God our loving Father, as we end this first week in Lent, teach us more on the need to be empty of ourselves, empty of our pride for us to be consistent and most especially, kind.
We have been so filled with the world that our hearts burn with anger and hate, totally disregarding reason and morals with so many parents still in grief, crying for their children mercilessly killed on mere suspicions while friends and neighbors even family are caught in a huge web of lies everyone believes; worst, everyone sees one's self being so right while others so wrong, even accusing you, O God, of being "unfair" like during the time of Ezekiel.
How sad in this age of boundless and instant communications, our world had shrunk into little worlds and galaxies of "me and mine and I"; teach us your way of kindness in Jesus so we may see everyone as a "kin" - a kindred, a one of us filled with goodwill for one another; remind us always, Jesus, that it is not enough that we do not just kill anyone but most of all has goodwill with everyone right in our hearts as a sign of true worship for it is only when we see each one as a kin that loving can begin consistently. Amen.
Photo by author, Northern Blossoms Farm, Atok, Benguet, 27 December 2024.
40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Thursday, First Week in Lent, 13 March 2025 Esther C:12, 14-16, 23-35 + + + Matthew 7:7-12
Jesus said to his disciples: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you shall find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8).
Today dear Jesus I pray for all those loved ones left behind by the thousands of people killed during the deadly war on drugs of the previous administration; thank you in answering our prayers and their prayers most especially that finally, justice has come for them and their loved ones.
Forgive me, Lord Jesus, if I ask, or wonder... surely, those people murdered without due process prayed too; what happened to their prayers?
Yes, I am sure, you answer every prayer but I wonder why people, especially the innocent and good ones usually young and helpless for various reasons have to die senselessly?
May we continue
to await your coming,
your answers
to our many
prayers;
may we have the courage
to obey you,
to do your will that
finally, we become our
brother and sister's keeper,
listening to their silent cries
in cold, dark nights of poverty
and indifference among us.
Thank you for clearly answering our prayers the other day, in granting us the same prayer of Queen Esther, of finally saving us from the hand of our enemies, of turning our mourning into gladness and our sorrows into wholeness (Esther 25).
We pray hard today, dear Jesus, that you soften the hearts of those people blinded by their power like the devil that tempted you to prove one's worth by doing everything even if they have to kill; open our eyes to see our worth in our being, in our personhood that never shall it happen again we fail to see you in one another. Amen.
*Photos used in collage taken during Duterte's deadly war on drugs by various photographers we pray for their courage in documenting the evils that pervaded during those years.
40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Wednesday, First Week in Lent, 12 March 2025 Jonah 3:1-10 + + + Luke 11:29-32
Photo by author, Timberland Highlands Resort, San Mateo, Rizal, 08 March 2025.
Fill me, O God, with wonder and awe for you like Jonah! Surprise me always of your goodness among your peoples; help me in my unbelief!
The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: “Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and announce to it the message that I will tell you.” So Jonah made ready and went to Nineveh, according to the Lord’s bidding. Now Nineveh was an enormously large city; it took three days to go through it. Jonah began his journey through the city, and had gone but a single day’s walk announcing, “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed,” when the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth (Jonah 3:1-5).
Loving God our Father, you are so great and awesome, more wide than the great city of Nineveh yet so mysterious that Jonah himself could not believe what he had seen: the people of Nineveh believed in you and repented a mere half day yet when he proclaimed your message to them!
Many times in life, we are like Jonah - very reluctant in following you, in obeying you because your ways are so different, even beyond comprehension yet so real; many times, we feel we know more than you know; most of all, most of the time, we insist our own even to you. Sorry, Lord.
Photo by author, Hidden Valley Springs Resort, Calauan, Laguna, 20 February 2025.
In this Season of Lent, banish our evil thoughts, banish the many reasons and explanations we have to open our minds and our hearts to your mysteries so we may read your many signs of presence and power, love and mercy for us even in this time in the world when it has become more difficult to believe in you due to modern trends, most especially of our own stubbornness; grant us that same disposition you gave Jonah who finally believed and obeyed you in doing your work in the way you want it done. Amen.
40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Tuesday, First Week in Lent, 11 March 2025 Isaiah 55:10-11 + + + Matthew 6:7-15
Photo by author, 10 March 2025.
How lovely, dear Jesus that every time I receive a plant or flower from anyone, automatically I offer them to you on my prayer altar; and here now, my newest plant "abloom" with my prayer today!
Thus says the Lord: Just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down and do not return there till they have watered the earth, making it fertile and fruitful, giving seed to him who sows and bread to him who eats, so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I send it (Isaiah 55:10-11).
Photo by author, 10 March 2025.
In a few days I am turning 60 years old and in a month, I shall have been a priest for 28 years; in all those years, Lord, it is prayer that has sustained me, that has nourished me, that has always been my life even many times I never knew it; you have nurtured me in prayers that at first was like a chore taught to me by my parents that later like a rain - sometimes an outpour, many times a drizzle, and most often just a dew to keep me moist.
Photo by author, 10 March 2025.
Keep me fertile like the soil, Jesus, and keep my leaves green even without flowers or fruit; just keep me soaked in your words, gently, subtly and intimately to quench my thirst for you, for meaning, for life that in the end, I come and open myself daily to God in your prayer, saying, "our Father". Amen.
40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Monday, First Week in Lent, 10 March 2025 Leviticus 19:1-2, 11-18 + + + Matthew 25:31-46
Photo by author, view of Metro Manila from balcony of Timberland Highlands Resort, San Mateo, Rizal, 08 March 2025.
Then the righteous will answer him and say, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?" (Matthew 25:37-39)
How I long and pray I would someday be asking this same question to you, Lord, totally surprised, wondering what happened when all I did was do something naturally as second nature, without much thinking and ado in being kind and charitable, in responding to anyone who is hungry or thirsty, stranger or naked, ill or in prison.
You are so great, dear Jesus in teaching us not to think of kindness and being Christian as a list to be kept and checked always but simply a way of life in doing what is right, what is good for we are all your kin in one God and Father who is Lord of all (first reading).
Photo by author, same view taken later that night,Timberland Highlands Resort, San Mateo, Rizal, 08 March 2025.
Then they (the accursed) will answer and say, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?" He will answer them, "Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me" (Matthew 25:44-45).
Forgive us, Jesus when our being Christian is more on duties and tasks like a code of ethics; teach us to be utterly different from others as your followers reflecting the Father and his love in a whole new way especially in this time when everyone seems to be so cold and numb even callous with others around them; animate us with your warm presence of joy and love to everyone for them to realize there is one true Lord God above all. Amen.
Photo by author, same view taken with different exposure,Timberland Highlands Resort, San Mateo, Rizal, 08 March 2025.
On this first Sunday in Lent, we find our Lord Jesus Christ led into the desert by the Holy Spirit after his baptism at Jordan for forty days to pray and later tempted by the devil. It is exactly the picture of our daily life wherein the closer we come to God, the more we strive to be good and holy, the more we are intensely tempted by the devil.
Indeed, life is a daily Lent of spiritual battles with the devil and as we enter the first Sunday of this 40-day journey, Jesus reminds us we too can overcome this temptations if we remain in God by taking into heart his words that give life.
Of course, Jesus was tempted by the devil not just thrice but many times until his crucifixion; however, turn your attention my dear friend to the first and third temptations that are very similar:
The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, One does not live by bread alone” ….. Then he led him to Jerusalem, made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written: He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you, and: With their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.” Jesus said to him in reply, “It also says, You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test” (Luke 4:3-4, 9-12).
In this scene that comes right after the baptism of Jesus at Jordan by John the Baptist, Luke wants us to see how the devil would always challenge the identity of Jesus Christ, “If you are the Son of God.”
Recall that after his baptism while praying, the heaven opened with the Holy Spirit descending on him in the form of a dove with a voice declaring “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Lk. 3:22). Everyday the devil tempts us too in that way, always challenging us with the same line, “if you are the Child of God, do this, do that” as if our identity is on doing than being.
In our baptism, we have become the beloved children of God in Christ which is our identity and being that is an inherent gift from God no one can take away which the devil works so hard to destroy. The devil’s devious line of challenging us “if you are the child of God” to prove ourselves by doing certain actions is designed to wear us off and eventually for us to self-destruct for not keeping up with the demands of the world and of others.
Our worth is not found in what we can do; we are worthy because God made us in his own image and likeness, giving us the unique identity as his beloved children in Jesus Christ. Even when we get old and sick in the future, not able to do anything worthwhile for the economy or the family, we remain worthy and valuable in God’s eyes.
Photo by author, Sakura Farm, Atok, Benguet, 27 December 2024.
Like Jesus we face intense spiritual battle with the devil daily, tempting us in various ways with desires for wealth and fame, power and pleasures. He tempts us in our personal and professional lives, in our relationships with God and with others, even with our very selves with long lists of things to do to prove our worth.
Remember, the devil tempts us not just to sin but ultimately to destroy our lives by separating us from our grounding, our root who is God our Father.
The devil’s dare to Jesus that “If you are the Son of God… turn this stone into bread” is echoed daily in our own temptations when the evil one through people aided by the consumerist culture ask us to prove our worth by doing many things without any regard to the values of life and human person, or the importance of virtues and spirituality.
When the devil repeated the same line of temptation to Jesus “If you are the Son of God… throw yourself down from the parapet of the temple”, the same trick is played on us by the world luring us to forget morals, to disregard traditions that in the process we already deny the value of life and persons by pushing the crazy, modern ideas of relativism and wokism.
How sad in this world today when everyday we are dared to prove our worth in doing not realizing that our worth remains even if we can’t do so much. That is why youth and strength are glorified while sickness, disability and old age are frowned upon these days simply because we can’t do as much, including life in its earliest and weakest stage in the mother’s womb. Our worth as a person is in our being, not doing.
It is so crazy that eventually we have replaced life with lifestyles, while persons are degraded as objects and commodities to be possessed than loved and cherished. In our desire to prove our worth with everything we can do and accomplish, we end up more empty and lost in the process, reduced to nothingness.
Now see the ways of Jesus which is the theme of Lent every year – conversion of sinners, a return to God our Father by trusting his words again as our source of life and being.
When Jesus answered the devil that man does not live by bread alone, the Lord is inviting us to have a more wholistic view on life, on those hidden and not seen, on the mysterious that makes us experience life more not just skin-deep but within no one can snatch nor steal. In a world so amazed with big, spectacular things, the truth remains that the most wonderful things in life are those found within our hearts and lips, those words that build and comfort us as St. Paul tells us in the second reading.
In the third temptation, Jesus thwarted the devil completely when he declared you must not put God to the test. It is a clear reminder for us to keep in mind always that we are the creatures not the creator, telling us all those vain attempts of playing God since time immemorial have gone to nothing.
We can’t just do anything nor everything in this world and in this life. All of the mysteries around us and within us are not meant to be solved but simply accepted and embraced, allowing ourselves to be wrapped in God to find him deep inside us that in itself a vast universe of beauty and majesty.
This is what Moses was telling the people in the wilderness as they prepared to enter the Promised Land. See how the first reading is like a dream sequence, of the many beautiful scenarios that could happen once they entered the Promised Land. Moses was telling his people and us today to be ready with God’s many surprises if we abide in him and trust him. No need to test God nor play God because we are all covered in God’s grace!
This first Sunday, Jesus invites us back to the wilderness of our lives to be still, to rest in God, to trust his words as we experience and appreciate our giftedness in him even if we can no longer move and do things because more than anything else in this world, each of us is precious in God’s sight and presence. Amen. Have a blessed week! Keep yourself hydrated this summer.
Photo by Dra. Mylene A. Santos, MD, somewhere in Palawan, 2023.
40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Friday after Ash Wednesday, 07 March 2025 Isaiah 58:1-9 + + + Matthew 9:14-15
Photo by author, Hidden Springs Valley Resort, Calauan, Laguna, 20 February 2025.
I love your words today, Lord God our Father through the Prophet Isaiah:
Thus says the Lord God: Cry out full-throatedand unsparingly, lift up your voice like a trumpet blast; tell my people their wickedness, and the house of Jacob their sins (Isaiah 58:1-9).
So strong was the word your great prophet had used, "full-throated" which is to express confidently, with strong feeling and without limit; to shout our loudly in no uncertain terms; to mince no words, to emphatically declare what it really is.
Photo by author, Hidden Springs Valley Resort, Calauan, Laguna, 20 February 2025.
O God forgive us, as a nation and as a church, as a community of your disciples for being so soft, so disturbingly quiet and selectively silent in denouncing injustice and abuses happening not only around us but even by those among us; we have been so lax, overly lenient, always trying to please everyone that we have forgotten to stand for you in Christ Jesus that so many among us your priests have abused your worship, your prayers, your liturgy.
Teach us to be like your tall trees, so magnificently imposing minus the pride and airs many of us exude; simply rooted and grounded in you, O Lord, firm and unshakeable, truly a presence in Christ.
Photo by author, Atok, Benguet, 27 December 2024.
Let us take the challenges of the Prophet Isaiah to see fasting not just as refraining from food and drink but about how our behavior affect others; let us empty ourselves first of the bonds of wickedness that bind us so that in our fasting we set the oppressed free by breaking every yoke (Is.58:6); let us be one with the hungry and homeless by realizing our nakedness in you, that more essential than food and things are those of the Spirit to experience you among the poor like the hungry and the homeless (Is.58:7); let us be your presence in this world by shouting full-throated not just with our voice but most especially with our actions and witnessing of your justice and love.
Loving Father, you have given us with so much and we have given so little if not nothing at all; teach us the essence of fasting which is to give more of ourselves with others and to give more of you and your love, and kindness, and mercy, and joy and life. Amen.
40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Thursday after Ash Wednesday, 06 March 2025 Deuteronomy 30:15-20 + Luke 9:22-25
Why always the Cross, Lord Jesus Christ? Many times I grapple not only with myself but especially with others at how to explain, what to tell them the need for your Cross when all in our lives has always been the cross. Even the simple act of choosing, of deciding is a cross.
And yet, we still foolishly choose death in the process by avoiding your Cross, Lord.
Moses said to the people: “Today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and doom” (Deuteronomy 30:15).
In this Season of Lent, let me appreciate anew the beauty and majesty, nobility and divinity of your Cross, Jesus; always looming in our lives is your Cross because that is where you are always found, that is where you stay most of the time to heal us, to forgive us, to save us. There is always the Cross in our lives because it is the direction to life, to fulfillment, to fruitfulness in you, Jesus who was the first to suffer and die on the Cross for us so we can have life. Let us carry our Cross to make that crossing into life in you. Amen.
40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Ash Wednesday, 05 March 2025 Joel 2:12-18 + 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2 + Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18
As we begin our 40-day journey to Easter this Season of Lent with Ash Wednesday, I pray only for one thing, dear Lord Jesus: let me find my way, my direction to you.
Rend my heart, Jesus: take away my pride and fill me with your humility, justice, and love; let me enter my heart more often these days to commune in you to be one with you as you dwell here in my heart.
Help me create a space for you, Jesus and for others I have taken for granted especially those who truly care for me, those at the margins those I avoid; let me be reconciled with you, Jesus beginning today a very acceptable time, a day of salvation in you.
May this ash on my forehead direct me to my origin and destination in the Father in heaven through you, Jesus, who suffered, died and rose again for me. Amen.
40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Ash Wednesday, 05 March 2025 Joel 2:12-18 ><}}}*> 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2 ><}}}*> Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18
Life is a daily Lent, a journey towards Easter.
We go through a pasch everyday like Jesus Christ’s Passion, Death and Resurrection when we “pass over” from sin into grace, from darkness into light, from death into life.
Life is a daily Lent because everyday, we go through an “exodus” from another day to the next new day, from sunset to sunrise. However, Lent as a journey is about direction, not destination. This we find clearly at the start of our 40-day journey of Lent with Ash Wednesday.
“Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God” (Joel 2:12-13).
It is strange that while Jesus Christ asked us in the gospel to “Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father” (Mt.6:1), what we are doing this Ash Wednesday is exactly the opposite!
Alam na this… that if you meet anyone with ashes on his/her forehead, definitely he/she is a Catholic who had gone to Mass or at least had observed Ash Wednesday.
There are some who would surely be teased by friends as being too serious as they practice abstinence by avoiding meat today and on Fridays this Lent. Most likely too, many would be giving alms today in the collections for the poor in the parishes all because for the reason it is Ash Wednesday.
These three pillars of Lent – prayer, fasting and alms-giving are not only meant for this Season that lasts only for 40 days but something we are hoped to practice the whole year through until we are slowly transformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ.
The purpose of Jesus in asking us in the gospel to do these all in secret is to avoid falling into the trap of the people of His time who flaunted to everyone their prayer, fasting and alms-giving, forgetting God in the process because focus had been on them. And yes, it continues among us that we have religiosity without spirituality, devotion without evangelization.
Moreover, to practice these in secret is actually to enter into our very selves, into our hearts where God dwells, where we meet Him personally.
Our Lenten journey becomes a direction when we take it into our hearts, when we open and rend our hearts to let Jesus come and dwell within by letting Him empty us of our pride to be filled with His humility, justice and love.
Lent then becomes a direction leading us not only to daily Easter but ultimately to our eternal salvation not just in heaven or any “place” but to be one with the Person of God Himself and the persons along the way we shall meet with whom we are called by Christ to be one with in Him.
Therefore, Lent as a direction is an inner transformation as companions in Christ.
In this age of WAZE and GPS, we can easily seek directions to a particular destination. Problem with being focused more on destination is we miss the fun and adventure of every journey. When we reach our destination, what do we do?
We cross out from our list of travel goals every destination that we make and start looking for new places to visit until we have been to every place on earth that we plan to visit the Moon and Mars next! Eventually we get tired with travels and after covering so many distances and destination, we still feel lacking and incomplete. There is no more destination to go to that we confront ourselves with the existential question, is this really what I need most in life? Is this all?
To see life more as a direction means to find its meaning in God that we keep on maturing, we keep on sustaining our journey in Him and with Him. It does not matter wherever He leads me or where I go or stay because what matters most is I am in and with God.
Lent is entering God in and through Jesus Christ. It is going back to Him, staying in Him and with Him in love. This is the reason why we fast, we empty ourselves even our sights and other senses so that we become more sensitive to God’s presence. There are no flowers, no decors, no Alleluia, no Gloria in the church and liturgy. Everything is bare essential so we are not distracted in finding and following God right in our hearts.
Recall the first time you truly fell in love, when truly loved that you literally see and hear even smell your beloved everywhere and in everyone. You always thought it is your beloved whom you saw walking or speaking somewhere but it wasn’t really she! Akala mo lang…
When we truly love, the time and place are not important because all we have are the here and the now together.
Oh how easy to say we love God or somebody! But if we try to probe deeper into ourselves, we find that we have not truly loved God or anyone that much because in many instances, we always prevail over them. We choose our own will than God’s or our beloved’s.
That is when we sin as we turn away from God and our beloved. To sin is not just to break laws and turn away from God and our beloved but ultimately a refusal to love which is actually losing one’s direction in life.
Lent is the wonderful season of finding again our direction in life, our true love, God. Love needs no justifications. And we can only love persons, not things. Hence the need for oneness, for reconciliation as St. Paul asked us in the second reading to be “reconciled with God” (2 Cor.5:20).
Working together, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says: In an acceptable time I heard you, and on the day of salvation I helped you. Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:1-2).
Now is the best time to find our life direction in God in our personal and communal worship and practices this Lent. When you find your direction, you find God, yourself and others. And that is when you find joy and peace which is Easter, the direction of every Lent and life. Amen.
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