Asking God to Come to Us Vs. God Asking Us to Come to Him

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe-Prayer Tuesday

07 August 2018, Week-XVIII, Year II, Ordinary Time

Jeremiah 30:1-2,12-16,18-22///Matthew 14:22-36

It is only now have I realized Lord the great difference of asking you to come to me and you asking me to come to you. So often in prayer, I always ask you to come to me: “Come Lord Jesus! Come Holy Spirit!”

It is always easier to ask you to come to me and you do always come!

But as I prayed over that word “come”, I have realized that it is always you who ask me to come to you. Prayer is really your work, Lord; we simply respond to your call. What really happens when I call you to come to me is when I become like Peter: you first call me out to “come” to you but when I see the giant waves, the many dangers and inconvenience of coming to you, I change path and get lost or when in the middle of the sea, I sink.

In both instances, then I call on you to “come to me and rescue me, Lord” like Peter today in the gospel. It is the same case with Judah in the first reading: you have called Judah to come to you but she changed ways and became unfaithful. Jeremiah and the other prophets reminded them of your call to come to you but they were very stubborn. And now with Judah’s “incurable wounds” when she is about to get totally lost, you assured her you would still come to her to heal her, to save her.

Life is always a coming to you, O God our loving Father. Keep us faithful to you in Jesus Christ who is “the way, the truth and the life” that we may never go astray, that we may never waver or doubt your call to come to you. Keep us faithful in coming to you so we no longer call out to you to come to us when we are deep in sin. Amen. Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II,Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria,Bulacan 3022 .

Prayer As Our Mountain of Transfiguration

close up view of bible and rosary — Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe-Prayer Monday

06 August 2018, Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord-B

Daniel 7:9-10,13-14///2Peter 1:16-19///Mark 9:2-10

Thank you very much Lord Jesus for bringing us always with you like “Peter, James, and his brother John to a high mountain” to pray with you. It is always a grace to be able to pray in you and with you. Not just to tell you what we need or what we feel. Just to be with you is more than enough. After all, when you were transfigured before the three apostles you were “just” praying which is the key to any transfiguration.

So often, we take prayers so lightly, or worst, for granted that we can dismiss it easily when we are busy. Like your gospel yesterday, we often pray to look for the food that perishes and not for YOU. We forget that prayer is a relationship, of being with you, of being one with you that leads to transfiguration.

Continue to bring us along with you on top of the mountain to pray. Teach us to be silent, to stop talking like Peter without knowing what we are saying. Most of all, teach us to listen to you always. To set aside our own agenda and plans in life so that your will is done not ours. May we be transfigured in your heart and person, O Lord Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit for the glory of the Father. Amen. Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II,Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria,Bulacan 3022

Parables Explaining Mysteries of Life

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe-Prayer Thursday

02 August 2018, Week-17/Year-2 Ordinary Time

Jeremiah 18:1-4///Matthew 13:47-53

Breathe on me, today, O God my loving Father as I go on my Sabbath rest.

Keep me still in your divine presence. Let me stop explaining the many parables you share in the Bible. Remind me that the beauty of these parables lies not in my ability to explain its meaning. As simple stories with deep realities and truths, parables actually explain us people, of who we are, presenting us the meaning of our lives and yearnings.

Just like my being a clay in your hands, our eternal Potter. So often, I marvel at its meanings as relayed to us by your prophet Jeremiah, relishing at its wonderful imagery and yet, here I am, always resisting your potter’s hands, especially when I have to be remolded. Like the potter, you take everything into consideration everything about me, the good and the bad, so that the best would come out in the end. But I always resist – because I insist on explaining its meaning than simply allowing myself to be covered by its rich meaning.

How can I truly understand you and your parables when I refuse to be like a “scribe who has been instructed in the Kingdom of heaven” (Mt.13:52) to take into consideration all things that are both new and old in me to truly see the beauty of life explained by your parables? Like the net cast into the sea, you continue to call all of us to serve and praise you in others. It is our task to follow you, to submit ourselves to be shaped by your hands like the clay in the potter’s hand to eventually become your wonderful masterpiece. Rather than grasping the meaning of your parables, let me be held and kept by your parables to see and marvel at the beauty of life in you. Amen. Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II,Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria,Bulacan 3022 .

When We Are Rejected for Being Faithful To God

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe-Prayer Wednesday

01 August 2018, Week-17/Year-2 Ordinary Time

Jeremiah 15:10,16-21///Matthew 13:44-46

My dearest God and Father: So often in life, I go into tantrums before you like Jeremiah when things get rough as I try to be faithful to you. You have heard me many nights crying like Jeremiah, “Woe to me, mother, that you gave me birth! a man of strife and contention to all the land! I neither borrow nor lend, yet all curse me. When I found your words, I devoured them; they became my joy and the happiness of my heart, because I bore your name, O Lord, God of hosts.”(Jer.15:10,16)

There are times my mind tells me to abandon your ways of peace, to get even with my enemies but you are always there in my heart, pushing me more than ever to intensely seek you in many difficult situations. Like St. Paul, there is always that urge in me to boast “I am a fool for Christ!”(1Cor.4:10) as I try to understand and forgive, to love and to be kind with people whom I have expected to know me and accept me most.

What a consolation to learn that most saints like Alphonsus Liguori whose feast we celebrate today also went through many rejections in life – even from his fellow Redemptorists like what happened with Jeremiah and your Son Jesus who were rejected by their countrymen.

Sorry, my Lord and my God, for complaining, for the tantrums when I am rejected. You know very well how like St. Augustine my heart is restless until it rests in you. Despite the many rejections as I strive to be faithful to you, I feel like that man in today’s parable who found a treasure buried in a field, hid it again, and left to sell everything to buy that field. Or, like the merchant who found the finest pearl and decided to sell everything he has so he could buy that precious pearl.

Keep me strong, faithful Father, when there are many rejections that come along my way in following you. Amen. Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II,Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria,Bulacan 3022 .

*Photo from Google.

The Mystery of Sin

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe-Prayer Tuesday

31 July 2018, Week-17/Year-2 Ordinary Time

Jeremiah 14:17-22///Matthew 13:36-43

Today I thank you Lord for your gift of St. Ignatius of Loyola whose feast we now celebrate. His Spiritual Exercises has tremendously nourished me in experiencing your immense love for me. This is particularly true even in my meditations concerning my sins. Like the prophet Jeremiah, I have realized how this mystery of sin can also be a religious experience. Every time I would meditate on my sins as recommended by St. Ignatius, I come to understand them more as turning away from you my Lord and Master, leading me into great sorrow of failing to love you.

“Let my eyes stream with tears day and night, without rest over the great destruction which overwhelms the virgin daughter of my people, over her incurable wound. If I walk out into the field, look! those slain by the sword, if I enter the city, look! those consumed by hunger. Even the prophet and the priest forage in a land they know not. Have you cast Judah off completely? Is Zion loathsome to you? Why have you struck us a blow that cannot be healed? We wait for peace, to no avail; for a time of healing, but terror comes instead. We recognize, O Lord, our wickedness, the guilt of our fathers; that we have sinned against you.” (Jer.14:17-20)

But the greatest wonder of all is that even if I am deeply in sins like in the parable of the weeds among the wheat, you continue to unconditionally love me, Father, always giving me the chance to experience your love and mercy in Christ Jesus your Son so that I, in turn, may love and serve you, again, and again. Amen.

St. Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us!Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II,Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria,Bulacan 3022 .

*Photo from Google.

That “Gut” Feeling About God

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The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe-Prayer Monday

30 July 2018, Week-17/Year-2 Ordinary Time

Jeremiah 13:1-11///Matthew 13:31-35

It is again a Monday, Lord, and we are all so busy going back to work, to the normal “grind” of the week. And your words drive home to us something very close, literally speaking, hitting our guts, our loins: “This wicked people who refuse to obey my words, who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts, and follow strange gods to serve and adore them, shall be like this loincloth which is so good for nothing. For, as close as the loincloth clings to a man’s loins, so had I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the Lord; to be my people, my renown, my praise, my beauty. But they did not listen.”(Jer.13:10-11)

How shameful indeed Lord, as we start each day, freshen up ourselves, put on our best clothes but deep inside, very close to our guts, we have “a good for nothing loincloth” – rotting and dirty that permeates deep into our very person. That gut feeling that even if we pretend to be so good, so holy, deep inside, down in our guts, we know something is terribly wrong.

Teach us to go back to you, to be more docile in the Holy Spirit, to follow our “guts” wherever you are leading us. May we give your little voice, your words like the mustard seed to be sowed and grow in us so we can experience your glory, your beauty, and your goodness. So often, we take little things for granted, forgetting that like the “loincloth”, these are the ones closest to us that truly give us comfort and confidence as a person, as a believer, as your follower. Amen.

St. Peter Chrysologus, pray for us.Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II,Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria,Bulacan 3022 .

*About the photo: the flower of the mustard plant I have taken during our Holy Land Pilgrimage April 2017 at the Ein-Karem area on the way to the Church of the Visitation.

Allowing God’s Word to Grow and Bear Fruit In Us

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe-Prayer for Friday

27 July 2018, Week-16/Year-2 Ordinary Time

Jeremiah 3:14-17///Matthew 13:18-23

Every morning, Lord, I try to heed your word, “Return, rebellious children”(Jer.3:14). This is especially true every Friday when we pray “misere nobis” of Psalm 51 for we are indeed like the people of Judah who heard your words through Jeremiah but refused to act on them until tragedy struck the the whole nation.

Jeremiah is absolutely right, Lord. We are rebellious children, like the seeds sown on the path, on rocky ground, and among thorns. Our streets testify to this reality: our traffic is horrendous, mirroring our life these days with everybody insisting on each one’s ways, without any tinge of courtesy and respect to everyone.

Motorists. Passengers. Pedestrians. We have forgotten all about decency. Worst of all are the law enforcers who have no regard at all with the laws and with the people.

Thank you very much that in Jesus Christ your Son, you have never given up on us like the sower who never gets tired of sowing the seeds of your words into our hearts daily. Help us to be fertile soil, welcoming your words into our hearts, our very being, not only by listening, studying and praying them but acting on them, allowing them to grow and bear fruit in us through our life of witnessing in acts of kindness and love.

Your seeds are all good, Lord. Let it grow in me today. Amen. Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II,Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria,Bulacan 3022 .

Photo from Google.

Holding On To God

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe-Prayer Tuesday

24 July 2018, Week-16/Year-2 Ordinary Time

Micah 7:14-15,18-20///Matthew 12:46-50

I cannot believe everything that is happening in the country, God. Are you kidding us? Have you forgotten us? At first, I thought it was only due to the weather that I felt so low, desolate. And now, in our country.

I feel like one of the remnants in prophet Micah’s time: those few left behind holding on to you with their little faith being shaken by the majority who seem more blessed and better off amid their infidelities and evil ways – and inanities as well. I feel like praying with the remnants of Israel of old, “Shepherd your people with your staff – the flock of your inheritance – that dwells apart in a woodland in the midst of Carmel. Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old. As in the days when you came from the land of Egypt, show us wonderful signs.”(Mic.7:14-15)

Keep me strong in my faith especially at this times everything is sagging in our country: our morals, our honor, our values, our leaders. Teach me to keep on following your Son Jesus Christ as His “brother and sister and mother”(Mt.12:50), striving to fulfill your will despite the many odds and temptations to be on my own, to join the mob with their truncated views on life and people. You are so merciful in forgiving my sins, and letting me go of my past. How can I leave you now in the middle of many storms, Lord? May these days of darkness past, and leave me standing before you faithfully.

I pray also Lord to those severely affected by the rains and floods. May they never lose faith and hope in you as we who were spared share more love and charity to them. Amen. Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II,Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria,Bulacan 3022 .

*Photo from Google.

Putting God on Trial

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The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe-Prayer Monday

23 July 2018, Week-16/Year-2 Ordinary Time

Micah 6:1-4,6-8///Matthew 12:38-42

God our Father, you never cease to surprise me with your creativity. Like a dedicated teacher, you never run out of illustrations of how much you love me despite my many sins. Today you present me with a court-room drama that I used to see in many TV series I have followed.

“Arise, present your plea before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice! Hear, O mountains, the plea of the Lord, pay attention, O foundations of the earth! For the Lord has a plea against his people, and he enters into trial with Israel. O my people, what have I done to you, or how have I wearied you?”(Mic.6:1-3)

Despite the many good things you have done for me, I continue to live in sin. I have turned away from you that no amount of worship and offering would suffice except “Only to do right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with you, O God.”(Mic.6:8)

The saddest thing in this courtroom drama is how we have refused to rest our case, always putting you on trial with our sins, asking for signs even up to this time. Let us rest the case for you have dismissed it in our favor by sending us your Son Jesus Christ. Teach me O Lord Jesus, to seek no more signs from you. Help me to open my eyes and my heart to see in your Passion, Death and Resurrection that you are my life and my salvation.

In a special way, Lord I pray for our brothers and sisters severely affected by the continued rains that have caused widespread floods especially in Pangasinan and Bataan provinces. Give them something to eat this morning and keep them safe. Amen.Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II,Parokya ng San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria,Bulacan 3022 .

What Does It Take?

The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe-Prayer Thursday

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

Hosea 11:1-4, 8-9///Matthew 10:7-15

I am very sorry Lord for so many things that clutter my mind today. It is always a struggle to be good. Not only in doing what is good but most of all in being with You, in staying with You, in always believing and trusting in You.

Sorry if so often I wonder if You mean even today that we must proclaim “the Kingdom of heaven is at hand, that we would cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons? Moreover, that without cost we have received and without cost must we give? How can we go on in this time without taking gold or silver or copper for our belts; no sack for the journey, or a second tunic, or sandals, or walking stick? Yet, You also tell us the laborer deserves his keep?”(Mt.10:7-10)

What does it take to really do Your will, God?

Based on what I have learned, there are many things that take for anyone to do Your will like faith, love, and courage along with detachment and “positive indifference” by St. Ignatius of Loyola. But last night before going to rest, I realized the importance of always reviewing my life, of examining not only my conscience but also my consciousness to see and feel how You have loved me immensely and continues to do so!

Reading Hosea over and over makes me feel sorrowful of my sinfulness yet so loved by You as my Father. How crazy have I been that “the more You call me, the more I drift away from You, forgetting how You have stooped to feed me, teaching me how to walk as Your own child. Yet, despite my infidelity and sinfulness, You never vent on Your blazing anger because You are God and not human like us.”(Hos.11:2, 3, 4,9)

Like the psalmist yesterday and today, let me see Your face, touch me with Your love and presence so that I may always stay with You and most of all, follow You closely. Somehow, like Your psalmists in the Old Testament, we have our gifted musicians who also make us feel Your love for us, Your longing for us. Help me to give myself to You too today. Amen. Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II,Parokya ni San Juan Apostol at Ebanghelista, Gov. F. Halili Ave., Bagbaguin, Sta. Maria,Bulacan 3022

Photo by the author, Betania-Tagaytay, August 2017.