Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul, 29 July 2025 Tuesday, Memorial of Sts. Martha, Mary and Lazarus, Siblings 1 John 4:7-16 <'[[[[>< + ><]]]]'> John 11:19-27
“The Raising of Lazarus”, 1311 painting by Duccio de Buoninsegna from commons.wikimedia.org
What a beautiful reminder to us, dear Jesus on this day as we celebrate the Memorial of the Holy Siblings Saints Martha, Mary and Lazarus: the only time they are presented as one and complete was during the raising of Lazarus; you were there in their most sorrowful moment in life as brother and sisters because you have always been there with them in good times when they were all alive and well.
I pray, dear Jesus, for all siblings like Saints Martha, Mary and Lazarus to remain one as a family after their parents have been gone; so many times in such deep sorrow, we are like Martha telling you Lord, "if you had been here my brother - or sister or parents -would not have died" (John 11:21); but, your response to her and to us was so rich in meaning we can only summarize in love, "your brother will rise... I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and anyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:23, 25-26)
Help me believe like Martha, Jesus; help me believe by being more loving and caring with my family while still alive and well; help me believe by being more understanding and forgiving, more kind and sensitive with my brother or sister while still alive; please help, Jesus the siblings at odds with each other, not talking with each other, grouping together against each other because of betrayals and dishonesty in their share of inheritance; help them seek your face to be more just and loving because "love is of God" (1 John 4:7); let siblings be like Saints Martha, Mary and Lazarus be one in you, Jesus in faith, hope and love while still alive so that in their death they remain one in you. Amen.
Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Our Lady of Fatima University Valenzuela City (lordmychef@gmail.com)
An icon of Jesus visiting his friends, the siblings Sts. Lazarus, Mary and Martha. Photo from crossroadsinitiative.com.
Lord My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, Cycle C, 01 June 2025 Acts 1:1-11 ><}}}}*> Hebrews 9:24-28;10:19-23 ><}}}}*> Luke 24:46-53
Photo by author, Atok, Benguet, 26 December 2025.
We all have experienced dreams so real where we met friends and relatives even strangers that we described as “totoong-totoo” that we woke up crying or simply joyful and feeling so light. The clothes even the scent and ambiance were so real that we tried going back to sleep to continue the dream!
This is what we call as the dynamic of “presence in absence” when loved ones long dead or gone or simply far from us we still feel near and close too. It is the same familiar kind of relationship that we have with God whom we feel also as too near yet so far like what Luke described to us in the Ascension of Jesus Christ:
As he blessed them he parted from them and was taken up to heaven. They did him homage and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple praising God (Luke 24:51-53).
Photo by Mr. Sean Pleta in Melbourne, March 2015.
When Luke said that Jesus “As he blessed them he parted from them and was taken up to heaven”, he was describing to us Christ’s new and higher kind of relationship with all his disciples that include us today.
Jesus did not merely enter a physical reality that the author of the Letter to the Hebrews tells us in the second reading; he actually entered into a new level of relationship with us and everyone. This “leveling up” in our relationships that no longer require physical presence is the dynamic of presence in absence. We don’t have to be physically present because there are deeper ties that bind us with God and with others, both the living and the dead.
Recall how since Easter we have been reflecting on this aspect of new level of relationship with Jesus who told Mary Magdalene at their first meeting to “touch me not” because of the need for a higher level of relating with him no longer bound by time and space. This Jesus showed when on the evening of Easter he entered the locked doors where the disciples were hiding. And Luke tells us that beautiful account of Jesus walking to Emmaus with two disciples who did not recognize him but upon reaching home after the breaking of bread, the two disciples recognized Jesus who immediately disappeared from their side. It was always a case of presence in absence!
Note also that in all appearances of Jesus after Easter to his disciples, there was always joy that continued even after his Ascension when “they returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple praising God.” Normally, there is sadness after every separation and goodbye. But not with the disciples of Jesus including us!
How can you explain that even if Jesus does not seem to answer our prayers, we just keep on praying to him? Why do we remain in Jesus despite his apparent absence? That’s because deep in our hearts we are certainly sure he is always with us, that he loves us so much, that eventually, he will answer our prayers though he does answer our prayers always but not in the way we wanted it to be.
That is why we need to make that effort to deepen and cultivate our relationship with Jesus to always see his presence in his absence like what the angel told the disciples in the first reading after his Ascension, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven” (Acts 1:11).
Do not look up or anywhere but look inside our hearts where Jesus dwells as he had told us last Sunday if we keep his words and love one another. We need to level up in our relationship with God through prayers and good works.
We need to see more with our heart than with our eyes because the deepest truths and realities in life are seen with the heart and soul. The ancient Persian sage and poet Rumi said it so beautifully, “Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul, there is no such thing as separation.”
Since Easter, we have been reflecting on the profound difference of Christ’s Resurrection with his birth on Christmas filled with external signs and symbols. Easter is characterized by absence like darkness and emptiness where we find the presence of Jesus and his light.
This presence in absence is also the reality we have in those we refer to as “low-maintenance” friendships where we have some people who do not demand anything from us nor we demand much from them. We meet when time allows and chat once in a while yet we remain the bestest friends because of the love and respect we have for each other. Basta, alam na this!
That is also the reality of our relationship with God. Do we experience the same joys in his presence in absence? Are we at home with our relationship with Christ found in darkness and emptiness, present in his apparent absence? Let us pray:
Lord Jesus, let us rise up in our relationships with you with others; let us be more loving and faithful, kind and understanding, fair and just even without seeing you and one another. Amen.
Photo by author, Anvaya Cove and Resort, Morong, Bataan, 25 May 2023.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 28 May 2025
Photo by author, Cota da Cabo, Pundaquit, San Antonio, Zambales, 15 May 2025.
Salamuch for the very positive response to our blog Praying to “do no harm” where we underscored the need for more sensitivity among us to be able to respond to those being pushed to the limits in life (https://lordmychef.com/2025/05/27/praying-to-do-no-harm/) .
Sensitivity is the condition of a person (or thing) being sensitive that in the positive sense means someone who is quick to detect and appreciate other’s feelings while in the negative sense, one who is easily hurt or delicately affected by other’s feelings and attitudes.
For this sharing, we refer to the positive sense of the need for sensitivity especially in these days when it has become more of a rarity as more and more people seem to becoming numb and even callous. It is maybe a sign that points to one reality we have been seeing but refused to acknowledge these years – the dwindling number of people praying these days.
Prayer is more than reciting certain formal prayers we have learned by heart since childhood or reading novena prayers to a host of our devotions and practices. Prayer is primarily a relationship we keep with God. We pray because we love God.
Photo by author, Cota da Cabo, Pundaquit, San Antonio, Zambales, 15 May 2025.
This is the reason that in prayer, it does not really matter we are able to say or tell God everything because He knows them so well even before we asked Him (Mt.6:8). What really matters most in prayer as St. John Paul II used to say is that we are able to hear and listen to what God wants from us. That we surely do not know at all that is why we need to pray.
Just like in our relationships with others when we simply have to be sensitive with their presence when each one’s presence is more than enough. Or in fact, is everything!
When we pray more and cultivate a prayer life – a relationship with God – it is our sensitivity that is most heightened. The more we become sensitive of our ourselves and surroundings, we become more aware of God’s presence in us and among us. The more we become sensitive of ourselves and of God, then, we become sensitive of others too. Then our relationship with God flows naturally into our relationship with others which becomes the fruit of our prayers: have we become more kind and understanding, more loving and forgiving, more just?
Another beautiful thing with prayer that heightens our sensitivity is the gift of being proactive when we are able to “predict” the future without really predicting it! Our Filipino expression of magdilang-anghel says it so well that whatever we say happens or turns out to be true because we can feel everything and everyone with our heightened sensitivity.
Photo by author, Cathedral of St. Catherine of Alexandria, Dumaguete City, 07 November 2024.
Prayerful people are always sensitive in the positive sense. They are the ones most in touch with the realities of life, literally and figuratively speaking. They are always “present” like God who calls Himself “I AM WHO AM” – the perfectly present. Without sensitivity, there can be no presence at all.
See how kids these days do not mind at all nor pay respects or at least recognize anyone – whether family member or guests – when they are engrossed in their computer games or watching movies or simply scrolling their cellphones. Sorry as I find many of these kids are growing disrespectful as in, bastos.
Experts have long been warning us of the dire effects especially to children of these gadgets and social media itself that make us insensitive, numb and callous practically with the world around us.
How sad and sickening to see young people literally so absorbed and immersed as in subsob in their cellphones, wired with those pods stuck in their ears living in a world of their own, unmindful of the sounds and commotion, of the people and everything happening around them.
Going back to that beautiful scene after an earthquake shook the prison cell of Paul and Silas in yesterday’s first reading, see how the apostle’s sensitivity and presence saved and converted their jailer.
The crowd in Philippi joined in the attack on Paul and Silas… After inflicting many blows on them, they threw them into prison and instructed the jailer to guard them securely. About midnight… there was suddenly such a severe earthquake… When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, thinking that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted out in a loud voice, “Do no harm to yourself; we are all here” (Acts 16:22, 23, 25, 26, 27-28).
Speaking of earthquake, I just found it quite amusing how some students did not feel at all the “jolt” when the 5.1 earthquake struck us before noon yesterday. After we have evacuated our building, I met some students who were laughing at themselves to have not felt at all the earthquake, saying they were caught by surprise when the alarm went off that signaled the evacuation.
Sorry and please excuse us as this may be extending too much the earthquake this noon but, it isn’t funny anymore when we are jolted by news of some people we hardly know taking their lives for various reasons. We wonder and even search our souls wondering what happened they “harmed” themselves until we realize that partly because, we were not there at all when they most needed us.
Photo by author, Cota da Cabo, Pundaquit, San Antonio, Zambales, 14 May 2025.
This is why we need to recover our vanishing sensitivity through prayers to be aware, to notice and feel others around us, especially those silently screaming for help when many are so absorbed in their own little worlds. Every time we become sensitive of God’s presence and reality, we become sensitive of ourselves and of others too. Let us pray:
Forgive us, Jesus for being far from those in pain and sufferings, for being insensitive to those crying in silence, for being indifferent to the realities of mental health and total well-being of everyone.
Give us a chance, Jesus to be like Paul and Silas of saving one life from doing no harm to one's self by first being sensitive to your presence in prayers because the more we pray, the more we become sensitive of you and of others. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Friday After the Epiphany, 10 January 2025 1 John 5:5-13 ><))))*> + ><))))*> + ><))))*> Luke 5:12-16
Photo by author, Atok, Benguet, 27 December 2025.
(Hello my dear friends and relatives, especially followers: still, a blessed Merry Christmas to you all! I have gone to an extended vacation for much needed rest and recreation; haven’t been writing at all to truly enjoy the rare cold weather and new sites I have been to. See you soon and God bless you always!)
How fast time flies, Lord Jesus! It is again the new year and soon, January will be over; as I look back to 2024, You were always there with me, for me, as You never left me, Lord; like in our gospel today, many times You made ways to meet me head on, dear Jesus; how lovely to remember and to keep in mind and heart how You, dear Jesus, would echo my prayers, my silent wishes and desires.
It happened there was a man full of leprosy in one of the towns where Jesus was; and when he saw Jesus, he fell prostrate, pleaded to him, and said, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.” Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, “I do will it. Be made clean.” And the leprosy left him immediately (Luke 5:12-13).
Many times, I meet You Jesus when I am most dirty, most embarrassing, most shameful, when I am like a leper - sick and lost, rejected by everyone, dejected in myself; still, You were there with your outstretched arms, touching me, embracing me.
Most of all, echoing my very words, my silent wishes, my cries.
When You echo my words, my thoughts and my feelings that many times I am afraid to speak out loudly, I feel so free and liberated from my own leprosy; when You echo my words, You assure me You always listen; when You echo my words, You answer my prayers, dear Jesus.
And so, I pray today Jesus that in my very self I may echo Your loving presence to those most in need, to those forgotten and taken for granted. Amen.
Photo by author, Northern Blossom Farm, Atok, Benguet, 27 December 2024.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Thursday, Memorial of St. Cyril, Bishop & Doctor of the Church, 27 June 2024 2 Kings 24:8-17 <*((((><< + >><))))*> Matthew 7:21-29
Photo by Ms. Analyn Dela Torre, March 2024.
God our loving Father, help us find You where we are now - especially those feeling so down at the bottom of the pits, those who are burdened with so much in life - help us find You O Lord in our darkness and sadness not where we would like to be.
It is a very beautiful day but your words in the first reading are very distressing like what many of us today are feeling; we have failed, we have sinned like the people of Judah and Jerusalem who were conquered and exiled by the Babylonians; it is the final week June, closing the first half of 2024 when life slows down, when tasks seem too difficult, when our spirits are also sagging; uplift our weary souls, inspire us and fill us with the warmth and zeal of the Holy Spirit to find You, dear God, where we are and let us stop our usual blaming game and wishful thinking of worlds and situations we imagined where You are not present.
Give us the courage like Jesus to speak with authority like St. Cyril of Alexandria who defended the truth of Christ as true God and true Man that paved the way to recognize Mary as the Mother of God; like St. Cyril of Alexandria, let us mean mean what we say, most of all, to be one with Jesus always among the poor and rejected and neglected for Jesus is always found among them. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 28 April 2024
Photo by author, somewhere in Bgy. Kaysuyo, Alfonso, Cavite, 27 April 2024.
It is a “frying Sunday” as heat index rose to over 40 degrees today and there’s no stopping at temperature rising in this final week of April. And so, we offer you this Sunday one of the coolest music we have grown up with courtesy of Ms. Carole King.
From her beautiful Tapestry album released in 1971, we find So Far Away perfectly expressing the essence of Jesus Christ’s call for us to remain in him, our true vine:
To remain is more than physical like to stay. A branch remaining, staying intact with the vine but had turned yellow and dried up is clearly not one with the vine. We can be inside the church but be detached with everyone and the celebration. We may be staying or residing in the same address and home but our heart and very self may be so far away from our siblings or parents, or from your wife or husband.
Remaining implies something more than physical presence. To remain is to have a relationship, a bonding that is deep and intimate. To remain is to be of one heart as GMA7 claims to be a kapuso which is more important than being a kapamilya or a kapatid. There is no sense of being a family (kapamilya) when there is no love in the family or at the other hand, a sibling (kapatid) is nothing if the brother or sister is your enemy. We remain with God and everyone when our hearts are attuned or inclined to God and with others in love which is the fruit of the vine, Jesus Christ.
So Far Away is a gospel in itself about love which is about oneness. Even if we are apart – temporarily or eternally – for as long as we have that communion and bonding of our hearts, that love will always be truly felt. Perhaps, one reason for the saying “absence makes the heart grow fonder” when lovers are apart. Remaining and presence are more than physical but a bonding of the hearts that Ms. King beautifully sings to us in her classic So Far Away:
So far away Doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore? It would be so fine to see your face at my door Doesn’t help to know you’re just time away Long ago, I reached for you and there you stood Holding you again could only do me good How I wish I could, but you’re so far away
One more song about movin’ along the highway Can’t say much of anything that’s new If I could only work this life out my way I’d rather spend it bein’ close to you
In this age of modern communications, how ironic that we are brought closer with those so far from us by distance but have caused us too to be distant from those nearest to us. The Risen Jesus Christ tells us this Sunday that being close, remaining in love happens even without seeing the other person for as long as our heart is attuned with the one we love. What really happens is that for as long we keep that love in our hearts, even if our beloved is gone or far from us, the more we experience his/her presence in their absence.
Let Ms. Carole King bring back those loving moments we had.
40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Monday in the Fourth Week of Lent, 11 March 2024 Isaiah 65:17-21 ><)))))*> + <*(((((>< John 4:43-54
Photo by author, September 2020.
God our Father, you are so amazing! You never fail to surprise us, never runs out of mysteries that convey deep truths so difficult to dissect and understand but just enough to be experienced and savored to be delighted again and again when remembered and realized like when you said through the Prophet Isaiah:
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 delight.
Isaiah 65:17-18
Later, John the Beloved in his Book of Revelation linked this idea of new heaven and new earth with the new Jerusalem (Rev. 21:1-2) with both passages speaking of a world free of pain and sickness, no weeping nor wailing with no kids dying before their time and no one living below 100 years old. Wonderful!
Of course, your words are symbolic though we are sure it would literally happen some day; but what we are sure now is how your words have paved the way for the coming of Jesus Christ who bridged the gaps among us; in Jesus Christ, the reality of physics is experienced daily like in that remote healing of a royal official's son in Capernaum.
Our loving Father, we do not expect to live lives without pain, sickness, or tragedy even though we wish that so often; grant us the grace to remain committed to Jesus and his Way of the Cross to experience the peace only he can give for he is always NOW HERE, present in us and among us when so often we are NOWHERE by his side.
Let us remain in you, O Lord, let us stay with you, in you, even if nothing seems to happen because that is when our faith and trust in you are deepened like with that royal official. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thursday in the Fourth Week of Easter, 04 May 2023
Acts 13:13-25 ><}}}*> + ><}}}*> + ><}}}*> John13:16-20
O Lord Jesus Christ,
how lovely that you taught
us how to lovingly serve you in
others by washing the feet
of your disciples to show
that service is in the context
of a table gathering,
of a meal of family
and friends.
When Jesus had washed the disciples’ feet, he said to them: “Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master not any messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it.”
John 13:16-17
Service which is
ministerium or ministry
in Latin and diakonia in
Greek both connote
"table service",
serving in one's little
way at home (oikos),
an expression of your "dwelling"
Lord Jesus in the Father
and of your "dwelling" in us,
of our "dwelling" in God in you
with others;
how lovely, indeed,
that serving is directly
related with the table found
in home or dwelling so that,
therefore, to serve means to be
at home, to dwell in God,
to dwell with others in Christ;
furthermore, service is
to be rooted
in our home,
in our family
who is God himself
ultimately as St. Paul
explained today in the
first reading!
Help us realize this,
Lord Jesus, that to serve
is not to do something so big
for others, something so
spectacular for everyone to see;
to serve is simply to be present
with our loved ones, with others
in facing life's so many challenges;
to serve, O Lord, is to continually
dwell in you,
to find and recognize you
in each other as your
indwelling, your home
who must be respected
and honored as a person,
a brother and a sister
in you; being present
with another is service
in itself.
Of what use are all
our efforts in serving
those far if we cannot
even look at those near us
in their eyes
to recognize them
as your indwelling too?
Let us be at home in you
and with you, Jesus,
so we may be at home too
with others.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Simbang Gabi Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Tuesday in the Fourth Week of Advent, Fifth Day of Christmas Novena, 20 December 2022
Isaiah 7:10-14 ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> Luke 1:26-38
Photo by Mr. John Ryan Jacob, 19 December 2022.
I have stopped listening to Christmas carols and music long before the COVID-19 pandemic came. During that time, especially with the sudden spread of Christmas countdowns and early playing of Christmas music, I felt it as the high point of commercialization and trivialization of this blessed celebration.
But when the pandemic came in 2020, I began appreciating Christmas carols again as I longed for something to cheer me up on those days of lockdown. Unfortunately, I never had the time to make a Christmas playlist that as I drive to my Simbang Gabi Masses since last week, I have never sang nor hummed Christmas carols. All I have in my car stereo are my secular music playlist that surprisingly conveyed the Christmas messages of love and faith, family and friends, life and death.
That is the power of music which transcends seasons and celebrations like this old favorite by Don McLean, the Birthday Song which is about his intense experience of love with a lost loved one.
You see I love the way you love me
I love the way you smile at me
I love the way we live this life we're in...
I don't believe in magic but I do believe in you
And when you say you believe in me
There's so much magic I can do
Okay. Call me cheesy. And old.
But what McLean sings is very true. It is like Christmas with its “magical” powers and beauty! What I mean here in the word “magical” to describe Christmas is the sense that it is indeed an event, a reality that happened and continues to happen among us only if we allow the Divine power of God to overshadow us.
If you try to listen to this song, it speaks of an intense love relationship that not even death could separate. McLean claims in his song that his experience was too deep for words. Difficult to express.
Like in the experience of Mary, the Blessed Virgin Mother.
But Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” And the angel said to her in reply, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.”
Luke 1:34-35
Photo by author, Nazareth, Israel, 2019.
Luke’s choice of the word “overshadowing” evokes a strong sense of power from God, of his personal intervention into humanity. The eternal God entering the temporal. It is something so powerful to show that contrary to usual human thought that God remains in the spiritual realm, here Luke shows us that God is God indeed – omnipotent, all powerful!
The Protestant theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968) said there are two moments in the life of Jesus that God intervenes directly in the material world: his virginal birth and his resurrection in which Jesus saw no corruption at all. These are totally unacceptable to modern minds because they believe God is concerned only with spiritual things, that God acts only in the spiritual world, not in the material world.
Such kind of thinking is so prevalent among many people these days, and, unfortunately, even among those who profess to believe in God!
When the angel told Mary that the Holy Spirit will come upon her, and the power of the Most High will overshadow her, it meant God personally acting in her, coming to her which she totally welcomed with her fiat.
Photo by author, Nazareth, Israel, 2019.
To be overshadowed by God the Most High means a deep intense presence of the Holy One which is a favorite theme of Luke especially in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. It is the power of Jesus in the Holy Spirit acting and moving through the apostles that made Jesus so present even if he had ascended into heaven.
Moreover, to overshadowed by God is also deep and transforming divine presence in Mary wherein in her cooperation, the entire human history was radically altered which until now is felt worldwide with our celebration of Christmas itself which the world unfortunately tries to relegate to mere holiday by removing Christ himself.
Unlike in the case of the annunciation of John’s birth to Zechariah yesterday, Mary is here presented as totally absorbed with the event, with her conversation with the angel, God’s messenger. She was totally aware of everything, very present before God, sincere and true. Recall that Zechariah angered the angel yesterday because he challenged God – who else could convince him of the good news if he still refused to believe God had answered their prayers with the angel already in front of him?
Worst was King Ahaz in the first reading who entered into alliance with neighboring kingdoms of Israel while at the same time signing a secret pact with their common enemy, Assyria just to be sure they would not be invaded and conquered. That angered God and eventually led to Israel’s downfall.
But that did not stop God in involving himself with us and human history with Isaiah’s prophecy of the coming Messiah or Emmanuel, Jesus Christ who is the God-with-us.
When Isaiah prophesied to King Ahaz about “the child to be born by a virgin”, it was not just meant for the people of Israel at that time about 700 years before Christ’s coming but also for all of us in this time. Isaiah’s prophecy was for all of us to realize that indeed, God had already come, the Virgin had given birth to the Messiah that began the personal entry of God into us, his direct involvement in our lives so that it would finally lead us to fulfillment in him.
This prophecy that had been fulfilled in Jesus through Mary should convince us once and for all that God is true and truly among us.
Like Mary, are we personally engaging with God in Jesus, through Jesus?
If we can just create that sacred space within us to allow Jesus be born right in our hearts, to speak his words of love and belief in us, we could do so many great things like Mary in this world. Or, like Don McLean in his song. Let us pray:
Lord Jesus Christ,
let me feel your presence in me
like Mary your Mother;
let me believe in your presence,
let me listen to your voice,
to your affirmations
so that I may start living in you,
in your presence,
in your love,
in your kindness.
May I be a sign of your
intense presence in this world
that have relegated you in the clouds
and world of ideas and spirits;
let me be a sign of your transforming presence
in this world that badly needs
healing and mercy,
forgiveness and kindness,
comfort and consolation
amid the many confusions
that keep us all apart from one another
and from you, our Lord and God,
our grounding and destiny.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
First Sunday of Advent-A, 27 November 2022
Isaiah 2:1-5 ><}}}}*> Romans 13:11-14 ><}}}}*> Matthew 24:37-44
Photo by author, November 2022.
A blessed happy new year to everyone!
Yes, our new year in the Church begins this Saturday evening as we usher Advent Season, the four Sundays before Christmas which also falls on a Sunday this year. What a truly blessed Christmas we are having this year since COVID-19 came in 2020. For the first time in two years, we are celebrating Christmas face-to-face which is the essence of the event when the Son of God became human like us in everything except sin so we may experience God in person!
Like a light piercing through the darkness of the night – here and today – we experience Jesus Christ’s coming to us this Christmas 2022 most true that his call in the gospel is so appropriate especially at this time.
Jesus said to his disciples: “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. They did not know until the flood came and carried them all away. So will it be also at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be out in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken, and one will be left. Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your day will come.
Matthew 24:37, 39-42
Photo by author, November 2022.
“Therefore, stay awake!”
Staying awake does not mean not going to sleep. In fact, for us to be awake, we have to sleep and be fully rested always to be awake and alert whether at night or at day.
That is why Advent is a sabbath, a day of the Lord when we pause to rest and allow God to fill us with his breath and spirit so we may be more attuned with Christ’s coming.
To rest in Filipino is “magpahinga” that literally means to be breathed on. Sabbath as a day of rest is to be breathed on by God, “magpahinga sa Diyos, mahingahan ng Diyos”. Unless we are filled with the breath of God, with his spirit, we will never experience Christ’s coming to us this Advent nor this Christmas nor at any time.
This is the whole point of Christ’s teaching today. Advent is an invitation for us to examine and review our attitudes to life, to God, and to others. Like in the gospel, Jesus reminds us how we conduct ourselves in this life, of being attuned to the Holy Spirit, lest “one is taken and the other one will be left”.
Life has been so difficult for everyone these past two years. Some of us have lost a loved one or relatives and friends to COVID. Many have lost their businesses or career and many other opportunities in life. And sadly, there are others who have lost or wounded and bruised relationships too.
But, have we also lost ourselves that in the process lost God too that we have lost all sense of decency and kindness with one another?
Photo by author, November 2022.
The other day, a former classmate suddenly texted me, saying hi and asking when she and her husband may visit me. Such messages coming out of the blue from anyone – especially her – make me wonder what’s wrong? What’s her problem this time?
She said she just wanted to keep in touch, reminding me how she has always been grateful for my help and prayers. However, she insisted that if we can’t meet, can I send her a prayer via text message because according to her, my prayers and blessings have “magic” as they always come true considering her prospering business and finally, her youngest child about to finish medicine.
I did not answer her until afternoon by sending her a prayer she had requested. And a reminder to her that my prayers have no magic powers nor lucky charms. I told her, “you are blessed abundantly by God because he loves you very much. Because he knows how well you pray hard and strive to be good and fair in your dealings with others. Most of all, because you are grateful. Keep serving the Lord.”
Many times even in our faith and spiritual life, we believe more in luck or swerte than in God as a person loving us, blessing us. That is why our faith has no communal dimension at all because we remain self-centered even in our worship and faith without even finding and experiencing God himself in Jesus Christ who had come to us more than 2000 years ago in Bethlehem.
On this first Sunday of Advent, we are reminded to rekindle in our hearts that ardent desire for God and his kingdom, for the return or Second Coming of Jesus Christ who had come and remains with us, and for the guidance of the Holy Spirit to keep us awake in finding God always in us and in others.
This first Sunday of Advent is calling us to fine tune our attitudes to God anew, to recall the beautiful lessons of this COVID-19 pandemic we now seem to have forgotten totally like importance of God and prayers, of one another, and value of life.
Like the prophecy of Isaiah in the first reading, we find ourselves today in the same situation of many wars going on not only in Ukraine or Mindanao but also in our families and communities yet, we continue to march forward to God’s final fulfillment of his promises. Imagine and feel the prophecy of Isaiah:
“Come, let us climb the Lord’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may instruct us in his ways, and we may in his paths. He shall judge between the nations, and impose terms on many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; one nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!
Isaiah 2:3, 4-5
Photo by author, November 2022.
What a lovely imagery of beating swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks as we walk in the light of the Lord that is happening NOW!
That is one of the challenges of our Advent preparation which is to open our eyes, our minds and our hearts (and arms too!) to find and welcome Jesus Christ already present with us, right here and right now!
That can only happen if we can rest this Advent in the Lord through prayers and meditations of his words that are so rich these days; of having silent moments to find ourselves anew instead of going back to our old ways of crazy Christmas rush shopping and the many external preparations that have become more of a show or a palabas.
Advent is a sabbath calling us to come home to God, to find him in Jesus Christ who had come and comes daily inside us, in our family and friends, in everyone and in various occasions and event in our lives. When we find God, that is also when we find our true selves. And that is Christmas – the coming together of man and God.
Advent is a sabbath when we go back to paradise which last Sunday we find also on the Cross with Jesus Christ as he promised Dimas with “today you shall be with me in Paradise” when God takes charge of everything and we just follow him.
Advent is a sabbath when we recover that original attitudes of man and woman to obey God always, to find more of our goodness and of others and nature, and to live in God’s presence.
Let us heed the call of St. Paul to struggle not only to be morally upright in life but most of all to share the light of Christ when he asked us “to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh” (Rom.13;14) so that we become his very presence in this world.
Let us rest in Jesus so we may be awake in his comingin every here and now. Amen.Have a blessed and restful week, everyone!
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