Easter is God surprising us

Lord My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Easter Sunday of the Lord's Resurrection, 20 April 2025

Sunrise and flowers at Angels’ Hills, Tagaytay City, Holy Saturday, 19 April 2025.

A blessed happy Easter to everyone! The joy of Easter is God surprising us of Christ’s Resurrection as our resurrection too even in the midst of emptiness and darkness of this life here on earth.

Surprisingly, it is only now that it occurred to me after 27 years as priest how our Holy Week readings began and ended with the women disciples of Jesus honoring his death. Actually, the readings of Holy Week and Easter do not change except for the three cycles of Easter Vigil and the two Masses of Easter.

On Holy Monday we heard the gospel about Mary of Bethany recognizing the coming sacrifice of Jesus by pouring “a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard” on the feet of the Lord and then dried them with her hair that “the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil” (Jn. 12:3). Last night and this morning we heard from Luke and John how Mary of Magdala with other women went to the tomb “early in the morning, while it was still dark” to anoint Christ’s body with oil but found him nowhere!

Here is our God of surprises at work; but, unlike those funny and annoying surprises from the pranks we see on TikTok and social media, God’s surprises are real, so true, and so touching because they are life-changing which began in that Easter morning!

Illustration of the empty tomb of Jesus.
Mary Magdalene at Easter.
Mary Magdalene and another woman on the way to the tomb of Jesus early Sunday morning.
Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene on Easter morning.

During my recent annual retreat, my spiritual director asked me to pray and write the blessings I have received in the past twelve months. After five days of praying, I listed only six but they were mostly ordinary things I have taken for granted in life except the fourth one – my mother’s death last May 7.

I was surprised when that came to my prayers because it was painful and difficult time for me. So many things have changed in my life since mommy left us and there lies the paradox and mystery of life and death. It was in her dying when I felt anew so close to God.

First, God surprised me with the tremendous outpouring of love and support from so many people during her wake. Second, despite the grief and depression that followed a few months later, I still felt so blessed and closest to God with the unique intensity of the relationships we keep and instilled by our mom which we have taken for granted all these years. And third, I have experienced and realized how death is profoundly good in so many ways because it was after mommy’s death when I found the answers to my many questions about life. With her death, the more I appreciated the grace of my father’s sudden death 25 years ago right on her birthday.

That is the grace and surprise of Easter: in Christ’s dying and rising to life, death has become a blessing to us all as we have come to share in his glorious resurrection too.

Despite that feeling of emptiness within and in our homes, of the irrevocable reality they are gone forever never to join us in our meals and bonding like Christmas, of never hearing their voices again nor be able to hug and embrace them can be shattering, the angel’s reminder to Mary Magdalene and companion women at the empty tomb echoes in our hearts too: “Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised. Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and rise on the third day.” And they remembered his words (Luke 24:5-8).

*Photo by author, Mirador Jesuit Retreat House, Baguio City, 2017.*

Every deceased loved one is a testament of Easter, of Christ’s resurrection because they all assure us they are alive and living, never to die again like Jesus. That feeling of somehow seeing them again is a tension borne out of the reality of Easter as supranatural and non-logical. Hence, the call for us like Mary Magdalene to always remember!

Remember!

Not only the painful Good Friday but most of all the words of Christ, the experiences with Christ, the love and hope of Christ there in our hearts. Every time we remember the words and memories of our deceased loved ones, they too point us to the realities of Christ’s resurrection. Jesus and our loved ones will always be one of us, among us.

The word remembering literally means to make a person and an event a “member” of the present moment again, that is, “RE” + “MEMBER”.

That is the greatest surprise of Easter – in the Resurrection of Jesus, there has now come a bond among us all, both living and deceased that cannot be broken, that continues today and hereafter.

That is what Peter was telling his fellow Jews on Pentecost Sunday, asking everyone to remember the words and life of Jesus Christ for that is where we find the surprising moments of life we never realized because we took them for granted.

That is why Paul tells us in the second reading to “seek what is above” – the spiritual things and not the material things because that is where we truly belong. That is where we experience again in the most unique and surprising way the presence of Jesus and of our deceased loved ones.

Great surprises happen on the unseen realms of realities giving meaning to what we see and perceive and feel. In that moment we are surprised that we are suddenly enlightened of why deaths and loss happen because there is something better, more real about to unfold. That moment is a hairline between the temporal and eternal when we get a rare glimpse and taste of the Lord risen, of heaven itself.

*Photo by author, Mary of the Poor, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 17 March 2025.*

When my mother died last May, I must confess how I had to swallow many of the homilies I have shared in the past because they are so far from the realities of losing a loved one. That is when we realize too the great surprising truth of how death makes us more whole than before. We feel transformed when what we know and what we feel become one and integrated. It is like the feeling of “a basta!” in Tagalog.

Our task and mission is to be like Mary Magdalene, to proclaim the Lord is risen, to awaken everyone of the many surprising moments of God with us in Jesus which we have taken for granted.

Not every death is the same but all deaths are one in Jesus Christ – a grace, a blessing, a reminder of Easter, of our own resurrection. Now, right here.

With mommy’s death last year, now I have realized too why Jesus appeared first to women on Easter and that is because they, especially mothers have the most intimate link with us here on earth. The umblical cord is never cut off because mothers are the first to believe in their children, the first to believe in God that is why they are our first catechists too. Women and mothers especially are the most intimate persons that they have visions that go beyond sights, enabling them to be surprised most often. Has God ever surprised you in unexpected ways like Easter? Or death and loss? Amen.

*From Facebook, 04 April 2021: “There is an urgency to announce the Joy, the joy of the Risen Lord.”*

Good Friday is thirsting for God

Good Friday Reflection by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 18 April 2025

*Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches, QC, 17 March 2025.*

Twenty-seven years ago today, I was ordained as priest with my six other classmates at the Malolos Cathedral by Archbishop Rolando J. Tria-Tirona. I was 33 years old at that time (and less than 200 pounds in weight).

One thing prevailed in me on the eve of that most beautiful event in my life: Jesus Christ died on the Cross when he was 33 years old. Is my ordination my crucifixion too? Maybe. But due to the euphoria that followed after my ordination, I forgot all about it until I approached the age of 40 and my honeymoon stage in the priesthood waned with all the trials and difficulties – and crises – that followed.

It was at that time every year my birthdays and anniversaries came, I prayed only one thing from God – that I would have a more worry free year, that the following year would be a banner one for me. “Sana naman Lord ngayon ako naman ang panalo, ako naman ang bida, ayoko na sa ilalim ng gulong ng palad. Sana ako naman ang nasa itaas.”

God never heard my prayers. They never came. Actually, the opposite happened as I went through more trials, more difficulties, more pains and hurts that many nights in my prayers I felt like Jesus Christ crying on the Cross on that Good Friday, “I thirst” (John 19:28).

Many times in life, our prayers to God are cries like that of Jesus on the Cross, “I thirst.”

Those are the times we thirst for love and kindness, for care and understanding, sometimes the most simplest recognition as a person or a brother/sister or a friend from our family and friends.

This is the second time Jesus felt thirsty in the fourth gospel. The first time was when he asked the Samaritan woman for water at Jacob’s well where in fact, it was Christ who gave her the “living water” – himself – in the wonderful conversation that followed.

See that in the fourth gospel, water is one of the significant signs used by the evangelist to portray Jesus Christ like in his first miracle at the wedding at Cana when he turned water into wine. In his conversation with Nicodemus one night, Jesus spoke of the power of water in cleansing us into a new person in Baptism.

The thirst of Jesus Christ on that Good Friday on the Cross is also our thirst for love, for kindness, for faith, for life and for one another. And here is the mystery and paradox: that thirst can only quenched by Christ if we too remain in him, with him on the Cross. That is why after he head died, blood and water flowed from his side pierced with a lance by a soldier. All throughout his life, especially while on the Cross, Jesus never ceased from being good, from doing good, from loving us all, giving us even at his death life and love.

After 27 years as a priest now on my senior year, I have realized this as the only thing I desire most in life – Christ, the only water who can quench all my thirst as a person, as a priest. Life is love which is following Jesus on the Cross. To thirst for love is to desire more the Cross which is to love more the one Crucified, Jesus Christ.

The joy and meaning, the peace and fulfillment we long for in life, we thirst for always are found in the Cross, not in material things nor in fame and glory as the soldiers had mistaken on the Good Friday. Unfortunately, many of us are exactly like those Roman soldiers who give money and material things to those crying “I thirst” to us.

The Cross of Jesus Christ has always been described as a paradox. And that is really what the Cross is – a paradox and mystery of life at the same time.

When you are on the cross, like this sweltering summer, what is one thing you desire or cry for? Water, is it not?

It is during that time when we are on the Cross of intense pains and sufferings when we truly feel how valuable every drop of water is. It is when we are up against the wall when we realize the most important, the most essential in life like love found in persons who all enable us to feel God’s reality in his loving presence.

This Friday is called Good. The only Friday that is Good in the whole year because that is when we remember, when we make present again in our very lives our being one with Jesus at the Cross like the beloved disciple and his mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary when in our intense thirst, there we experienced the refreshing and life-giving living water Jesus Christ himself. This Good Friday as we reflect on the suffering and death of Jesus on the Cross, what is that one thing you also desire from God?

*Photo by author, National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, Valenzuela City, Good Friday 2025.*

We all thirst.

When we thirst, thank God because that means we desire him who is love himself. When we truly thirst like Jesus, that is when we too are on the Cross with him; then, you are at the right place at the right time because it is only on the cross can our thirst be truly quenched in Jesus. Let us follow him always in the Cross for that is what to be loving in the first place which is to be with the One who died on the Cross this Good Friday. Amen.

Lent is encountering Jesus

40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Fifth Sunday in Lent, Cycle C, 06 April 2025
Isaiah 43:16-21 + Philippians 3:8-14 + John 8:1-11

*Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate Main Chapel, 17 March 2025.*

Our gospel on this last Sunday in Lent is so similar in its beauty and simplicity -and drama – with last week’s parable of the prodigal son. In fact, some believe the style of the woman caught in adultery is very much like Luke but, let’s leave that to the experts.

On this beautiful Sunday, it is John’s turn to invite us to enter into the scene of his story set at the temple area shortly before the arrest of Jesus Christ.

Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. But early in the morning he arrived again in the temple area, and all the people started coming to him, and he sat down and taught them. Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle (John 8:1-3).

*Photo by author, Sacred Heart Novitiate, 17 March 2025.*

Try entering the scene. See the woman who most likely almost naked draped only in a piece of cloth as proof of her committing adultery. The Pharisees and the scribes were ganging up on her to Jesus whom they wanted to test, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?”

Imagine being there, standing close to Jesus and the woman. How would you feel? Would you be able to look at the woman straight on her face? Nah… seems not good. Perhaps, glance only as you feel also her pain and shame. But, can you look straight at the angry mob? Probably for a while with much fears and trepidation along with a deep anger within you cannot express.

Most likely, it is only at Jesus you can look intently and longer because he is not looking at you. Tensions were rising and Jesus simply bent down, writing something on the ground with his finger while the Pharisees and scribes raised up their attacks against him and the lowly woman standing listlessly, so embarrassed, so ashamed. Even in tears.

Recall those moments when we too were caught in the midst of an undeniable transgression like her or, simply being a witness, someone caught in between of another person without any way out of his/her predicament. It must be so dark. So scary. And shameful.

Then, the unexpected happened: But when they continued asking him, he (Jesus) straightened up and said to them, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he bent down and wrote on the ground. and in response, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders. So he was left alone with the woman before him (John 8:7-9).

Many times, we encounter Jesus in our most vulnerable situation when we let go of our guards so to speak.

It is one of the great ironies in life: when we are most vulnerable and weakest, that is when we are also most truest to our self. And that is when we truly grow and mature in life.

That is when we feel peace and joy and freedom within when we are left alone with Jesus still looking down, writing with his finger on the ground to give us more space literally and figuratively speaking. It is not that Jesus wants to shame us or whatever but simply wants us to be true as he has always been true to us, full of love and mercy. Most of all, with all of Christ’s humility in bending, that is when we finally admit the need for a Savior, the need to be converted in him.

We encounter Jesus when we disarm ourselves of our false securities and pretenses, masks and camouflages that all cover our sins. It is when we come face-to-face with our sinful self when we eventually meet Jesus face-to-face too because that is when we surrender in silence like the woman caught in adultery and the mob to some degree because all the charges against us are true.

See also that it is only the fourth gospel that Jesus is portrayed “bending” low – first here before the woman caught committing adultery and secondly at the washing of the feet of his Apostles at their Last Supper. How lovely is that sight to behold, dear friends! Imagine God bending before us, giving us like the sinful woman and the mob that space for us to confront our true self, to realize and accept the whole realities we are all interconnected in love.

Only the woman remained – like the eleven Apostles at the Last Supper – because she was the only one willing to change, probably sorrowful and contrite for her sins. Contrary to our fears, Jesus has only love and mercy, kindness and forgiveness to anyone contrite and sorrowful of one’s sin that so unlike with the people’s wrath and anger, judgment and condemnation. St. Augustine perfectly described that moment in today’s gospel, Relicti sunt duo; misera et miserecordia (Two were left; misery and mercy).

Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She replied, “No one, sir.” Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin anymore” (John 8:10-11).

*Stations of the Cross, Fatima University & Medical Center, Valenzuela City, 28 March 2025.*

We are now on the final Sunday of Lent. Next week will be the Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion that ushers in the Holy Week leading to the Sacred Triduum of Holy Thursday Evening, Good Friday and Easter Vigil and on to the Mother of all Feasts, Easter.

As we get closer to the holiest week of the year, our liturgy invites us to intensify our Lenten practices to be “conformed to Christ’s death” as St. Paul urged us in the second reading which opened with these beautiful confession:

“Brothers and sisters: I consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus as my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:8).

The pillars of Lent – prayer, fasting and alms-giving – aim to empty us of our very selves, of our pride and sins that all prevent us from encountering Jesus Christ always coming to us full of love and mercy. On this final stretch of Lent, are we ready to let go of ourselves and to let God?

Today, Jesus assures us of his love and forgiveness for our sins. The first reading tells us of God asking us to forget the events of the past. Just come home to him. And never leave him like the woman caught committing adultery. Amen. Have blessed week ahead.

*Stations of the Cross, College of Maritime Engineering, Our Lady of FatIma University, 28 March 2025.*

Lent is remaining true amid confusions

40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday, Fourth Week in Lent, 04 April 2025
Wisdom 2:1, 12-22     + + + + +     John 7:2, 10, 25-30

Life indeed is a daily Lent,
Lord Jesus: as we come to close
this fourth week in Lent while entering
its penultimate week, our readings
today show us the reality of life
that can be confusing sometimes.

Jesus moved about within Galilee; but he did not wish to travel in Judea, because the Jews were trying to kill him. But when his brothers had gone up to the feast (of the Tabernacle), he himself also went up, not openly but as it were in secret. Some of the inhabitants of Jerusalem said, “Is he not the one they are trying to kill? And look, he is speaking openly and they say nothing to him” (John 7:1, 10, 25, 26).

Of course,
you were never confused
Lord Jesus
but we your disciples
and almost everyone
including bystanders
are the ones confused:
you moved in secret but
everybody recognized you;
most of all,
threats never deterred you
from speaking what is true,
that the one who sent you
whom many do not know
is true (John 7:28).

The first reading
also gives us an impression
of confusion among peoples,
but never from God;
like what the author of the
Book of Wisdom had written,
the wicked are most confused
though pretending to know all,
plotting against the just
and the believers.

Confusions happen
in Lent
in life
when we refuse to
believe and trust in you,
Jesus;
confusions happen
in Lent
in life
when we disregard
you who is truth himself,
when we choose
not to love.

Teach us Jesus
that truth is not just
an object
an objective reality
of concurrence what is in our
mind and what is outside but
most of all
truth is a person,
when we accept you
wholly among those around
us especially the needy
and disadvantaged.
Amen.

Our golden calf

40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thursday, Fourth Week in Lent, 03 April 2025
Exodus 32:7-14     + + + + +     John 5:31-47

Forgive us, O God our
most merciful Father for 
being so stiff-necked like your
people in the wilderness;
forgive us for easily forgetting 
you and your wondrous deeds
in saving us;
forgive us, Father in turning away
from you so quickly,
when something else - 
our golden calf - 
became an object of desire that
felt greater than our desire for you;
many times, 
we are so attracted and easily
rejoiced in the lights of others 
not realizing of the more convincing 
light of your Son Jesus Christ.

Thank you, dear Father,
for your great mercy and 
abounding forgiveness to our
many and repeated sinfulness;
teach us also to be like Moses
interceding for others to relent in
their anger especially these days when
so many road rages are happening,
with each one trying to assert one's
power and superiority that leads
to senseless killing and lost of life
all because of adoration for our
many a golden calf.
Amen.

Lent is returning from exile

40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Wednesday, Fourth Week in Lent, 02 April 2025
Isaiah 49:8-15     + + + + +     John 5:17-30

*Photo by author, Nagsasa Cove, San Antonio, Zambales, August 2024.*

Thus says the Lord: In a time of favor I answer you, on the day of salvation I help you; and I have kept you and given you as a covenant to the people to restore the land and allot the desolate heritages… I will cut a road through all my mountains, and make my highways level… Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you (Isaiah 49:8, 11, 15).

Many times I find myself
like your people in exile, O God:
so far from you,
so far from home,
so far from my true self
all because of evil and sin,
of my refusal to love you
to love others
and worst,
my refusal to acknoledge
your love in me.

Like your people 
exiled for so long from
Israel not knowing the way
back, I too, am afraid at times
to come home;
this Lent, 
help me find my way back home
to you, Lord;
help me find my way back 
to you in prayers;
help me find my way back 
to you in finding you among
my brethren;
help me find my way back
to listening to you again
in Jesus Christ your Son
(John 5:24) so I may pass from
death to life.
Amen.

Lent is water

40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Tuesday, Fourth Week in Lent, 01 April 2025
Ezekiel 47:1-9, 12     + + +     John 5:1-16

Thank you dear Jesus
for the Lenten reminder of
our Baptism,
of the sign of water
in our faith
and in our lives;
Lent is water
that cleanses us,
refreshes us,
hydrates us to keep us
moving in your mission.

But what I like most,
dear Jesus is your healing
of the man seated at the pool
of Bethesda for 38 years -
like him, Jesus, I have been waiting
for healing,
for blessing,
for your coming!
Now you have come,
still many among us refuse 
to welcome you
nor accept you;
instead, they question your
healing on a sabbath
with others still shouting
for freedom for Barabbas.

How sad,
dear Jesus that until now
there are people who rejoice
with death and evil and sin;
cleanse those who rejoice
in all forms of killing
especially of the innocent
and young, of the poor
and disadvantaged;
cleanse us all in your waters,
Jesus so that like in the vision 
of Ezekiel, we may bloom too
as a nation close to God,
upholding life and justice
always.
Amen.

*Photo by author, Hidden Valley Spring Resort, Laguna, 20 February 2025.*

Lent is new beginning

40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Monday, Fourth Week in Lent, 31 March 2025
Isaiah 65:17-21     + + +     John 4:43-54

*Photo by author, sunrise at Taal Lake from Laurel, Batangas, 16 March 2025.*

Thus says the Lord: Lo, I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the things of the past shall not be remembered or come to mind. Instead, there shall always be rejoicing and happiness in what I create; For I create Jerusalem to be a joy and its people to be a delight (Isaiah 65:17-18).

Oh what a great joy
to listen to you, God 
our loving Father
this Monday promising us
of you creating new heavens
and new earth!

There is that great excitement always
in everything that is new -
a new home
a new job
a new relationship
a new destination
a new phone or car;
but Father, that is how we
look at everything new -
always outside of us;
this Lent,
turn us to look inside
our hearts,
into our very selves
as the new beginning;
let us be excited and joyful for
a new self
a new heart
a new attitude!
like that official from Capernaum
who begged Jesus to heal his son,
let us realize new heavens
and new earth begin
with a new me.
Amen.

*Photo by author, Atok, Benguet, 27 December 2024.*

“I Keep Forgettin’ (Everytime You’re Near)” by Michael McDonald

Lord My Chef Sunday Music by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 30 March 2025

*Photo by author, ceiling lights, Canyon Woods Resort, Batangas, 16 March 2025*

Glad to be back dear friends with our Sunday music featuring secular music that echoes the good news of Jesus Christ. So excited with today’s feature because it is by one of our favorite musicians, Michael McDonald.

McDonald is that most unique voice in many of Steely Dan’s hits in the early 70’s where he got recognized, thus becoming the most sought partner of other great artists like Christopher Cross before settling with the Doobie Brothers with their signature song What A Fool Believes.

After leaving the Doobies in the early 80’s, McDonald came up with his first solo album called If That’s What It Takes from which came out our featured song I Keep Forgettin’ in 1982.

I keep forgettin' we're not in love anymore
I keep forgettin' things will never be the same again
I keep forgettin' how you made that so clear
I keep forgettin'

Everytime you're near
Everytime I see you smile
Hear your "hello"
Saying you can only stay a while

And I know that it's hard for you
To say the things that we both know are true
But tell me how come

While praying over our beautiful gospel this fourth Sunday in Lent (Laetare or Rejoice Sunday), I could hear McDonald singing this lovely song at the back of my mind that became the inspiration for our Sunday homily:

We do not tell God and our family and friends that we don’t love them but our walking away from them tells that so clearly. However, as we refuse to love when we sin, that is also when we deny the love right in our hearts, that we cannot stop loving because whatever we take after we have left are actually the very love of God and of our family and friends!

There is nothing truly ours in this world and because of God’s Mystery, we never lose His gift of love within us that when things get worst in our lives, it is the same love that gives us the spark to hope and believe again. It was that love that the youngest son missed and realized despite all his dramas as he went home to his loving father just like us too (https://lordmychef.com/2025/03/29/mystery-of-god-mystery-of-sin/).

Can we really forget or delete permanently a love that is especially so true, so great? In the parable of the prodigal son heard in churches this Sunday, Jesus reminds us that every time we sin – that is, when we refuse to love – we deny His very love in our hearts that remains there, only to be recognized or rediscovered by us when we are down like the prodigal son. That love of God we keep denying eventually is the very same love that gives us the spark to hope and believe again when we realized the foolishness we have done with our sins.

In this song by McDonald, we are reminded too of the same truth: we cannot forget nor deny the love we have especially to a beloved sweetheart even if things do not turn out well, when we part ways because our relationship wouldn’t work. The love remains there, is it not? Most often, we simply mature in our perceptions and relationships and yes, love because that love remains there.

How much more with God’s love?

Now, imagine Jesus Chris singing this McDonald hit?

And yes, that’s how He feels for us: God “keeps forgettin’ we’re not in love anymore” when we sin and yet, He keeps blessing us. Because, God simply loves us so much that even if we refuse to love Him, He still loves us, waiting for us to return to him like the loving father in the parable of the prodigal son.

That is why – rightly – the Doobies got another hit called Jesus Is Alright With Me but that’s for another piece perhaps this Holy Week.

Here now is Michael McDonald in his first solo hit, I Keep Forgettin’…. have a blessed, rockin’ week ahead, everyone.

From YouTube.com

Mystery of God, mystery of sin

40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Fourth Sunday in Lent (Laetare Sunday), 30 March 2025
Joshua 5:9, 10-12 ++ 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 ++ Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

*Photo by author, Chapel of Angel of Peace, RISE Tower, Our Lady of Fatima Un iversity, Valenzuela, 28 March 2025.*

We enter the fourth Sunday in Lent today with shades of pink to “rejoice” not only because Easter is getting close but most of all for the joy of God’s immense love expressed in His mercy and forgiveness to us sinners.

Known as Laetare Sunday from the Latin entrance antiphon of the Mass calling us to “Rejoice!” as it is hoped that by this time, we feel nearer to God in our Lenten journey, having experienced His Mystery which our gospel presents today courtesy of Luke who invites us to enter the scene of the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Many times we find ourselves wrapped in God’s Mystery with a capital “M” while entangled too in that other mystery of sin with a small “m” as this parable shows us.

Tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus, but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So to them Jesus addressed this parable: “A man had two sons…” (Luke 15:1-3, 11).

Jesus came to make God closest to us as our breath. As a Mystery, God is neither a concept nor an idea we have to understand in order to have or grasp to be possessed. It is God Whom we let to possess and wrap us in His Mystery for He is totally transcendent yet so personal with each of us. We do not see Him but we feel and experience Him as all-encompassing like nature around us that can be so breath-taking and awesome yet cannot be totally captured even by cameras. God is like the presence of insects and birds in a forest we delightedly listen to but so difficult to find or see.

That’s God – all around us, all-encompassing. Unfortunately, we are like the youngest son, proud and feeling independent with the gall and guts to ask God for our share of everything to be on our own when we do not have anything at all.

And off we leave to live a prodigal life or “wasteful extravagance”, slaving ourselves for wealth and fame and power until we hit rock bottom when suddenly we find ourselves empty and lost, sick and even alone. That is when we remember to come “home”, to return to our roots where it all began who is God.

As we sank deep in despair, we find a glimmer of hope within us where God is, where God had never really left us, always awaiting our return right there in our heart. He has always been there though we never recognized Him. Actually, that very moment we realized we are down and out, that was when God immediately ran to meet us.

Now, that mystery with a small “m” called sin we hardly notice.

See again Luke as master storyteller in this lovely parable he alone has. See how Luke presents in a most subtle manner the mystery of sin not only as a breaking away from God and a violation of laws but a complete refusal to love.

Feel the youngest son in his asking for his share of inheritance from his father and his leaving home was not simply a breaking away but a refusal to love, a refusal to live, a refusal to be with the father.

That happens when we sin.

We do not tell God and our family and friends that we don’t love them but our walking away from them tells that so clearly. However, as we refuse to love when we sin, that is also when we deny the love right in our hearts, that we cannot stop loving because whatever we take after we have left are actually the very love of God and of our family and friends!

There is nothing truly ours in this world and because of God’s Mystery, we never lose His gift of love within us that when things get worst in our lives, it is the same love that gives us the spark to hope and believe again. It was that love that the youngest son missed and realized despite all his dramas as he went home to his loving father just like us too.

On the other hand, the parable presents to us too another pernicious effect of sin as a mystery which is its direct effect to our personality. As a refusal to love, sin has a direct effect to our personality because every time we sin we become a less loving person that is a contradiction of our identity and nature.

Its worst part happens when we take small sins for granted including the little decisions we make that do not seem to be evil or bad, even without any vice at all; notice how after sometime of repeatedly committing them, our personality is affected, making us a less loving person that eventually breaks out in the open and we freakout like the elder son or those people caught on cam doing all the crazy stuff in public.

He said to this father in reply, “Look, all these years I served you and not once did I disobey your orders; yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends. But when your son returns who swallowed up your property with prostitutes, for him you slaughter the fattened calf” (Luke 15:29-30).

How often have we made the excuse para yun lang naman? That a little lying or cheating once won’t really matter, asking ano ba masama doon? (what’s bad/wrong)? as an excuse for things that seem to be not bad or sinful at all.

Recall the first Sunday of Lent, the temptation of Jesus, of how the devil is always in the details, tempting us with that device of increments, of apportioning to little things the big evil things, not showing us the whole picture like fake news peddled by demons.

A sin is always a sin, a refusal to love. Period. Whether we go big time in sins like the youngest son or small time in sins like his elder brother, sin is clearly a refusal to love that greatly affects our personality, our lives and that of others.

We rejoice today for that great Mystery of God, of His immense love for each of us no matter how bad and how dark our sins are. God’s Mystery is His abounding love and mercy, forgiving our sins the moment we feel sorry for them.

He said to him, “My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours. But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found” (Luke 15:31-32).

As I turned 60 last Saturday, the overwhelming feeling I have had inside me is that deep gratitude to God’s love for me. Everything is grace that all the more I pray, “Lord you have given me with so much but I have given so little; teach me to give more of myself, more of your love, more of you to others.”

This time, I pray it with deeper conviction as I see both with joy and fear the bright horizon ahead with a distant shore beyond. There’s no more time to waste as St. Paul had noted in the second reading, I feel life now more definitive, that God is so undeniably real. Like St. Paul, “we are ambassadors for Christ” with the mission to help people “reconcile to God” especially in this final journey in life. God reminds us today that like during the time of Joshua in the first reading, the Eucharist is our new Passover where we thank God for His abounding love and mercy for us in this life and beyond. Amen.