Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Tuesday, First Week in Ordinary Time, Year II, 13 January 2026
1 Samuel 1:9-20     <*{{{{><  +  ><}}}}*>     Mark 1:21-28

“It isn’t that, my lord,” Hannah answered. “I am an unhappy woman. I have neither wine nor liquor; I was only pouring out my troubles to the Lord” (1 Samuel 1:15).

How often people misread
what is really inside us,
Lord Jesus, 
especially when we pour out
our troubles to you;
and yet,
you have always been so kind
with us,
so gracious
in listening
and most of all in
granting our prayers
and desires.

Teach us, dear Jesus
to open ourselves more
to you,
to bare our souls to you
to be cleansed and refreshed
in your healing mercy
and abounding love.

Most of all,
help us to pour things out
to you, Jesus
those sins and evil
we keep inside,
those which we have buried
deep inside us that
continue to bother and 
destabilize us 
including the pains
and hurts in the past
that have imprisoned us
and prevent us from experiencing 
your liberation and freedom,
salvation and fresh start
like that man with an unclean spirit
in today's gospel.
Amen.