events iand persons in our lives. When my mother was still alive, she was the only reason why I came home; but, after she had left us peacefully last week, I have realized I still have to come home for my family and relatives and friends. It is a process of dying in myself amid the pain of seeing her room empty, that she is gone.
Death, like the ascension of Jesus is not about replacing those who have left us but a Pentecost, of allowing the Spirit to come to make us smaller, to be one with those still with us to continue celebrating life. That is when we experience the “fruit of Spirit” like “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23). When that happens, then we have the Church as well as our own family as an image and indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Let us pray:
Lord Jesus Christ, make us aware of the coming of the Holy Spirit to us in our daily Pentecost; keep us open and humble, dissolve our selfishness, our pride, our "flesh" so that we may live in the Holy Spirit as the Church, its very image here on earth. Amen. Have a Spirit-filled week ahead!
The Lord Is My Chef Easter Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Friday in the Seventh Week of Easter before the Pentecost, 17 May 2024 Acts 25:13-21 ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> John 21:15-19
Photo by Mr. Gelo Carpio, 2020.
Today, O Lord Jesus, You asked me the loveliest yet most dreaded question of all: "Do you love me?"
And You know very well my answer, "Yes, Lord! I love You!" even if most often my yes to You does not flow to my works and actions: You know so well, dear Jesus, how my yes to You remains only in my lips and in my heart because more often I turn away from Your love to commit sins; yet, despite these, You still love me very much, Jesus.
Yes, I love You, Jesus! Please help me to pray always to You, to center my life in You, to be close and intimate with You, to be one in You because love first of all means being one with the beloved, making time, not finding time.
Yes, I love You, Jesus! Help me to appreciate myself more, to find You in myself despite my sinfulness and weaknesses like Peter whom You have called in his original name, Simon because loving You and others begins in loving myself, being grateful to You that I am alive and most of all, loved.
Yes, I love You, Jesus! Let me love You with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my very self; let me love You first so that I may truly love everyone, especially the poor and the needy You have entrusted to me; let me love You first, Jesus, so that I may love deeply the Church; O my Jesus, let me love You first so I can truly love because without You as basis and foundation of my love, that love could be self-serving, momentary and merely an altruism without meaning and depth that truly liberates the beloved. Amen.
Photo by author, Chapel of St. Francis Xavier, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 20 March 2024.
The Lord Is My Chef Easter Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Monday, Memorial of Our Lady of Fatima, 13 May 2024 Isaiah 61:9-11 ><}}}*> Galatians 4:4-7 ><}}}*> Luke 11:27-28
From cbcpnews.net, 13 May 2022, at the Parish of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, Valenzuela City.
We celebrate today the Memorial of Our Lady of Fatima when she first appeared there in Portugal on May 13, 1917. What a wonderful coincidence the eve of her Memorial was the Solemnity of the Lord’s Ascension that fell on the third Sunday of May, Mother’s Day.
What a wondrous alignment of celebrations this May – the Lord’s Ascension, Mother’s Day and Memorial of Fatima – as they all speak of love and belongingness despite the painful reality of separations we experience while in this life filled with sufferings and darkness due to evil and sin.
When Jesus ascended into heaven, it was not about His going up to a certain place or location in the universe but actually a leveling up of His relationships with the Father and with us. Though He had physically left earth, He is still very much present in the world. In fact, Jesus had to leave us physically to be with us at all time here in this life.
True to His promise of not totally leaving us, Jesus not only sent us the Holy Spirit to dwell in each of us to make us strong and holy but also gave us His Mother the Blessed Virgin Mary to be our Mother too in this world still filled with sufferings and darkness due to the seeming prevalence of sin and evil.
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.
John 19:26-27
The Blessed Mother’s apparition in Fatima, Portugal more than 100 years ago was a resounding proof of the reality of God and His abiding love for mankind in this modern time when the world is more bent in denying His very existence.
How lovely that in reminding modern man of Himself to us, God used the most unique yet so common experience of everyone in every race – the mother. Everyone of us, including the most hardened criminals, always have two softest spots in our hearts, for children and our own mother. The umbilical cord with our mothers remain forever with us, even after they have died. This I realized yesterday on Mother’s Day.
While rehearsing my homily for the Mass, I had a hearty cry in my room when I came to the part of inserting the celebration of Mother’s Day. How can I speak of Mother’s Day when I am now “motherless”?
But hey…!!!
As I prayed and reviewed my prepared homily yesterday, I realized we are never “motherless” in this world!
Mothers are like Jesus Christ who ascended into heaven: when a mother dies, she remains a mother to us. Still so loving and caring.
Like Jesus who ascended into heaven, our mothers have to die and depart too to be with us more than ever. Those memories of our mother’s selfless love, from her singing of lullabies to make us fall into sleep to all her sacrifices we never saw and knew but so evident in her wrinkles and gray hair remain fresh until the end of our lives, assuring us of her and God’s love, that we shall get by in this life even when we do not see her like Jesus.
The Jews have a saying that God created mothers so that He can be everywhere. So true! That is why mothers are always lovely, “I rejoice heartily in the Lord, in my God is the joy of my soul; for he has clothed me with a robe of salvation, and wrapped me in a mantle of justice, like a bridegroom bedecked with her jewels” (Is.61:10).
Photo by author, December 2023.
Mary’s apparition in Fatima is motherhood at its finest, non pareil in history and the world. She appeared at the most crucial moment when the world was in great transition in all aspects of life that tempted us to go on our own, bragging on our achievements and knowledge.
Just like what happens in most families when many leave their families behind, especially their mother, blinded by success and the limelight. Despite all the hurts, mothers are life’s most enduring proof of God’s mercy and love. Like most mothers appealing to their children to return to their father, to come home, Mary called us in Fatima to go back to the Father in Jesus through the three children of Fatima. Her calls were very similar with every mother’s appeal to her children – pray always and repent.
Mary at Fatima reminds us of our own mothers who would never sleep – and die – until she’s assured her children are safe back home. See how the recent turn of events in history in the last 50 years were still shaped or affected by the Fatima apparition that further bolstered it to be one of the most popular devotion and pilgrimage sites in the world today.
Fatima and Mother’s Day cannot be separated from each other primarily because of all the mothers, the Blessed Virgin Mary is the foremost of all mothers in all time, the model disciple of her Son Jesus Christ not because of her just giving birth to Him but most of all, being the first to believe in Him!
While he was speaking, a woman from the crowd called out and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed.” He replied, “Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.
Luke 11:27-28
May we heed the calls of the Blessed Mother in Fatima. Most of all, let us be like her, a model disciple of Jesus Christ, be a “mother” to everyone, nurturing and inspiring others with our faithful witnessing of the gospel especially in this time when people in many parts of the world are at edge or actually in war already, forgetting we are all brothers and sisters in one Father in heaven.
Our dear Mother Mary of Fatima, thank you for coming to us to remind us of God's love, to assure us we are never motherless in this world; help us to share God's loving tenderness and fidelity to promise to never forsake us; may our lives nurture and inspire others to hope and be open to God in the midst of the seeming meaningless world, striving to do what is true and good, making Jesus present in a humanity so often absent to God. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 12 May 2024
With my sisters Bing and Meg in Egypt, part of our Holy Land pilgrimage in 2019.
Since it is a Mother’s Day this Sunday, we are featuring my late mom’s favorite music as far as I can remember, Jo Stafford’s You Belong To Me that was released in 1952. I am not really sure if it was her favorite music in fact or simply one of the few old records (78 RPM) of my dad she kept playing in our Radiowealth phonograph.
I remembered the song very well because of its opening line “See the pyramids along the Nile” she would sing to my dad. Sometimes they would duet as they danced in our large sala. Truth is, it was only recently when I learned its title You Belong To Me courtesy of YouTube.
I was four years old in 1969 and we have moved to a spacious, two storey apartment of Aling Metring in Alibangbang Street, Project 7 when mommy finally had dad’s old stereo phonograph brought to QC from Bulacan along with albums of 45 rpm records with some LP’s and those rare 78’s. That was how I got hooked with music and radio early in childhood. Through my parents.
It was mommy who made an important impact on my tastes for music. During that time, there was record peddler who came to our apartment once a month offering the latest records. Mommy was so kind to have allowed me to choose and buy a record album I was so fascinated with the jacket design and music. She never said anything negative about my choice, that it was the music of the devil. From Santana, I came to love Led Zep, Steely Dan and the rest. Of course, Beatles was a staple during that time at home and in my elder cousins.
Back to her favorite… You Belong To Me.
Early this morning in my room, I saw the many posts of relatives and friends about Mother’s Day. I cried and remembered mommy. My first motherless Mother’s Day. But, I realized, even after mothers have died, we never become motherless. Mothers are like God: they are always present everywhere!
And that is the meaning of Ascension: Jesus did not go to any place but leveled up in His relationships with the Father and us. Ascension is Jesus sitting at the right hand of the Father to assert we all belong to Him. That is what Ascension is, our belonging to God and with each other as Jo Stafford said so well:
See the pyramids along the Nile Watch the sun rise on a tropic isle Just remember, darling, all the while You belong to me
See the marketplace in old Algiers Send me photographs and souvenirs Just remember when a dream appears You belong to me
I’ll be so alone without you Maybe you’ll be lonesome too, and blue
See how every stanza is closed with the line You belong to me, reminding her beloved that no matter wherever he may go, she would still be loving him. So motherly!
Her chorus line speaks well of the Ascension: we’ll be so alone without Jesus who came here to bring us all back to God the Father. Like God, mothers love us her family so much that even in heaven, we still have that invisible umbilical cord connecting us to them.
Blessed happy mother’s day, Mommy and my others moms! This is for you.
lordmychef.com 