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 Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Wednesday in the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time, Year I, 19 July 2023
Exodus 3:1-6, 9-12 <*{{{{>< + ><}}}}*> Matthew 11:25-27
Photo by author, sunrise at Camp John Hay, 12 July 2023.
Praise and glory to you,
God our loving Father!
You are so "kind and merciful
for you pardon all our sins,
heals all our ills;
you redeem us
from destruction,
and crowns us with
kindness and compassion"
(Psalms 103:3-4).
Therefore, I pray, O God
for each day that I may
always receive and cherish
your gifts, recognize your love
for me despite and in spite
of my sinfulness and weaknesses
like Moses whom you have called
after he had fled Egypt for a crime;
let me have that same sense of wonder
and curiosity in finding you,
in hearing you, in following you;
the whole earth indeed is sacred,
belonging to you, O Lord;
let me take off my shoes,
walk barefooted to feel your presence
and answer your call to send me
to those crying for your help,
for those numb in experiencing
your presence and coming.
Let me be like children
open and trusting to your
revelations found in the simplest
and most ordinary things in life
unlike the learned who overthink,
holding on to their
beliefs and convictions,
without any room for surprises,
seeking certainties, solving
the unsolvable mysteries
in life long revealed
in Jesus Christ your Son
and our Lord.
Amen.
Photo by author, sunrise at Camp John Hay, Baguio City, 12 July 2023.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A, 02 July 2023
2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16 ><}}}}*> Romans 6:3-4, 8-11 ><}}}}*> Matthew 10:37-42
Photo by author, Our Lady of Fatima University-Quezon City with the La Mesa Dam Forest Reserve at the back, 01 July 2023.
Jesus continues to instruct the Twelve with important lessons on discipleship as he sent them on their first mission the other week. Last Sunday he taught them – including us today – to face all fears not to be fearless of anything or anyone but to fear only God.
Today, Jesus cautions us not to be unduly influenced by people especially those closest to us in fulfilling our mission in him. Very often, intimidation and influence can be used to adversely affect our ministry that eventually veer us away from our Lord Jesus Christ in the process. Hence, his encouragement too for us to persevere through those influences as we follow him.
Jesus said to his apostles: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
Matthew 10:37-39
James J. Tissot, ‘The Exhortation to the Apostles’ (1886-94) from Getty Images.
Being a Christian is being possessed by Christ. That is why he told us last week to “be not afraid of those who kill the body but not the soul” so that we fear only him our Lord Jesus Christ in the sense that we lose all meaning in life without him.
To be possessed by Jesus Christ is to have a life centered in him, detached from undue influences including from our family and friends especially us priests and religious. When priests focus more with self and family or with other people instead of Jesus Christ, everything crumbles – pati sutana nalaglag na! That is when priesthood becomes a career and a means for social mobility and livelihood with money as the priest’s new “lord and master”.
Priesthood is Jesus Christ, the Caller, not the call as I have always insisted to seminarians I teach and direct. Problems happen when the Caller is dislodged from the top spot and focus shifts on the call or priesthood when priests literally and figuratively throw their weight around when we hear the notorious lines “matutulog ang pari, pagod and pari, unawain ang pari”.
Photo by Ka Ruben, National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, August 2022.
Discipleship in general of which the priesthood is just a part is indeed a very difficult life. Nobody said it would be easy as the opening instructions of Jesus to the Twelve clearly stated, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.”
Jesus is not asking us to disregard our family and friends. What Jesus is telling us is actually a warning against too much expectations that our family and friends would love and embrace him too inasmuch as we have given ourselves to him. Not true at all, sad to say.
There are times that those closest to us are the ones who could not accept Jesus Christ’s call of discipleship. There are times that the most difficult people to be catechized and evangelized are those dearest to us.
Many of us must have felt in many instances how our family or friends are the ones who reject the ways of Jesus, the values of Christ. In this highly competitive world so exaggerated by the social media when everyone feels so entitled and deserving for everything, people have become so impersonal in dealing with each other, forgetting the basic courtesies in life, especially respect and kindness. Many are blinded by fame and wealth forgetting God and the people around them.
Photo by Mr. Mon Macatangga, 12 May 2023.
This Sunday, Jesus is teaching us to always have him as the basis and foundation of our relationships. Remember the gospel two Sundays ago when upon seeing the crowds Jesus was “moved with pity because they were troubled and abandoned like sheep without a shepherd” that he taught us to pray for more workers in the harvest (Mt.9:36-37). The problems in the world can never be solved by money and any material thing but only by another person, by someone with the heart and face of Christ filled with his warmth and his loving presence, someone not afraid to love, not afraid to get hurt, not influenced by fads and trends or by what others say.
Everything in this life, in our ministry and in our discipleship has to be seen in the light of Jesus Christ. Things become cloudy or dull and shady when Jesus is absent that can greatly affect, for better or for worse, our relationships with one another. This we see in the first reading about the hospitality offered by that Shumenite woman to Elisha the prophet whom she recognized as a man of God. Elisha clearly saw the woman’s basis of hospitality – God – that he never abused it. In fact, we find a trace of humor when Elisha had to ask his servant what their graceful hostess most needed to reward her hospitality. Sometimes like Elisha in our being so focused in serving the Lord, we become so ignorant of the most obvious with those closest to us; imagine Elisha asking his servant what to reward the Shumenite woman, his seeming oblivious to the fact she and husband were childless! Eventually, Elisha would grant the couple the gift of a son whom he would later bring back to life.
At my 25th anniversary of ordination to the priesthood with friends from UST’s the Varsitarian, 18 April 2023.
To be possessed by Christ means to be “dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus” as St. Paul explained in our second reading today (Rom.6:11). For some it may sound foolish but that is the reality and mystery of life we have been reflecting since the resumption of Ordinary Time last month. It is what we call as Christian paradox when in our sharing in Christ’s paschal mystery of his suffering and death, that is also when we find and experience our resurrection and life.
Last Monday, a very dear friend died, Sr. Gina of the Religious of Good Shepherd. We met in 1984 when I joined UST’s the Varsitarian where she was an outgoing staff member. She was the one who proclaimed the first reading at my celebration of my 25th anniversary of ordination to the priesthood last April 18.
Photo by author, Chapel of the RGS Mother House in Quezon City, 29 June 2023.
When I first invited her to my anniversary, she declined due to a big retreat of priests at their spirituality center in Tagaytay; within a few hours, she texted me back and told me she would fix her schedule so she could come to my anniversary celebration. She later texted me twice to insist she had to be present at my silver anniversary.
Unknown to us all, her cancer had recurred and metastasized last November which we learned only June 28 when the RGS Sisters issued a health bulletin about her condition. Sr. Gina had decided to stop all medications to wait for the inevitable at their mother house in Quezon City two weeks earlier. June 29 she texted me to inform me of her condition. I was so happy to chat a few lines with her, asking her if I could visit her this week.
She never replied.
When I learned her condition the other Wednesday night, I cried as I realized the very reason why she insisted on coming to my anniversary in April: to remind me we are possessed by Jesus, only Jesus, always Jesus. Please pray for her beautiful soul. Thank you and God bless!
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Solemnity of the Body & Blood of Jesus Christ, 11 June 2023
Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14-16 ><}}}}*> 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 ><}}}}*> John 6:51-58
Photo by author, 2018.
There is a weird British series in Netflix called the Inside Man about a professor of criminology at the death row in the States for the murder of his own wife. He had deep perceptions and analysis of events that people came to see him in prison to consult in locating their missing loved ones. One of them is an American journalist trying to do a story about him while at the same time seeking his expertise in locating her missing friend, a math tutor in England held hostage in the basement by a pastor and his wife.
Though the series is weird, it has some interesting lines about life and death like when the wife of the pastor told him how she had spent the whole afternoon searching the internet how to kill their son’s math tutor they have thrown in their basement. The wife found it unusual there was nothing in Google that tells of ways of killing another person (so weird, is it not?); however, she was surprised that almost everything she had found in the internet and social media was mainly about sex as he teased her husband that it is not love that makes the world go round but sex!
Yes, it is very funny and weird but her observations seem to be true because nobody in his right mind would ever want to destroy life except terrorists and lunatics. People generally love life that our social media are saturated with contents that try to show how we can enjoy this life through sex, food, and travels in that order. Also with cars for boys aged 5 to 95.
Photo by author, March 2020.
Of course, we all know that is not what life is all about that is filled with mysteries.
Last Sunday we reflected in the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity that mysteries are not problems to be solved but realities to embrace to discover life’s truest meaning found in our relationships with God and with others
This Sunday we celebrate the second most important doctrine and mystery of our faith, the Incarnation of the Son of God Jesus Christ. It is a mystery not only how the Son of God became human like us in everything except sin but most of all, of how he has given us his very flesh and blood as our food and drink in this journey called life.
Jesus said to the crowds: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” The Jews quarreled among themselves saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.”
John 6:51-53, 55
My favorite front page photo during the Delta outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic published by the Inquirer on 20 August 2021. So evocative of the truth of Jesus himself being our true food and drink – and medicine.
As we have reflected last Sunday, a mystery is a divine truth revealed by God we learn through the gift of faith. It is non-logical but not illogical. It can be explained and understood but not fully.
Here in the mystery of the Body and Blood of Christ we call as the Eucharist, the mystery of our Triune God becomes a reality in our life truly present in perceptible signs of bread and wine. From relating, we now come to the mystery of sharing of our selves like God who shared us his Son Jesus Christ who in turn gave himself for us on the Cross that continues today in the Holy Eucharist as his everlasting sign of his loving presence and service.
See how Jesus spoke clearly in this passage of his giving us his physical body and blood that to receive it, we have to actually eat it too.
First we notice is how in other parts of the New Testament that the term soma is used to refer to the Eucharist which is the Greek word for “body” that may have symbolic meanings; but in this passage, Jesus used the word sarx which means “flesh” in Greek that means only one thing, the corporeal reality of his physical body. Jesus is telling us in no uncertain terms in this passage after the miracle feeding of more than 5000 in the wilderness that he himself is truly and really present as flesh and blood in the Eucharist. Recall that at his Prologue to his gospel, John also used the same term sarx in declaring “the Word became flesh” (Jn.1:14) to correct misunderstandings and doubts that were already developing during the first century of Christianity regarding the physical Incarnation of Jesus the Eternal Word and his true presence in the Eucharist.
Second term used by Jesus four times as he emphasized the reality of his Body and Blood in the Eucharist is the word trogein which in Greek means “to munch” or “bite”; the other Greek word for the verb to eat is phragein which evokes many symbolic meanings like “digesting” a book or “assimilating” the culture. Again, when Jesus said we have to eat his flesh and drink his blood, he truly meant himself as a true food and true drink to nourish and sustain us in this life and hereafter.
Photo by Kuya Ruben, 04 August 2022.
There lies the beauty of this mystery of the Eucharist: Jesus himself is the one we receive, who comes to us personally, physically to be one with us in our very selves. We do not have to wait for death and be in heaven to experience fullness of life in Christ because he comes truly to us while in this life when we receive him in the Holy Communion.
St. Paul reminds us in the second reading with his rhetorical questions, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break: is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16) of this reality of Christ’s presence in us and among us. He was not waiting for answers of yes or no but posed those questions to affirm the very truth we all know that Jesus is really present in us and among us especially when we are broken like the Israelites in the first reading. This is where the mystery deepens, becomes more real and more fascinating. Jesus the Son of God emptying himself to be like us in everything except sin so that we may become like him, holy and divine.
This I have learned in my two years of being a chaplain in the hospital. Admittedly, it is difficult especially for me as I could easily be carried away by emotions in seeing the sick and suffering while at the same time, can often have my stomach overturned by sights of blood and wounds of others. But, there is always that indescribable feelings of joy and fulfillment after visiting and anointing our sick patients.
Photo by Kuya Ruben, June 2022.
I have no claims to holiness as I am a sinner too but the Eucharist has become most truest to me these past two years in the hospital and university as well as I get into contact with the sick and the students. When I touch patients to pray over them or help in moving them, when students cry to me or ask for hugs after confessions, they all flash to me during the consecration as I raise and say, This is my Body… This is my Blood. Jesus is most truest in the Eucharist when we too imitate him in giving ourselves to others to be broken and shared.
The Eucharist is the most wonderful gift of God to us when we receive his Son Body and Blood to make us strong and holy like him in this life.
That is why we have to go to Mass every Sunday. That is why a priest has to celebrate Mass daily for the people to be strengthened like him in this journey of life filled with trials and sufferings. That is why Moses kept on reminding the Israelites of their many hardships from their exodus into their wandering in the wilderness. That is why this coming Friday, we cap these three weeks of transition into the Ordinary Time with the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, another mystery of Christ truly among us and within us as we experience his love most truly right here in our hearts.
What an awesome God we have indeed who has become so small and so simple like us so we can be great like him. Like the simple bread and wine, in the Mass through the Holy Spirit, they become Christ’s Body and Blood. Let’s make it happen this Sunday in our celebration of the Mass. Amen.Have a blessed week ahead.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity-A, 04 June 2023
Exodus 34:4-6, 8-9 ><}}}*> 2 Corinthians 13:11-13 ><}}}*> John 3:16-18
Photo by author, sunrise at Anvaya Cove, 19 May 2023
Our Sunday gospel on this Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity is one of the shortest proclaimed in the year with just three verses that may be finished in just two minutes. And yet, it contains the most popular verses from the whole Bible used in the song “Tell the World of His Love” when St. John Paul II visited our country in 1995.
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
John 3:16-18
Photo by author at the Anvaya Cove, 19 May 2023
See how these three verses powerfully summarize our Christian faith of a personal, relating God who is love himself, doing everything in love which is the very meaning of the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity.
The word mystery is from the Greek mysterion, something hidden but now revealed by God. While it is true that a mystery is beyond human reason because it is divine, it may still be explained and understood though not fully. That is why it is described as non-logical or beyond reason but not illogical which lacks reason.
Most of all, a mystery is not a problem to be solved because it simply cannot be solved at all. In fact, we need to keep mysteries like secrets because mysteries give meaning and depth to our very existence, to our lives. This is the problem with so many people these days lacking mysteries in life when everything about them is shown, even overexposed in the social media. Perhaps that is why so many people are losing meaning in life because they no longer have depth as everything is bared and opened. Life has become so artificial for many not realizing that the most wonderful things in life are those hidden and not seen. Like mystery of God!
Photo by author at the Anvaya Cove, 19 May 2023
There lies the beauty of mystery that is not a problem to be solved but a reality we need to accept and embrace, or better, to allow ourselves to be wrapped by it. As we try to learn and understand more of every mystery in life, especially of God and of our very selves, the more we find life meaningful, the more we appreciate it especially our gift of faith.
When we allow ourselves to be absorbed by life’s mysteries, primary of which is the mystery of God in three Persons, the more we appreciate life itself and our very selves who are in fact a mystery too to ourselves. As we move on in life, as we age and mature, we realize life is not about covering distances but going deeper within ourselves, being transformed into better selves and persons like God, loving and merciful. Eventually we realize too that each one of us is in fact an indwelling of the Holy Trinity, an image and likeness of God himself.
Here we find mystery as a call to a relationship, a communion with God and with others that is why Jesus told Nicodemus in the opening verse of our gospel today that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.“
A mystery is a mystery because it is shared. It is nothing if it is merely in itself. We are intrigued with stories and reports because they create relationships in us and with us. That is why God in himself as a mystery is a community of persons. Person implies relationship. From the Latin word persona which is a translation of another Greek word prosopon or the mask worn by stage actors/actresses to indicate their roles in a play or drama.
Remember the term dramatis personae or list of actors in a play and their roles? To a certain sense, there are three persons or personae, that is, roles in our God as we profess in our Creed: the Father as Creator of everything, the Son as the Savior, and the Holy Spirit as the Sanctifier. With God, his persona is eternal while in drama or play, it is temporary.
The more we enter into relationships, the more we relate with other persons, the more we discover the many mysteries of this life, of God because we sooner or later find out we in our selves and humans are not enough. Things cannot relate no matter how hard Steve Jobs and his successors tried their best to design Apple gadgets that conform to human form to give them a sense of relating. Not even animals nor plants no matter how intimate we grow closer to them. Only God suffices.
Photo by author at the Anvaya Cove, 19 May 2023. Though I do not know how to swim, I have always loved the beach where everything and me becomes one in God like the sky that is so far and yet so close. A mystery so lovely!
That is the good news of this Sunday – our awesome and all-knowing, all-powerful God opening himself to us to enter into a personal relationship in him and with him through his Son Jesus Christ who sent us the Holy Spirit to enable us in this sacred mystery.
In sending us Jesus Christ his Son, God took the initiative to be close to us. In fact, closest to us as our breath in sending us the Holy Spirit.
Every time we think of God, when we marvel at him and his creations, the more we find ourselves so different, even too distant from him while at the same time we also feel and experience in the most unique manner how closest we are to him. That is one of life’s most profound and deepest mysteries when are so surprised to our very core of our being that despite our sinfulness and worthlessness, we are still so loved and cared for by God. Difficult to explain but go back to our lowest moments in life when suddenly we sighed for a brief relief that amid our pains and tears, God suddenly comes to comfort us like when Moses met God face-to-face at Mount Sinai.
Having come down in a cloud, the Lord stood with Moses there and proclaimed his name “Lord.” Thus the Lord passed before him… Moses at once bowed down to the ground in worship.
Exodus 34:5-6, 8
Note that God is called “Lord” or “Adoni” in Hebrew because the Jews do not speak out loud the name of God spelled as YHWH, or Yahweh as we say. It is interesting to know that the first letter for God in Hebrew, Yoda, is pronounced like a breath, yahhh. Because that is who God is, our breath, our life, so closest to us but we rarely recognize him because we are so busy with our selves and many endeavors.
That is why I always insist until now to everyone especially seminarians to seriously and faithfully do the sign of the Cross which is more than a prayer but an expression of the mystery of the Trinity not far from us. Every time we make the sign of the Cross properly, that is when we let our selves be wrapped by God and his mysteries.
Photo by author, Anvaya Cove, 05 January 2023.
In the sign of the Cross, God comes closest to us in our very selves and body, relating to us in our head being the Father who is over and above us always, the creator of everything; as the Son who became human like us born by the Virgin Mary passing through her womb, experiencing everything we went through except sin; and as the Holy Spirit on our shoulders giving us balance in this life.
See that at the resumption of Ordinary Time last Monday, we transition to Ordinary Sundays today and next week celebrating the two most important doctrines and mysteries of our faith, the Most Holy Trinity and the Incarnation of Jesus which is what is next Sunday’s Body and Blood of Christ is all about.
Today we reflect on the highest truth of our faith, the mystery of one God in three Persons to remind us that our faith is more than knowing the teachings but most of all of relating in love and mercy, kindness and service like God. Finding that mystery of the Trinity in ourselves leads us to finding God in others too. Amen. Have a blessed week.
40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday in the Fourth Week of Lent, 24 March 2023
Wisdom 2:1, 12-22 >>> + <<< John 7:1-2, 10, 25-30
Photo by Dr. Mylene A. Santos, MD, 2022.
Yes, dear God our Father,
man is a mystery,
for better and for worst.
For better when we live up
to your call for us to be holy
like you and for worst when we
live so far from your ways.
Your mystery is always beautiful
and good to ponder upon but
there are times when we succumb
to evil and sins, our mystery
becomes so dull without any
sparkle at all, often shameful
even detestable like the ways
of the wicked in the first reading.
The wicked said among themselves, thinking not aright: “Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us; he sets himself against our doings, reproaches us for transgressions of the law and charges us with violations of our training. Let us see whether his words be true; let us find out what will happen to him. Let us condemn him to a shameful death; for according to his own words, God will take care of him.
Wisdom 2:1, 12, 17, 20
Keep us strong, dear Father
like your Son Jesus Christ
in the face of wicked men
who laugh and scorn us,
daring to test you;
in this age of social media
when everything is flaunted
for all to see including
what is evil and not right,
even indecent
including the excesses
of worldly things,
teach us to be simple,
to keep something
in us hidden,
a mystery.
Like fidelity,
perseverance,
and holiness.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Wednesday in the Twenty-Ninth Week of Ordinary Time, 19 October 2022
Ephesians 3:2-12 ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> Luke 12:39-48
Photo by author, 2021.
Then Peter said, “Lord, is this parable meant for us or for everyone?”
Luke 12:41
Teach me, Lord Jesus,
to be your "faithful and prudent
steward" like St. Paul, "the very
least" of your Apostles you have
called to preach to the Gentiles
your "inscrutable riches" (Eph.3:8);
forgive me, Lord, when many times
in life I take exceptions from your
teachings and instructions,
having that feeling of entitlement
and even privilege.
Help me realize, dear Jesus,
this wonderful gift you have
given each one of us of being
called to reveal and make known
to everyone your mystery of
love and mercy, kindness and
compassion; deepen our faith
in proclaiming your good news
of salvation to all so that like
St. Paul, we may "have
the boldness of speech
and confidence of access
through faith" in you.
Amen.
Lawiswis ng Salita ni P. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Ika-30 ng Setyembre 2022
Larawan kuha ng may akda, bukang liwayway sa Lawa ng Tiberias, Israel, Mayo 2019.
Kay sarap namnamin,
kaninang pagkagising
Iyong tugon Panginoon namin
sa mga tanong ni Job
na amin ding dinaraing
sa gitna ng maraming hirap at tiisin:
"Job,
nakalikha ka ba
kahit isang bukang liwayway?
Ang daigdig ba ay ang iyong
naigawa ng tanglaw?
Napunta ka na ba sa
pinagmumulan ng bukal?
Nakalakad ka na ba sa
pusod ng karagatan?
Alam mo ba kung saan nanggaling
ang liwanag, o and kadiliman,
kung saan nagbubuhat?
Ang mga ulap ba iyong mauutusan
sa lupa ay magbuhos ng malakas na ulan?"
(Aklat ni Job 38:12-13, 16, 19, 34)
Inyong ipagpaumanhin
Panginoong namin
kapangahasan Ikaw ay tanungin,
usisain kapag mabigat aming pasanin
kami ay patawarin
katulad ni Job iyong dinggin:
"Narito, ako'y hamak,
walang kabuluhan,
walang maisasagot,
bibig ay tatakpan
hindi na kikibo,
mga nasabi'y di na uulitin"
(Aklat ni Job 40:4-5).
Hinding hindi namin
makakayang sagutin
ni arukin kalaliman
nitong maraming lihim
ng buhay lalo't kung madilim;
sana'y Iyong dalisayin, Panginoon
aking mga paningin, upang Ikaw ay
malasin tulad ng kulay ng hangin!
Larawan kuha ni Bb. Jo Villafuerte, pagbubukang liwayway sa Atok, Benguet, Setyembre 2019.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday, Memorial of St. Jerome, Priest & Doctor of the Church, 30 September 2022
Job 38:1, 12-21, 40:3-5 ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> Luke 10:13-16
God our loving Father,
open my eyes
open my mind
open my heart and soul
to your majesty
to experience your
immense mystery
so profoundly
unthinkable
unexplainable
yet so true
that it can be felt
and experienced
because we live
in you though we
are not aware.
The Lord addressed Job out of the storm and said: Have you ever in your lifetime commanded the morning and shown the dawn its place for taking hold of the ends of the earth, till the wicked are shaken from its surface? The earth is changed as is clay by the seal, and dyed as though it were a garment. Have you entered the sources of the sea, or walked about in the depths of the abyss? Have the gates of death been shown to you, or have you seen the gates of darkness? Have you comprehended the breadth of the earth?
Job 38:1, 12-14, 16-18
Dearest Father,
many times I have asked you
so many questions
and would still have more to
follow you up with but,
when I contemplate
your love and presence
in my life,
among the people you
have surrounded me with,
then I realize
you are all questions
that in itself more than enough
for me to see, even imagine you!
Like Job,
let me remain silent
and be wrapped by
your majesty
and glory!
Then job answered the Lord and said: Behold, I am of little account; what can I answer you? I put my hand over my mouth. Though I have spoken once, I will not do so again; though twice, I will do so no more.
Job 40:3-5
Open my eyes
in Jesus your Son
to appreciate more
your coming
your loving presence
your healing
O God our Father;
let me listen
and be more attentive
to Jesus,
your Word who became
flesh to dwell
among us;
like St. Jerome,
give me the grace
to read and study
especially to pray
your Sacred Scriptures
each day of my life
to be still
and remain
in you always.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, 29 May 2022
Acts 1:1-11 ><]]]]'> Hebrews 9:24-28, 10:19-23 ><]]]]'> Luke 24:46-53
Photo by author, Chapel of the Ascension at the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, May 2017.
Today’s Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord is a celebration of the mystery of Jesus Christ our Savior. It is not just an episode in his life because it is something about his very person and his personal relationship with us his followers that continues to this day.
In his Ascension into heaven, Jesus had brought us closer to heaven – and God – even while we are still here on earth! It is part of the mystery of his Person whose coming and going, so to speak, closed the wide gap before between heaven and earth which is actually relational than spatial in nature. Hence, the Ascension is not about Christ’s departure to a distant galaxy in the universe where heaven is supposed to be but a new and higher or deeper kind of relationship of humans with God in Jesus.
Ascension is a leveling up as kids would say these days in our relationships with God in Jesus. This we realize in a careful reading of our short gospel account by starting at its ending:
Then he led them out as far as Bethany, raised his hands, and blessed them. As he blessed them he parted from them and was taken up to heaven. They did him homage and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple praising God.
Luke 24:50-53
Did you notice Luke’s description of how the disciples “returned to Jerusalem with great joy”?
Photo by author, inside the Chapel of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, 2017.
Normally, we feel sad in every departure of a loved one, be it permanent like in death or temporary like when they move to a new residence or work or when kids go to college. Every parting with loved ones brings sadness in our hearts, rarely a great joy.
So, where did that great joy of the disciples come from after Jesus left them and ascended into heaven?
Recall how these past two Sundays when Jesus insisted on his disciples including us the need to obey his commandment to love, reassuring them not to let their hearts be troubled and disturbed when he leaves them. Loving Jesus is keeping his words of loving one another as he has loved us. Where there is love, there is always the gift of presence and relationships, of peace, of intimacy. Even if we are apart from one another, even if we do not see each other, love transcends the physical distance and presence; hence, heaven is oneness with God while hell is separation from God!
Mystery of Christ, our intimacy with God
The joy of the disciples at the Lord’s Ascension is the continuing intimacy they have with Jesus because of his commandment to love and his gift of peace. He said last Sunday that anyone who keeps his words shall be loved by him and the Father who shall both dwell on that person.
Jesus and the Father dwelling in us is intimacy, a deep and personal relationship that is as close as our breath. This is the whole point of the author of the Letter to the Hebrews in explaining the great difference of the old temple worship and worship in Jesus Christ: “Christ did not enter into a sanctuary made by hands, a copy of the true one, but heaven itself” (Heb.9:24) that enabled us all to reach and enter heaven “by the new and living way he opened for us through the veil, that is, his flesh” (Heb.10:20).
Heaven is not just a place or location but most of all a state of life, a state of grace made possible by Jesus Christ, in Jesus Christ. It is something we already have in our hearts which we feel and experience when we strive to live in communion with Jesus and everyone around us through personal and communal prayers, especially in the Holy Eucharist.
Photo by author, part of the site believed where Jesus stepped on during his Ascension inside the Chapel of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, May 2017.
Keep in mind the upward movement of the Ascension which calls for a “leveling up” in our perspectives and way of life, of “witnessing” Jesus Christ to everyone “to the ends of the earth” as he instructed them outside Bethany (Acts 1:8) before “going up” to heaven to be seated at the right hand of God our almighty Father.
But that mystery of Christ is not everything. See how Luke mentioned both in Acts and in his gospel account the disciples as “witnesses” of Jesus.
The Ascension challenges every disciple of Christ to witness his mystery in a life in union with God, a mystery we must nurture and keep, calling us to “approach with a sincere heart and in absolute trust, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water. Let us hold unwaveringly to our confession that gives hope, for he who made the promise is trustworthy” (Heb.10:22-23).
Ascension is therefore a call to holiness, to a life centered in God. But with the recent turn of events both here and abroad, we find we are still too far from the gifts and realities of Christ’s Ascension as life and societies seem to go down to the pit of death and destruction, pains and despair.
May 25: People attend a prayer vigil for the Robb Elementary School students and teachers killed in a mass shooting Tuesday at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Uvalde, Texas. Joshua Lott/The Washington Post via Getty Images
All mystery and tragedy, but no Christ?
We are thousands of kilometers away from Uvalde, Texas but we too were pierced in the hearts by the reports of the killing of 19 school children and their two teachers in a shooting spree by an 18-year old who started his carnage by first shooting his own grandmother at home before going to their local school.
Two weeks earlier, another ten people were also gunned down in Buffalo, New York that has made mass shooting like a persistent plague in the US getting worst each year without any signs of being eradicated at all with the never-ending debates about guns especially by politicians.
See how amid all these decadence in our time, from the mass shootings in the US to the war in Ukraine and the never ending bickering in our local politics show us the exact opposite of the mystery of Christ expressed in this Solemnity of his Ascension, of how we have sank deeper in evil and sin, away from one another and from God.
Everybody is speaking each one’s point of view but never considered God at all and the value of every human life especially at its most vulnerable stage in the womb and old age. Media barrage us with so much statistics but never about the value and importance of virtues like kindness and love and spirituality.
Going back to our gospel this Sunday, Luke leads us to finding and witnessing Christ’s mystery as a person and of his Ascension in its opening when Jesus said to his disciples:
Photo by Mr. Chester Ocampo, springtime in Japan, 2017.
“Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”
Luke 24:46-48
See the flow starting from the Scriptures or words of God that were written leading into its fulfillment in the Pasch of Jesus Christ we are tasked to preach and proclaim in words and in deeds which is what witnessing is all about.
This Sunday, Jesus is leading us out of our homes like his disciples to meet him in our churches where his mystery is celebrated daily in the Holy Eucharist as we listen and pray over his words in the Sacred Scriptures that open us to the many tasks of improving our relationships with one another, in learning to forget ourselves and love like Jesus did, not in attacking each other or defending ourselves from their attacks.
How sad that until now, so many of the faithful are still hesitant of going back to church celebrations due to misplaced priorities in life while some of us in the clergy continue to twist and bend the words of the Lord to suit their own way of thinking, especially in politics.
When we examine the life of Jesus, there has always been the letting go of everything in him, including his very life that when his Ascension came, he was totally light and free to go back to the Father. This in turn left so much imprints on his followers’ hearts including us today that even we have not seen Jesus, we can feel him present in us and with us.
How willing are we to be witnesses of Jesus, of letting go of our personal agendas and plans that prevent us from leveling up or arising to new heights of relationships with God and with others in Christ? Have a blessed and safe week ahead!
Photo by Mr. Chester Ocampo, springtime in Japan, 2017.
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