40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Friday after Ash Wednesday, 07 March 2025 Isaiah 58:1-9 + + + Matthew 9:14-15
Photo by author, Hidden Springs Valley Resort, Calauan, Laguna, 20 February 2025.
I love your words today, Lord God our Father through the Prophet Isaiah:
Thus says the Lord God: Cry out full-throatedand unsparingly, lift up your voice like a trumpet blast; tell my people their wickedness, and the house of Jacob their sins (Isaiah 58:1-9).
So strong was the word your great prophet had used, "full-throated" which is to express confidently, with strong feeling and without limit; to shout our loudly in no uncertain terms; to mince no words, to emphatically declare what it really is.
Photo by author, Hidden Springs Valley Resort, Calauan, Laguna, 20 February 2025.
O God forgive us, as a nation and as a church, as a community of your disciples for being so soft, so disturbingly quiet and selectively silent in denouncing injustice and abuses happening not only around us but even by those among us; we have been so lax, overly lenient, always trying to please everyone that we have forgotten to stand for you in Christ Jesus that so many among us your priests have abused your worship, your prayers, your liturgy.
Teach us to be like your tall trees, so magnificently imposing minus the pride and airs many of us exude; simply rooted and grounded in you, O Lord, firm and unshakeable, truly a presence in Christ.
Photo by author, Atok, Benguet, 27 December 2024.
Let us take the challenges of the Prophet Isaiah to see fasting not just as refraining from food and drink but about how our behavior affect others; let us empty ourselves first of the bonds of wickedness that bind us so that in our fasting we set the oppressed free by breaking every yoke (Is.58:6); let us be one with the hungry and homeless by realizing our nakedness in you, that more essential than food and things are those of the Spirit to experience you among the poor like the hungry and the homeless (Is.58:7); let us be your presence in this world by shouting full-throated not just with our voice but most especially with our actions and witnessing of your justice and love.
Loving Father, you have given us with so much and we have given so little if not nothing at all; teach us the essence of fasting which is to give more of ourselves with others and to give more of you and your love, and kindness, and mercy, and joy and life. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Wedding Recipe by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Homily, Wedding of Dra. Arianna Julia Enriquez & Dr. Dexter Falcon Santuario de San Jose Parish, Greenhills, Mandaluyong 28 February 2025
Congratulations, Dra. Arianna and Doc Dexter in choosing to get married in the Church. Many people these days disregard the Sacrament of Marriage, sadly seeing it more in human terms and most sad of all, many would rather follow superstitions than faith in getting married.
When I was still in a parish in Bulacan, a couple met with me due to a problem with the date they wanted to get married that fell on a Saturday. I offered to them a Friday but the mother of the bride said “araw po ng mga mangkukulam ang Biyernes!” Whoa! Did you know that?
Trying to hide my laughter, I told the couple how about on a Thursday which is my day off and would just cancel it to officiate their wedding. The mother again interjected, “nakupo Father… lalo na po ang Huwebes! Araw ng kasal ng mga tikbalang!” I could not contain myself anymore and I told the mother, “Katoliko pala mga tikbalang dito sa inyo!”
I mentioned this experience because in the provinces, very few couples get married in the month of February like you. Your Tita, Dra Mylene knows this very well… happy birthday po! When people find out you were born in February, they say “kaya ka pala ganyan, kulang-kulang.” And that’s how most people see February – kulang or incomplete – that is why even couples avoid it as a date for their wedding.
Of course that is not true. Every day is a perfect day for wedding for each day is blessed by God – most especially the days of February, the most perfect month in number of days. February was added to our calendar to complete the 365 days of revolution of Earth around the Sun to make it a year. It is February that completes the year as it fills the missing days following the miscalculations by the early Romans.
And that’s marriage. A man and a woman get married to complete each other.
Remember God’s declaration in the first reading, “It is not good for man to be alone.”
See how in creating the woman, God cast a deep sleep on man and took his rib to form it into a woman. The man was totally unaware of what was going on when God created and gave him the woman as his “suitable partner.”
This is most true with you, Dra. Arianna and Doc Dexter: you were both totally unaware in the beginning of how God worked silently in the background that you would eventually complete each other as friends, as lovers and now as husband and wife.
You have realized after your long relationship from pre-med to med proper and now as full-pledged doctors that you both cannot be complete without each other that even if you were separated by time and distance, you still made efforts to be together because that is love. You have realized that you can only be complete and whole with each other. Ikaw lang, sapat na!
Nothing is so toxic and difficult, nothing is most joyous when you think of each other, when you love each other. And so, simply love, love, and love! Huwag kayong magbibilangan! No need to have the numbers “224” tattooed on your arms like Philmar and Andi Eigenman.
When you have an LQ, who must make the first move to reach out and make peace?
Some couples say the man should make the first move but what happened to the rule “ladies first”? Others say the first to reconcile and say sorry is the one who started the lover’s quarrel but, would anyone really admit that?
The answer is this: when couples have an LQ, the one who has the most love to give must be the first to make the move for peace and reconciliation. Yung higit na nagmamahal ang unang kikibo.
Love is not a competition and love cannot be really measured. The true measure of love is when you love without measure. Nobody is perfect; hence, human love is also imperfect. Only God can love us perfectly. That is why, just keep on loving each other, letting your love flow to each other by taking care of each other.
That is the beautiful imagery of the ribs – inside the rib cage, the most vital organs of the body are protected and kept safe like the heart, the lungs, the liver. Lalo na ikaw, Doc Dexter: you are lacking in one rib and that is Dra. Arianna. Alagaan mo siyang mabuti. Boss namin siya…
God willed in all eternity that the two of you get married today not tomorrow nor next year nor last year. It was God who set February 28 as your wedding date because on this day God completes you.
However, though the husband and the wife complete each other, it is Jesus Christ who cements their union in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. Jesus is the “gold paint” in the Japanese kintsugi art of repairing broken pottery.
Kintsugi is the Japanese art of joining together the broken pieces of a jar or a vase with a glue and then pain with gold its cracks to make the broken piece more beautiful. Along this line of thought is St. Paul the Apostle who described us as “earthen vessels” – palayok in Tagalog: so delicate and easily broken yet God still fills us with Himself and His grace because He loves us so much.
And that is my second final reflection for you dear Dra. Arianna and Doc Dexter: love is not natural but supernatural – it is divine because it is rooted in God! Love is more than a feeling which is natural. Love is a decision, requiring your cooperation with God who pours out His blessings to you since you met despite your imperfections and flaws. That is the meaning of Marriage as a Sacrament – it is more than a human and natural bond but a supernatural, divine union of man and woman who become the signs of Christ’s saving presence in the world.
Heed the call of Jesus in our gospel today, “remain in me and make my joy complete.”
How lovely is your love story! Clearly of divine origin that you met in a theology class during your senior year in college. You did not meet in a party nor in any of those rows of restaurants across Ateneo or at the parking lot. You met in a theology class where you learned about God.
And the more you discovered God, the more you discovered each other, realizing in the process that the more you need God to make you both complete which is the principle and foundation of St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises.
We are able to love because God loved us first as the beloved disciple wrote in his first letter. That is the mystery of love, of married love specifically that Ben & Ben said so well in their song, “Mahiwaga… Pipiliin ka sa araw-araw… Mahiwaga… and nadarama sa iyo ay malinaw.”
When I think of this mystery of divine love in married couples, the image that comes to my mind are the “praying hands”. Each hand represents the husband and the wife. They retain their individuality as they freely pursue growth and maturity and fulfillment in life and career. Both hands are flexible and can move freely.
But, look at these two praying hands: as you get closer with each other, you also create a sacred space between you for Jesus Christ. Like that glue painted gold in the Japanese art of kintsugi, it is Jesus who makes you one and complete, it is Jesus who joins you together in his love.
Hence, whatever you do to each other, you do it first to Jesus. When you are faithful and true to Dra . Arianna, you are first faithful and true Doc Dexter to Jesus. The same with you Dra. Arianna: when you bake pastries and cakes for Doc Dexter, it is Jesus whom you first make happy and delighted.
But the moment you Doc Dexter cheat and lie to Dra. Arianna, you first fool Jesus. When you make taray to Doc Dexter, you first make taray to Jesus, Dra. Arianna.
Handle your life always with prayer. Every day, invite Jesus into your married life, Dra. Arianna and Doc Dexter in the same manner you have both invited Him today on your wedding day. God bless you always, Dra. Arianna and Doc Dexter! May today be your least happiest day in your life as couple! Amen.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 23 February 2025
Photo by author, Hidden Valley Springs Resort, Calauan, Laguna, 20 February 2025.
Jesus said to his disciples: “To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse, pray for those who mistreat you… But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:27-28, 35-36).
yes, i hear you Lord. love my enemies. i have tried and continue to strive at loving my enemies; but, who are my enemies?
yes, it is easier said than done, loving my enemies who are most easy to identify as those i hate and do not agree with, those who have hurt me, those who do not believe in me, those who simply differ with me both outside and inside.
as i rested in you, Jesus i have realized something deeper, and pernicious: my worst enemies are those within me like a sin i refuse to admit, a sin i continue to justify, a darkness i'm afraid to look into.
yes, Jesus! my worst enemy is actually myself when i deny your love and presence in me; let me look deep inside me where in my life is God asking me to love more like you, Jesus?
yes, it is terrifying, disturbing and difficult but it is only when i love more like you Jesus that i experience your love more and begin loving my enemies within!
Photo by author, Hidden Valley Springs Resort, Calauan, Laguna, 20 February 2025.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C, 23 February 2025 1 Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23 ><)))*> 1 Corinthians 15:45-49 ><)))*> Luke 6:27-38
Photo by author Santisima Trinidad Parish, Malolos City, 18 March 2023.
We continue this Sunday Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Plain with his teachings getting more disturbing, twice telling us to love our enemies. Yes, you heard it right…
Jesus said to his disciples: “To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse, pray for those who mistreat you… But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:27-28, 35-36).
See that after selecting Twelve from among his many disciples, Jesus will be asking more from his followers that includes us today. As we have reflected last Sunday with the four woes of Christ, there is no middle ground in being a Christian. We have to make a decision, to choose Jesus always.
This Sunday, Jesus shows us it is no simple choice we have to make because loving our enemies is easier said than done.
In this age of social media when everything is blown out of proportion with everyone dragged even into the quarrels and infidelities among celebrities, the more it is difficult to avoid making enemies with many of us easily taking sides in the petty issues that are trending.
It is the same thing with our way of loving these days with how easy it is to love people who love us too. Anyone can be so nice to people nice also to them as it comes naturally.
But real love is not really that natural.
True love as Jesus had shown us on the Cross is more than the natural flow of things. It is always supernatural, beyond the natural flow of emotions. Jesus is asking us that we go beyond what comes naturally especially with love because love is a decision, a fruit of the meeting of mind and of heart, a oneness within every person that is also a sure sign of one’s maturity, spirituality.
Loving our enemies, doing good on those who do bad against us is love of the highest order. It is not weakness but actually a strength for no weakling can muster the courage and clarity to be loving with one’s enemies.
Loving our enemies is knowing better than the rest on the repercussions, the intricacies and complexities of being adamant and insistent.
This is the beautiful example shown by David in the first reading: instead of delivering into his hands King Saul he had found sleeping unguarded inside a cave while pursuing him and his men, David spared his life out of respect for God who anointed Saul as King of Israel.
See also the practicality of Jesus in teaching us to love our enemies and those who do us bad: if you only love or care or be kind with those who love and care and are kind to us, then it is not real love and caring and kindness at all you are giving. Jesus pointed out that even criminals and bad people do it. If that is the case, then, we are no different from them if we love only those who love us!
Fatima University students spent a Sunday afternoon of prayers and fun with kids with cerebral palsy and their families, 09 February 2025.
True love, real love is never transactional, never a deal nor an agreement in this age of many marriages punctuated with pre-nuptials. True love is freely given without any reservations, no ifs nor buts. As St. Mother Teresa used to say, the true measure of love is to love without measure.
Love is something we fully give away, never kept. You never scrimp on love. It is always given in full. Scrimp on your love, you lose because the love you keep and withdraw is never kept nor save. In fact, a love not shared and given becomes stale. Or expired. Napapanis.
Like the things we love eating or using, love comes without any expiration date that says “best consumed before February 23, 2025.”
Love is best when freely given and shared. Once “opened” or given, no need to keep and refrigerate it. Consume it right away! Everything. No love is ever wasted. Walang sayang na pagmamahal, lahat may pinatutunguhan at binubungang mabuti.
Photo by author, Hidden Springs Resort, Calauan, Laguna, 20 February 2025.
Love is like a natural spring water, or the waterfalls that keep flowing, watering and refreshing countless tributaries, people, plants and animals. Just keep loving! Love, love, love!
At his Sermon on the Plain, Jesus clarifies that true love like his love is first of all not of natural level and flow but of supernatural nature, divine like him. Jesus emphasized this at his Last Supper, describing it as a “new commandment of love” because it is a love rooted in God not just in man.
The following Good Friday on the Cross, Jesus proved his love as true and real. Most of all, free.
We today experience that true love of Jesus even to this day because of his rising three days after his crucifixion at Easter. This is what Paul meant in the second reading that in Jesus Christ, we have become heavenly and spiritual. The love of Christ have made us like him, divine and heavenly. What a great honor we now have! For being so loved by God in Jesus Christ, we too must love truly and freely like him!
Photo from vaticannews.va.
Last month, I strongly reacted to a statement by Rappler’s Ms. Maria Ressa in her interview before a speech at the Vatican Jubilee of Journalists.
That night in my prayer, I felt God “disturbed” me for being so harsh and judgmental of a journalist presumably totally unaware of the meaning of “dogma” in the Church.
The following day, I got a message from the reporter who posted that story and naturally, did not like what I wrote. As days went on, I felt “disturbed” and “uneasy” with my calling her “heretic”. After three days, I edited my blog and removed the harsh word as I realized calling others with names or labels would not help at all in clarifying things especially about our faith.
Most of all, it is not the Christian way of loving others, of putting others down just to uphold our faith and beliefs. It is not love. And I felt so afraid Jesus might personally get down from his Cross to take away that harsh word I have written.
Next month, I will be turning 60 years old, a senior sixty-cent so excited with my discount card. As I reflected these days on the immense love of Jesus for me in these 60 years, 27 as his priest, I have been praying, where in my life is God asking me to love more like Christ?
Loving our enemies is not merely the people we hate, or those who have hurt us or different from us, not like us. Loving our enemies includes those darkness within us, those weaknesses we hide and cover, sins we refuse to admit or continue to justify. Many times our worst enemies are those within us, our very selves.
It is difficult. And terrifying. Loving our enemies is easier said than done. It is also disturbing but at the same time, so liberating because the more we love, the more we feel free for Christ and for others. Amen.Have a blessed, loving week ahead.
Sharing with you a video I have taken last Thursday at the Hidden Springs Resort in Laguna; the sight and scene of a waterfalls reminded me so much of God’s love that never runs out.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C, 16 February 2025 Jeremiah 17:5-8 ><}}}}*> 1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20 ><}}}}* Luke 6:17, 20-26
After the call of his first disciples last Sunday, Jesus went on to preach in Galilee as great crowds followed him with some of them becoming his disciples too. From among these many disciples, Jesus chose twelve to be his Apostles after praying one night on a mountain (Lk. 6:12-16).
As they went down from the mountain, Jesus taught the Twelve along with his other disciples and crowd of people who have gathered to listen to him in what came to be known as his Sermon on the Plain.
Luke patterned his Sermon on the Plain on earlier account of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount that portrayed Jesus like the new Moses and moreover, the new Law himself. Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount has a smaller audience that was limited to just the Twelve while Luke’s Sermon on the Plain had a wider audience of not just the Apostles but also the other disciples and the crowd of people who have been following him.
But, more than their differences in their setting and audience, the two sermons differ greatly in the message itself. Both Luke and Matthew begin with four beatitudes, but Matthew concludes with additional beatitudes while Luke matched the four beatitudes with four woes that frankly speaking, are very disturbing.
“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way” (Luke 6:24-26).
Again, Luke is telling us something deeper about Jesus in his version of the Sermon on the Plain that actually echoes the Blessed Virgin Mary’s Magnificat found only in his gospel too.
Recall in the Magnificat how Mary spoke of God sending the rich “away empty” (Lk.1:53) as he blessed the poor and the hungry. And here now is Jesus Christ fulfilling those words of his Mother.
The gospels and the whole Bible itself teem with many pronouncements against the rich and those in similar good fortune in life. Is God against the rich, those happy and those of good reputation? What’s wrong with being rich or well-off, of having our fill of food and laughter, and being spoken well of by others?
Photo by author, November 2024.
Nothing really.
Jesus is not against anyone for he loves everyone as he preached extensively on the need to love one another as we love God. If Jesus preached only love, he would have not been crucified, and most definitely would have not made so much enemies. But, the kind of love Jesus preached was so radical that shook not only the ways of the old but also of modern time because it is a kind of love that pulls down the mighty and favors the poor and those suffering. His Sermon on the Plain rings louder than ever today as we have not seemed learned from the lessons of the past. And believe it or not, the four woes declared by Jesus in his Sermon on the Plain are actually expressions of his magnanimous love, contrary to what others claim.
The four woes that are antitheses of the four blessings are not actually maledictions as most interpretations have expressed. A malediction is like a curse, an expression of one’s desire for someone’s harm like in calling down God’s wrath. The four woes of Jesus in his Sermon on the Plain is far from that reality nor a condemnation against anyone.
Photo by author, Church of the Beatitudes, the Holy Land, May 2017.
In calling the rich “woeful” along with those who are filled and those who laugh “now” as well as those of whom “all speak well”, Jesus is neither condemning them nor declaring them as evil-doers; in calling them “woeful”, Jesus reminds them and us today of being on the wrong and bad path in life that can lead to a fatal outcome or end.
Like in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus that only Luke has an account in his gospel, Jesus Christ’s “woes” are warnings – “red flags” – everyone must consider who might be in the wrong direction and wrong choices in “enjoying” life “now” without any concern for those who are suffering like the poor and the hungry, those who grieve and those maligned and hated.
Photo by Mr. Jay Javier, Quiapo, 09 January 2020.
The poor, the hungry, the weeping and the hated are blessed not simply because of their state in life but more of their willingness to forego so many worldly things “now” for they trust in God who shall deliver them to salvation and justice.
They are blessed because they have realized that things of the world are passing, something that the worldly could not accept. How sad that many today have lost sight of eternity and even of God, living only for the “now”.
Jesus is not asking us to be “masochists” or at the other end of the extreme, to be complacent in the face of widespread suffering and pains. Remember how in the synagogue at Nazareth one sabbath when Jesus launched his ministry by proclaiming from the Prophet Isaiah how the Spirit of God rested on him to bring glad tidings to the poor, liberty to captives, healing to the sick (3rd Sunday, Jan. 26).
By calling the poor and the suffering as “blessed”, Jesus assures them that God is with them and that justice shall be reestablished on “that day” when they enter the kingdom that has been prepared for them in eternal life. He called us “woe” to warn us while there is still enough time to change our course in life to be blessed not only now but in all eternity too!
Photo from forbes.com.
See how our readings this Sunday are actually about our making of wise choices in life: in the first reading, Jeremiah warns us of the consequences of trusting God or trusting humans while the psalms show us the ways of the just and the ways of the wicked; Paul in the second reading presents to us the grace of believing in Christ’s Resurrection and the folly of denying it while in the gospel, Jesus offers us blessing or woe in living.
These readings show us there is no middle ground in following Jesus nor grey areas in God. Our decisions in life define the course of our lives like what the Pepsi Cola ad used to say in the 1990’s, “we are made (or unmade) by the decision we make.”
Moreover, in giving us those four woes, Luke reminds us that in making our decisions, we must consider more than the moral but the Christological perspective of life to be like Jesus Christ – who is himself the “blessed” because he is the poor one, the hungry, the weeping and the hated.
Should we make the wrong decisions in life, Jesus remains magnanimous, remaining in us, telling us those woes over and over so we would still make the right choices in life. Don’t take it personally; Jesus cares for you.
In three weeks we shall be entering the Season of Lent. Incidentally, the last time we celebrated Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time in Cycle C was in 2010, the Seventh Sunday in 2007, and the Eighth Sunday in 2001!
Our gospel readings in the coming two more Sundays before Ash Wednesday would still be taken from Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Plain to emphasize the closeness of God with those who are poor and suffering.
As we approach the holy Season of Lent that calls us to more prayers, fasting and almsgiving, we can already start this Sixth Sunday examining our lives to see if we are aligned with the blessed ones of God or are we the woeful ones. The choice is ours. Let us pray for the grace to choose Jesus, only Jesus, always Jesus. Amen. A blessed week ahead to everyone!
Lawiswis ng Salita ni P. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Ika-14 ng Pebrero 2025
Larawan kuha ng may-akda, Tagaytay, 17 Enero 2025.
Pansamantalang titigil sa mga kinikilig pag-inog nitong daigdig sa araw na ito ng mga pusong umiibig; tiyak bibigay din ano mang hinhin at yumi ng sinomang dilag kapag nakatanggap ng bulaklak kanino man magbuhat.
Ngunit ang masaklap tuwing katorse ng Pebrero ang maraming pag-ibig katulad na lamang ng petsang dumaraan, wala nang katapatan at kadalisayan mga magkasintahan pag-ibig dinurumihan isa't isa'y sinasaktan at dinudungisan.
Pagmasdan ating kapanahunan pilit binibigyang katuwiran kasalanan at kasamaan matutunghayan saanman mga larawan ng kataksilan wala nang kahihiyan ipinangangalandakan mga kapalaluan sa gitna ng kapangahasang magmaang-maangan na wala silang kalaswaan.
Alalahanin
at balikan tagpo sa
halamanan
nang magkasala
una nating mga magulang
sila'y nagulantang
sa kanilang kahubaran
nabuksan murang malay
at kaisipan
nang kainin bawal na bunga
ng puno ng kaalaman
ng mabuti at masama;
mabuti pa sila noon
nahiya at nagtago
habang ngayon
namamayagpag
sa yabang at kapalaluan
ang karamihan
kanya-kanyang rason
maraming palusot
puro baluktot
at paninindigan
2day
2morrow
4ever
nakalimutang
pag-ibig
ay panig
sa katotohanan
hindi kasinungalingan;
ang tunay na pag-ibig
hatid ay kaayusan
hindi kaguluhan,
kapayapaan at kapanatagan
hindi takot
at kahihiyan
ang diwa
nitong Valentine's.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II First Friday, Fourth Week in Ordinary Time, 07 February 2025 Hebrews 13:1-8 ><}}}}*> + ><}}}}*> + ><}}}}*> Mark 6:14-29
Photo by Mr. Gelo Carpio Nicolas, January 2020.
Keep me faithful and true to you, Jesus because you are "the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8); it is I who forgets all the time, who chooses to turn away from you and be unloving, unkind, unforgiving.
Forgive me, Jesus when you tell me "Let brotherly love continue" (Hebrews 13:1)....
...but many times I can't look or even consider each one a brother or a sister because of our many differences.
"Do not neglect hospitality, for through it some have unknowingly entertained angels" (Hebrews 13:2)...
...I think, more than the angels but on many occasions it was you whom I have turned away, Jesus because I am so suspicious of others who come to me for whatever needs.
"Be mindful of prisoners as if sharing their imprisonment, and of the ill-treated as of yourselves, for you are also in the body" (Hebrews 13:3)...
I'm sorry, Jesus for the many times I have imprisoned others in my narrow mind of many biases and prejudices.
"Let marriage be honored among all and the marriage bed be kept undefiled" (Hebrews (13:4)...
what a shame, Jesus in our age when marriage is no longer honored and just taken for granted with many couples defiling their bed.
"Let your life be free from love of money but be content with what you have" (Hebrews 13:5)...
alas! my dearest Jesus, save us your priests our diocese so in love with money, with the rich and powerful with whom we are so close and identified with, totally neglecting the poor and the suffering among us with our many excuses and alibis, always at their beck and calls.
Yes, Jesus, many times we feel like Herod: bothered only by the gospel, bothered only of your presence among the poor and suffering but so much like Herod, we never bothered ourselves to truly find you and follow you. Amen.
Photo from Wikipedia, mosaic of Jesus with Mary and John the Baptist at the Hagia Sophia in Turkey.
Lawiswis ng Salita ni P. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Ika-04 ng Pebrero 2025
Larawan kuha ng may-akda, Tagaytay, 17 Enero 2025.
Sampung araw bago sumapit ang Valentine's sa akin ay lumapit isang dalagita nahihiyang nagtanong bagama't ibig niyang mabatid kung "makakahanap po ba ako ng lalaking magmamahal sa akin ng tunay at tapat?"
Ako'y nanahimik, ngumiti at tumingin sa dalagitang nahihiyang nakatungo ang ulo sa kanyang tanong at nang ako'y magsimulang mangusap, mukha niya ay bumusilak sa tuwa sa bagong kaalaman sa pag-ibig na matiyaga niyang sinasaliksik.
Larawan kuha ng may-akda, Atok, Benguet, 27 Disyembre 2024.
Ito ang wika ko sa dalagita: "Ang pag-ibig," ay hindi hinahanap parang gamit nakakamit dahil ang pag-ibig ay kusang dumarating kaya iyong matiyagang hintayin ikaw ang kanyang hahanapin; tangi mong gampanin buksang palagi iyong puso at damdamin dahil itong pag-ibig ay dumarating sa mga tao at pagkakataong hindi inaasahan natin; banayad at mayumi hindi magaspang pag-uugali magugulat ka na lamang ika’y kanyang natagpuan palagi na siyang laman ng puso at isipan."
"Pakaingatan din naman", wika ko sa dalagita "itong pag-ibig ay higit pa sa damdamin na dapat payabungin tulad ng mga pananim, linangin upang lumalim hanggang maging isang pasya na laging pipiliin ano man ang sapitin at hantungan."
Ang pag-ibig ay parating dumarating ngunit kadalasan hindi natin pansin kung minsan tinatanggihan, inaayawan dahil ang ibig ay kumabig; darating at mananatili itong pag-ibig sa simula na ating limutin lahat ng para sa sarili natin.
Larawan kuha ng may-akda, Atok, Benguet, 27 Disyembre 2024.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Thursday, Week II in Ordinary Time, Year I, 23 January 2025 Hebrews 7:25-8:6 <*{{{{>< + ><}}}}*> Mark 3:7-12
Photo by author, St. Paul Spirituality Center, Pico, La Trinidad, Benguet, 06 December 2024.
Let me come to you, Jesus, with confidence and humility to express to you my deepest longings and desires, my deepest needs and cries you know so well but I always deny or too shy to tell you completely.
Though I know very well how your death on the Cross is the single most important event in history for all times and for all peoples, I balk its realities not for lack of faith but due to low self-esteem, lack of self-acceptance that you do love me truly.
The main point of what has been said is this: we have such a high priest, who has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of Majesty in heaven, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle that the Lord, not man, set up. Now he has obtained so much more excellent a ministry as he is a mediator of a better covenant, enacted on better promises (Hebrews 8:1-2, 6).
Let me follow you, Jesus like the people in the gospel: let me not follow you only to the sea but even to the Cross to be one in you, one with you for you alone is truly one with me everywhere, all the time. Amen.
Photo by author, Mount Olis, Atok, Benguet, 27 December 2024.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Thursday, Memorial of St. Anthony, Abbot, 17 January 2025 Hebrews 4:1-5, 11 ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> Mark 2:1-12
Photo by author, sunset in Atok, Benguet, 27 January 2025.
God our Father, let us enter into your rest, let us go back to you in Jesus Christ and enter your rest like in Paradise before the Fall; spare us of your wrath like with the Israelites in Meribah and Massah when they challenged and provoked you and thus be prevented from entering your rest, the Promised Land.
Let us be on guard while the promise of entering into his rest remains, that none of you seem to have failed. For in fact we have received the Good News just as our ancestors did. But the word that they heard did not profit them, for they were not united in faith with those who listened. Therefore, let us strive to enter into that rest, so that no one may fall after the same example of disobedience (Hebrews 4:1-2, 11).
With Christ's coming, you have opened anew heaven to us, enabling us to enter your rest like what happened in the opening of the roof above him to lower a paralytic; in Jesus, that rest you have after creating everything in Genesis has become a reality with his gift of forgiveness and reconciliation to everyone as experienced by the paralytic in today's gospel; O dearest Lord Jesus, help me to rise again by picking up the pieces of my life made whole in you again filled with your breath, filled with your life, soundly at rest in your love and mercy. Amen.
Photo by author, sunset in Atok, Benguet, 27 January 2025.
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