Count People, Not Money and Things

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe-Prayer

Monday, 26 November 2018, Week XXXIV, Year II

Revelation 14:1-3, 4-5///Luke 21:1-4

I still feel tired, Lord Jesus Christ after celebrating the Solemnity of your Kingship this Sunday. But I must confess and I am sure you knew it all along why we are so happy with Christ the King celebration: it signals the end of November, ushering the merry month of Christmas!

How foolish I am, O Lord! Sorry that until now I still don’t get it; it has been like a system within to count days, to count things and objects like money and everything I think to be leading to you. How foolish I am that I count days and weeks and months leading to you but never do I count on you. What a fool I am that I count everything except people and persons!

You have shown John all the peoples of all time represented by the 144,000 faithful standing before you in heaven in his vision. That early, you have counted us all to be included in your glory but sadly, here we are still counting things and objects like those people of your time when you observed how they dropped donations to the temple treasury.

You said, “I tell you truly, this poor widow put in more than all the rest” (Lk.21:3) because she had counted more on the people to be helped with her donation that was so little compared with others. But her donation mattered most to you because she gave her very best thinking more of the people, not of the money.

Teach me, Christ the King, to see more of people, to seek the persons in my heart whom I have long taken for granted. Teach me, Christ the King, to forget all those ideas and thoughts in my mind about people and focus more on their face as subjects to be cherished and loved. Teach me, Christ the King, to cleanse my heart, to always seek your face. AMEN. Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan 3022.

*Photo/quote from Google.

LMC

A Prayer To Make Our Joy Complete

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe-Prayer

Monday, 05 November 2018, Week XXXI, Year II

Philippians 2:1-4//Luke 14:12-14

Heavenly Father, today I join St. Paul in the first reading in praying that our joy may be complete “by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing.” Help me to “do nothing out of selfishness or vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than me, as I look out not for my own interests but also for others.” (Phil. 2:2-4)

Most of the time, we cannot share with the “complete joy” your Son Jesus Christ promised us when He said He is the true vine and we are His branches (Jn. 15:11) because we keep on separating from Him. Worst of all, like in His parable today, we have created divisions among us when we chose to associate only with those who look like us, think like us, expecting like us for rewards, of being repaid for any good things we do unto them (Lk. 14:12).

Let me be the one to make that first move of completing our joy, and your joy too, O God, by reaching out in love to those in the margins like the poor and suffering, the sick and the dying, and those we see as different from us in so many other things whom we take for granted.

Let me bring joy to even just one of them, to let them feel we are one, hoping they can have a brighter Monday today. If I can brighten just one person today, then both of us would be completely joyful! The more joys are completed among persons, the world becomes brighter. And that is when our joy, your joy become truly complete for that is when we live as one in Jesus Christ. AMEN. Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria, Bulacan 3022.

*Photo by Dra. Mai B. Dela Pena, Tokyo, Japan 2018. Used with permission.

Every Kinda People

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Prayer-Recipe, Tuesday

10 July 2018, Week-14/Year-2 Ordinary Time

Hosea 8:4-7, 11-13///Matthew 9:32-38

How easy for us Lord to always pray like the psalmist that we trust in You but, in reality we rely more with our very selves and with material things! Like what You told Hosea in the first reading, “we make kings not by Your authority and we make princes without Your approval (Hos.8:4)” for we are so self-centered.

Most of the time, we forget that what we really need here on earth are people – persons like each one of us with equal dignity created in Your image and likeness who must be respected regardless of creed and color. Whenever something good happens with our brethren like when Jesus healed a demoniac in today’s gospel, we are like those people of His time who were either struck in awe or doubtful and suspicious without realizing that You come to us with every person who loves and cares for the sick and the poor.

Move and stir our hearts, let us be merciful like Jesus Christ who said “the harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”(Mt.9:37-38) Teach us to stop praying for more things and start praying for brothers and sisters capable of loving and caring for one another. AMEN. Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II,Parokya ni San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria,Bulacan 3022. Photo from Google.

Pray this with the late Robert Palmer’s “Every Kinda People”, have breakfast and be kind with everyone you meet today.