Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Wednesday in the Seventh Week of Easter, 04 June 2025 Acts 20:28-38 <*{{{{>< + ><}}}}*> John 17:11-19
What a moving first reading today as we come to close the Easter Season when Paul bid goodbye to the presbyters of the Church of Ephesus.
They were all in tears because most likely they would never see Paul again; but most of all, of the sincerity of Paul in his words spoken to them.
“Keep watch over yourselves and over the whole flock of which the Holy Spirit has appointed you as overseers, in which you tend the Church of God that he acquired with his own Blood…I have never wanted anyone’s silver or gold or clothing. You know very well that these very hands have served my needs and my companions. In every way I have shown you that by hard work of that sort we must help the weak, and keep in mind the words of the Lord Jesus who himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive'” (Acts 20:28, 33-35).
Indeed, it is more blessed to give than to receive because in giving that is when we have to use more of our hands in toiling and working; in the work of our hands, we not only share Christ in the good deeds we do but most of all, open the eyes and hearts of others to welcome Jesus into them to work also through their very own hands.
It is the same imagery we have of Jesus praying for us his disciples, laying over his hands over us as he "consecrate" us in truth.
Oh dear Jesus, make our hands strong to keep working, doing the difficult things many avoid so we can bless more people; keep our hands open too to share our work and blessings with others; most of all, keep our hands clasp together in prayer to you to surrender ourselves to your will always so that our hands may be cleansed of dirt and stains of sin worthy in giving praise to you and touching those in need. Amen.
Paul saying goodbye at Ephesus on the way to Rome for his trial and eventual martyrdom.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 28 March 2024
Photo by author, sunrise at the Sacred Heart Novitiate in Novaliches, QC, 20 March 2024.
As we now enter the holiest parts of the Holy Week called the Sacred Triduum of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Vigil beginning tonight with the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, please find time to have some silent moments of prayer and reflections.
Do not let this Holy Week pass as one of those days so unique because of the great sights and sounds that have filled our cameras with so much photos and videos but have ironically left us empty inside. Don’t you notice the more we fill ourselves with photos and videos on the pretext and excuse of keeping memories and remembrances, the more we are left empty, lost and alienated because we have missed experiencing the moment itself?
From forbesmagazine.com
The reason images are covered and no flowers adorn our church altars during Lent until Holy Saturday is for us to focus more inside ourselves than outside.
Lent and the Holy Week remind us that basic truth in life that what is most essential is the inside not the outside we aptly call in Filipino as palabas.
How ironic that despite all the technologies and comforts they have brought humans, we are more lost and empty these days than before with more suicides, more depressions, and more social problems and issues.
Lent invites us to return to our very first love of all, God who patiently awaits us always, right in our hearts. Pray as much as possible today to experience God and your very self this Holy Thursday. Just pray. Very often, the most difficult prayer is also the most meritorious.
And when you pray, I strongly recommend Jesuit Father Eduardo Hontiveros’ classic Buksan Ang Aming Puso, the most beautiful and touching church music that is a prayer in itself during this season of Lent and the Holy Week.
Buksan ang aming puso Turuan mong mag-alab Sa bawat pagkukuro Lahat ay makayakap
Buksan ang aming isip Sikatan ng liwanag Nang kusang matangkilik Tungkuling mabanaag
Buksan ang aming palad Sarili'y maialay Tulungan mong ihanap Kami ng bagong malay
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 18 March 2024.
I love its progression from opening of heart, then of mind, then of the hand which signifies our whole person.
Our hands is a microcosm of our very selves that is why we shake hands, with give high fives to signify the giving of our total selves in friendship. Fortune tellers read our palms because they signify our whole person. We Filipinos have a beautiful expression during pamanhikan when parents of the groom meet their future balae to ask for the hand of their daughter in marriage, “hihingin namin ang kamay ng inyong anak.”
What is in our hands?
Remember the word betrayal that literally means to hand over from the Greek word paradidomi? Again, our Tagalog translation renders its deepest meaning especially when we recall how Jesus was handed over by Judas to the soldiers who handed Him over to the Sanhedrin who then handed Him over to Pilate who finally handed Him over to the people to be crucified. That repeated handing over of Jesus – or betrayal – is perfectly said in our own expression of “pinagpasa-pasahan si Jesus.”
That is how dirty our hands are with sin and evil when we repeatedly hand over Jesus through our own family and friends whom we take as things to be passed on for something or someone else more useful.
Opening to God becomes complete, from the mind and the heart, when we are able to open our hands to Him, the only One we can really hold on in this life. When we die, we cannot hold and bring anything from this life. Like Jesus, we die with hands opened to God, praying, “Into your hands, I commend my spirit.”
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 20 March 2024.
You will notice this afternoon when you come for the Mass, the tabernacle is opened and empty. The Sacred Hosts we shall receive later in the Holy Communion are the ones to be consecrated during the Mass.
Are we also empty to receive Jesus? That is the beauty of Communion by hands when we hold nothing else, we open our hands positioned across our heart supposed to be clean to receive Jesus wholly and responsibly.
As you receive Jesus in the Holy Communion tonight, pray Buksan Ang Aming Puso and ask God to give you a new consciousness (bagong malay) that you are loved and forgiven so you can love and forgive others too.
Ask Jesus to empty your heart of pride so He would reign there to fill you with more of His humility, justice, and love.
Most of all, ask Jesus to dwell in your heart so that every decision you make may come from your heart not from the hatred and bitterness that have covered it all these years.
Be the new person tonight in Jesus as He wash you clean of sins. Amen.
*Usiginanga… you may open your phone to listen and pray Buksan Ang Aming Puso.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Sunday XXII-B in Ordinary Time, 29 August 2021
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-8 >+< James 1:17-18, 21-22, 27 >+< Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Photo by the author, the Holy Land, 2017.
After an interruption of five weeks, we go back to Mark’s Gospel this Sunday that shall guide us until the end of our liturgical calendar with the Solemnity of Christ the King in November. See the beauty of the Sacred Scriptures that those five weeks from John chapter six did not break the flow of narration that is so seamless!
Returning to Mark’s account today after the feeding of five thousand and the bread of life discourse at Capernaum from John, Jesus crossed the lake and proceeded with the Twelve to Gennesaret where he preached and healed until some of his enemies arrived and found an issue to raise against him.
When the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus, they observed that some of his disciples ate their meals with unclean, that is, unwashed hands. For the Pharisees and, in fact, all Jews, do not eat without carefully washing their hands, keeping the tradition of the elders. So the Pharisees and scribes questioned him, “Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?” He responded, “Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites… You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.”
Mark 7:1-3, 5-8
The Israelites have taken pride in their laws given by Moses from God at Mt. Sinai. Simply referred to as the Law or Torah, it had united them as God’s “chosen people”, making it the very center of their lives that they enlarged its meaning and scope that soon consisted of more than 600 other precepts and practices to observe and keep.
Obeying the laws and traditions became their standard for holiness so that instead of becoming a means to bring them closer to God and others, these became an end in itself that they have forgotten God and others in the process.
Photo by author, Sacred Heart Spirituality Center, Novaliches, QC, 2016.
Into our hearts and the heart of Jesus
Once again, our gospel is so timely and relevant to our situation right now we are in the midst of a pandemic when we are told to always wash our hands. And if Jesus were with us in person today, he would surely speak the same things about the hypocrisy we have in our washing of hands!
First of all, let us clarify that Jesus is not against the washing of hands before eating nor of any of their other traditions and laws; what he criticized was the greater importance given by his enemies with the outward signs of their laws and traditions, forgetting its inner dynamics and meaning. Thus, he never failed to clarify with the people that he had “not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets but to fulfill them” (Mt.5:17).
Here we find the same problem with the people at Capernaum and in our own time when people fail and refuse to look beyond material things to find the meaning of what is going on around us, of what we believe in and what we practice.
Then and now – right in the midst of this pandemic – Jesus is inviting us to deeper perspectives about our concepts and ways of doing and seeing things, of what is clean and not clean, of what is tradition and modern, of what is good and evil.
Jesus wants us to constantly examine our lives for our need of conversion of our hearts to him. He is inviting us to probe our hearts and see who or what dwells inside us because from the heart, everything flows outside not only to our mouth (cf. Lk.6:45, “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks”) but also to our hands.
That is why I love that imagery of the heart between two arms and hands: the heart at the center of our being and consciousness that whatever comes out of the heart naturally flows to our arms and hands, even to our entire body. If there is something wrong in the heart, so with the messages it sends out.
He summoned the crowd again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.” “From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils from within and they defile.”
Mark 7:14-15, 21-23
Here we find the essential question we must ask ourselves always: Do I find Jesus Christ in my heart as the sole basis and foundation of what I believe which I also say and do?
If we cannot find Jesus at the center of the things we do and believe, most likely we do not find others in the picture too! In that case, most likely, it is all about me, mine, my, and I! Like the Pharisees and scribes of his time, washing of hands and other traditions were more of a show than something more essential which is to serve God through one another.
Jesus is now leading us to a sincere examination of our hearts,
of our interior and spiritual motivations,
of why we are doing the things we are doing,
of what we really believe in;
because, too often, many of the things we do and believe
are not really rooted in our hearts nor with God.
There are so many times in our lives
that we simply do things out of habit
and conventions without really understanding why.
Jesus is now leading us to a sincere examination of our hearts, of our interior and spiritual motivations, of why we are doing the things we are doing, of what we really believe in; because, too often, many of the things we do and believe are not really rooted in our hearts nor with God. There are so many times in our lives that we simply do things out of habit and conventions without really understanding why.
Simon Sinek said it so well in his bestselling book “Start with Why” – people buy products, patronize services, or are moved when they see the why you do things; they are willing to pay more not because of fad or prestige but more of the conviction in a belief espoused by a brand or company or by an individual.
Photo by Ezra Acayan/Getty Images in Paranaque City, 09 February 2020.
Washing of hands and eating, our hidden hypocrisies
One of the most frequently asked question by people to me as a priest these days is why despite all our prayers, God has seemed become deaf to our pleas for him to end this pandemic? The answer is simple: unless we see and accept the spiritual realities of this COVID-19 pandemic, it would linger with us longer than projected, even not be solved at all as it gets worst with new variants that have thrown back even some of the most vaccinated nations lately.
We can have all the soaps and alcohol to wash our hands during this pandemic but COVID-19 will persist for as long as we have no regard for the dignity of every person. See all the abuses and corruption going on that is more sickening than the virus itself!
That washing of hands is an imagery full of meanings we have lost since the time of Jesus. Inwardly, the washing of hands means washing of one’s heart, of cleansing ourselves of our sins and self-centeredness and other impurities.
So many times we have become like Pontius Pilate who washed his hands to free himself from any guilt in sentencing Christ to death without realizing the more he had implicated himself to the injustice by refusing to make a stand for what is true and just. Like us today, we keep on washing our hands in the hope that our conscience would be at peace or be not bothered with our indifference for what is true and good.
Photo by Mr. Red Santiago of his son, 2019.
Washing of hands has always been closely related with eating which is an act of “appropriating something we cannot fully have” like when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. They took something they cannot wholly take or “swallow” that is why all they could do was just take a “bite” that opened their eyes to something they could not fully realize and appreciate. There are so many realities in this life we just cannot fully grasp right away, requiring us to have more faith, more patience in trusting God and those above us.
But, like Adam and Eve, we keep on taking a bite, of eating whatever our limited minds and reason find as “good” to have. And we wash our hands in clear hypocrisies like the Pharisees and scribes in worship and prayer when we lead double lives, when we laugh and cheer at all kinds of lies and filth, when we silently approve attacks against human life like tokhang and abortion.
Every day we wash our hands and keep them clean to avoid contaminating our food and body in hypocrisy as we agree and support in the name of “modernism” these trends of same sex relationships, promiscuity, and divorce. Or of graft and corruption we have resigned to accept as a fact of daily life.
To wash our hands is to wash our hearts clean of all kinds of evil, of mediocrity and indifference, of taking a stand to “pass over” from sin into grace by witnessing God’s goodness in our lives as Moses reminded Israel in the first reading.
The hands and the heart always go together as expressed in the Jewish thought of “mercy of the heart” and “mercy of the hand” when God’s mercy is more than a feeling but an act of righteousness, of justice and love.
Let us heed the reminder of the Apostle in the second reading to be truly clean in our hands and in our hearts: “Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world” (James 1:22, 27).
Stay safe everyone. Have a blessed week ahead! Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday, Week XXXII, Year II in Ordinary Time, 13 November 2020
2 John 4-9 >><)))*> |\ >><)))*> || >><)))*> Luke 17:26-37
Photo by author, ICMAS Theologate Chapel, 05 October 2020.
My prayer to you today, O God our loving Father, is simple: thank you very much for the gift of a new day, thank you very much for the warm sunshine amid overcast skies, thank you very much most of all for the gift of life.
Once again you have made us experience your saving hand and protection the other night from the terrifying winds and rains of typhoon Ulysses; then yesterday, everybody was surprised at how fast the waters have risen following widespread floods.
So many of us are asking – not complaining – why all these things happening this year 2020?
Open our hearts, open our eyes and ears to listen and heed your voice amid these calamities happening among us.
Make us more sensitive to the needs and cries of others by living in love and charity, of witnessing the gospel of Jesus Christ your Son instead of entertaining so many “progressive” ideas and thoughts that lead nowhere.
Let us live in love, Lord.
For this is love, that we walk according to his commandments… Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh… Look to yourselves that you do not lose what we worked for but may receive a full recompense. Anyone who is so “progressive” as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God; whoever remains in the teaching has the Father and the Son.
1 John 6,7, 8-9
May these calamities open ourselves to the reality and mystery of Christ’s coming again, of how we must strive to live in love, to see every body not just as a body like vultures but as somebody needing love and attention. Amen.
Chapel of San Padre Pio at San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy. Photo by Arch. Philip Santiago, 2017.
Praise and glory to you, O Lord our God and almighty Father! You never cease to amaze us, doing great marvels for us your people. Despite our sins, you always make yourself present among us in so many ways.
In the first reading from Ezra, you have used the pagan king of Persia, Cyrus, to be the instrument in fulfilling your promise to Israel to bring them back home from their Babylonian exile.
In our modern time, you have sent us San Padre Pio to prove and show to us that worrying is useless in this age when we believe and rely more with science and technology than with you, a loving and personal God who had come to us in Jesus Christ.
Teach us to be like San Padre Pio to “pray, hope and not worry” by embracing Christ crucified, by bearing all the pains and sufferings in love contrary to the ways of the world seeking power, wealth, fame, and pleasures.
From Google.
May we befriend silence and prayer than the noise of the world; may we persevere in patiently waiting for you than be in the foolish “rat race” with no winner at all; and, may we believe in things we cannot see with our eyes contrary the modern dictum to see is to believe.
Give us the courage of San Padre Pio to bring out your light, Lord, especially at this time when people claiming to be liberal and progressive are calling for so many rights that are outrightly wrong, destroying the human person, family, and society.
May our hands bear the wounds of your crucifixion, Lord Jesus, like San Padre Pio in praying to you and serving you through those most in need. Amen.
They always reveal something about us. Medical doctors say our hands’ texture and color indicate our health condition. Psychics always read our palms to see our past, present and future. And every suitor always asks for the hand of his beloved for marriage.
In fact, it is always fascinating to observe the hands of a man courting a woman. See how he would always hide his hands inside his pockets or at his back as he puts his best foot forward to impress the lady he is courting. If he wins her heart, they get engaged and that is when they keep on holding each other’s hands until they get married.
There are a lot great beauty and profundity in our human hands that always come in handy for daily living!
“It is my wish, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands, without anger or argument.”
1 Timothy 2:8
I love St. Paul’s expression of men praying “lifting up holy hands” which is the sum or integration of prayer and action. Very picturesque, showing us how we must conduct ourselves with God and one another by living in peace and harmony as brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. That is why today until next Sunday, our gospel from St. Luke would be challenging us on how authentic our life is as seen from last week’s parable when we experienced God as a loving Father embracing us despite our sins.
This Sunday, the Lord is asking us, “what’s in our hands”?
What are we holding on, literally and figuratively speaking?
Whatever our hands touch and hold are always linked with our whole selves. They cannot be separated from our body for our hands extend us to other people and even with things. Our hands reveal the balance or imbalance within us, the truth and lies we hold on deep inside us.
Photo by Jim Marpa in Carigara, September 2019.
“No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”
Luke 16:13
In our gospel today, Jesus is not asking us to “dirty our hands” with sin. What he wants us to realize from his parable is to be like the wise steward or “hired hand” who used all his resources and intelligence in securing a sound future by doing something finally good to those he had cheated.
Like that hired hand, what are the main concerns of our hands? Do we use our hands for good or for evil? Would we dare to use our hands extensively to achieve eternal life by entering through the “narrow door” Jesus told us last month by keeping our hands busy in doing good, serving the poor and needy?
Our hands are a blessing from God, including the fruits of its labor.
How unfortunate that like during the time of the prophet Amos whom we have heard in the first reading today, we use these very blessings from God to curse and trample others especially the poor and the weak. How ironic and sad that the very hands we use to care for others are the very same hands that beat and even kill others perfectly expressed in the term “blood in one’s hands”. Worst of all, the very hands that pray to God are the same hands that hurt others!
Betania Tagaytay, August 2017.
The late Jaime Cardinal Sin of Manila used to narrate a short story about the gracious hands of God. He said that most of the time, the hands of God caress us, pat our shoulders and even soothe us whenever we are in pain. But, sometimes, the hands of God tap us, even “spank” us when things do not seem to favor us. What matters most, according to Cardinal Sin, whether we are caressed or tapped, the same touches come from God’s loving and healing hands always filled with grace.
In the gospels, we find many instances of Jesus using his hands to raise the sick, to touch the eyes and mouth in restoring senses, and to bless, break and share bread with his friends and sinners alike. When he expressed his immense love for us and the Father, Jesus stretched out his arms and offered his hands on the cross on Good Friday.
Just imagine how with all our sins, God with a stroke of his hand can make us all vanish but chose not to do so and let our trespasses pass. Like the master in the parable we have heard, God is giving us all the opportunities to work with our hands in lovingly serving the people he has entrusted to us in our homes and offices, school and parish, and community.
But unlike that master who still fired his hired hand despite his resourcefulness, God is not judging us into doom. In is infinite love, God gave us Jesus Christ his Son to bring us back to him in eternal life. It is for this that we lift up our hands to him every day, especially in the Holy Mass we celebrate. The best prayer we can offer God is for these “blessed hands” to reach out to everyone in love and forgiveness, kindness and peace. Amen.
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