“Praise be to Christ” says the floor of the Church of the Beatitudes, Galilee, Holy Land, 2019.
Our loving Father in heaven:
Thank you very much for the gift of church, especially beautiful and lovely churches where we encounter you in prayers and the sacraments.
How amazing that these churches “breathe” with their walls, “whispering” to you the many praises and thanksgiving of countless people who have encountered you there.
Whenever I come inside a church, I try to feel your presence as well as those other faithful including those who have gone home to you in heaven.
Indeed, we your “chosen people as living stones” are your buildings, your temple and dwelling place.
Whenever we enter a church, we also enter you, our God as you fill us with life like those fruitful trees saw by Ezekiel in the first reading growing on the banks of the river flowing from the temple.
Forgive us when we destroy our bodies and our communities, forgetting that we are your temple.
Forgive us when we refuse to celebrate the Sunday Mass with our fellow believers.
St. John Lateran Basilica, the Cathedral of the Pope as Bishop of Rome, our Mother Church. Photo by Arch. Philip Santiago, 2017.
As we celebrate today the Feast of the Dedication of the Mother of all churches, the Major Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, remind us also to take care of our churches, to always maintain their sacredness, do away with all profanities and “shows” so many priests and lay people are now so fond of doing forgetting it is always your house, not ours.
Breathe into us your life-giving Spirit, Lord Jesus, for us to create a space within us and in our churches for you to come and renew us. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe, Week XXXI-C, 03 November 2019
Wisdom 11:22-12:2 ><}}}*> 2 Thessalonians 1:11-2:2 ><}}}*> Luke 19:1-10
A giant sycamore tree at the center of Jericho, the world’s oldest city. Photo by author, May 2019.
Jesus is now on the final leg of his “resolute journey to Jerusalem” as he passed by the world’s oldest city of Jericho. Next week, he would be teaching at the Temple area in Jerusalem where his enemies would gang up against him, eventually sending him to death as we shall hear on the 24th of this month, the Solemnity of Christ the King.
Today we find a very interesting story that is in stark contrast with last Sunday’s parable of the Pharisee and tax collector praying at the Temple.
And this time, our story is not a fiction but an event found only in St. Luke’s gospel about a real tax collector named Zacchaeus, a very wealthy man indeed.
The fictional Pharisee Jesus narrated in his parable last week was a very proud one, of high stature literally and figuratively speaking that he would always stand and pray inside the Temple to be seen by everyone.
He was a self-righteous man who despised everyone else, especially tax collectors.
But, according to Jesus, the Pharisee’s prayer was not heard by God because he was not really seeking God but seeking adulation for himself!
Treetop of a sycamore tree in Jericho today.
Contrast that Pharisee with the chief tax collector in Jericho named Zacchaeus: he was of small stature, literally and figuratively speaking, that he had to climb a sycamore tree in order to see “who Jesus was” (Lk.19:3).
We can safely surmise that from St. Luke’s narration, nobody loved Zacchaeus in Jericho: he must be really so small in their eyes that he is hardly noticed maybe except when people paid taxes.
And that is why when he learned Jesus of Nazareth was passing by their city, he went to climb a sycamore tree to have a glimpse of the man he must have heard so often performing miracles and doing all good things for sinners like him.
Then, a strange thing happened…
When he reached the place, Jesus looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.” And he came down quickly and received him with joy. When they all saw this, they began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.”
Luke 19:5-10
Was it serendipity or divine destiny?
Jesus was just passing through Jericho while Zacchaeus was merely interested in seeing the Lord. Never in his wildest dream, so to speak, did he intend to meet him personally.
From Google.
But, as we all believe and have realised, there are no coincidences or accidents in life.
Everything that happens in our lives has a purpose, a meaning that may either make us or unmake us.
It all depends on us whether we make the right decision in making the most out of whatever life offers us, of what comes to us. Either we become better or bitter – so choose wisely.
More so with salvation from God who never stops coming to us everywhere, anytime like with Zacchaeus when Jesus suddenly came to meet him.
The Catholic Parish Church in Jericho run by the Franciscans, May 2019.
Here we find again a story about faith that leads to conversion and salvation or justification.
It does not really matter how little faith we have like when the Apostles asked Jesus on the first Sunday of October, “Lord, increase our faith in God” (Lk. 17:5,Wk. 27). What matters is that we always have that option for God, a desire for God.
This is specially true as St. Paul assures us in the second reading that Christ will come again at the end of time. Nobody knows when or how he will come again but like Zacchaeus, we must have that desire for Jesus who first comes into our hearts before entering into our homes or churches, no matter how grandiose they may be.
Every desire for God in itself is an expression of faith in him. And God comes to those who truly seek him because that is how great God is: not in his power to do everything but to be small and forgiving!
Before the Lord, the whole universe is as a grain from a balance, or a drop of morning dew come down upon the earth. But you have mercy on all, because you can do all things; and you overlook people’s sins that they may repent. But you spare all things, because they are yours, O Lord and lover of souls.
Wisdom 11:22-23, 26
Inside the Catholic Parish of the Good Shepherd in Jericho, May 2019.
Like in the parable of the persevering widow and judge as well as that of the Pharisee and tax collector praying at the temple last Sunday, today’s story of Zacchaeus meeting Jesus shows us how God never abandons us his children, always ready to grant our desires and wishes even beyond what we are asking for — if we have faith in him.
Our salvation depends solely in our faith to God in Christ Jesus, like Abraham in the Old Testament that we can now rightly be called as his children like Zacchaeus.
No one is excluded from this tremendous grace of God brought to us through Jesus Christ who had come to seek those who are lost.
Like Zacchaeus upon receiving salvation from the Lord on that simple day, may we joyfully turn away from sins and most of all, cheerfully rid ourselves of so many other things that hamper us from following Jesus resolutely to Jerusalem. Amen.
Your gospel today, Lord Jesus, brought me with mixed feelings of embarrassment and joy.
Embarrassed because like your disciples then, until now we are still preoccupied with the same old question of “who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” (Mt.18:1).
How funny – and shameful too, Lord, that as we grow older, the less we believe or at least disregard your guardian angels assigned to each one of us. As we get older, we feel we know everything, we can do everything, and we can be on our own.
How sad that in similar manner of dismissing our parents and elders as guardians, we have also abandoned belief and acceptance of angels.
Thank you for never abandoning us despite of this attitude, O dear God!
Thank you most of all, dearest God, for not withdrawing from our side our guardian angels!
Joy fills my heart today on this feast of the Guardian Angels that even if so many times in the past I have turned away from you, my guardian angel never left me, guiding me back to you in those many instances of discovering your wonder anew.
Our guardian angels remind us O Lord of your great love for us.
I can still recall so many instances in my life how I felt someone I do not see yet so personally present with me, personally saving me from so many occasions and situations that were harmful and even fatal.
Yes, guardian angels are not only for kids but for everyone who believe in you, Lord, to remind us of you.
Teach us to be child-like, humbly admitting there is an angel on our side, and most of all, you are always with us, Lord Jesus Christ.
As your messengers who are very close to you and closest with us, teach us to be like our guardian angels always close to you too and with others guarding and protecting them from harm. Amen.
Tuesday, Memorial of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, 01 October 2019
Zechariah 8:20-23 ><)))*> ><)))*> ><)))*> Luke 9:51-56
White roses for you, dearly beloved devotee of St. Therese of the Child Jesus. Christ heard your prayers and had asked St. Therese to send you these white roses as the sign you have been asking regarding what you have been praying for through our daily prayer blog, The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul. God bless you more today, my friend! (Photo by Ms. Jo Villafuerte at the Atok Blooms, Benguet, 01 September 2019.)
On behalf, O Lord, of the many people praying for a “little miracle” today through St. Therese of the Child Jesus, thank you very much for these beautiful white roses. And most especially for answering our prayers!
Thank you again for the gift of another saint today close to our modern time, a woman so young, and most of all, so simple in her faith and in her ways. Just like you, God, when she proclaimed…
“O Jesus, my love, at last I have found my calling: my call is love. Certainly I have found my proper place in the Church, and you gave me that very place, my God. In the heart of the Church, my mother, I will be love, and thus I will be all things, as my desire finds its direction.”
St. Therese of the Child Jesus, from the Liturgy of the Hours
It is this simple yet profound truth of being love, of doing everything in love that we always forget or take for granted that elevated St. Therese to be the youngest and one of the only five women Doctors of the Church.
In her life you have showed us the need to find the points of convergence of doctrine and experience, of teaching and practice in order to truly be holy and filled with God that fulfilled the Lord’s own words spoken among the crowds more than 2000 years ago:
“I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to babes.”
Matthew 11:25
Born Marie-Francoise-Therese Martin at Alencon, France in 1873, St. Therese entered the Carmelite monastery of Lisieux at the age of 15 following a special permission from Church officials. She claimed no visions or extraordinary moments except that she followed a simple path to faith, especially after contracting TB that caused her death in 1897 at the young age of 24. Photo from Google.
Open our minds and our hearts, our very selves, Lord, like St. Therese to humbly embrace this simple truth of love by intensely and passionately living in love, doing ordinary things in the most extraordinary way of love. May we follow your Son Jesus as “he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem”(Lk.9:51) to face his passion, death, and resurrection out of love for you and for us. Amen.
Photo by Ms. Jo Villafuerte, Atok, Benguet, 01 September 2019.
Brothers and sisters: From the day we heard this, we do not cease praying for you and asking you that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, so as to be fully pleasing, in every good work bearing fruit and growing in the knowledge of God.
Colossians 1:9-10
Once again, you struck me today Lord through St. Paul’s letter to pray for another important grace we badly need these days — “knowledge”.
In this age of Google and Wikipedia, we have taken the gift of knowledge for granted, confusing it with information that often has no meaning and depth. As a result, we have “smart phones” and stupid people who justify everything without any qualms and sense of self-respect and decency!
Remind us, Lord, that knowledge is more than being reasonable and logical; knowledge is embracing the truths of faith, of seeing you in everything.
Like Simon Peter, bless us Lord with the gift of knowledge to enable us to make right judgments regarding earthly things and how they are related with eternal life and holiness.
Like Simon Peter, may we learn to set aside our human knowledge and expertise to take the leap of faith in casting the net into the deep upon your instructions after a night of catching nothing.
What a great gift of knowledge you have given Simon that day when he realised you are “Lord” and he is a “sinful man” (Lk. 5:8). Most of all, in obeying instructions from a carpenter like you, Lord!
Fill us with your knowledge, Lord, to realise the truth of Albert Einstein’s words that “everything in this life is a miracle”! Amen.
Thank you very much, dear God, for this weekend rest.
And as we rest from work or studies, let us also pray for the gift of remembering.
Like in the first reading when Joshua asked the Israelites to always remember the many wondrous things you have done to them so they may remain faithful to you, make us remember too that there is no other God except you who personally relates with us, blessing us with everything that we need even without our asking.
You have created us to always remember but we are also “beings of forgetfulness” who always forget everything and everyone, especially you and those dearest to us. We are easily distracted with so many other things and people that we always forget those who are truly good to us.
When life becomes nice and easy for us, when we have everything we need, that is when we forget. And sadly, when we forget, when we do not remember, that is when we also break away, we go apart.
Because, to “remember” literally means to make a member or part again, “re” + “member”.
When we remember you, O God, we affirm your presence in us and among us.
When we remember our loved ones, whether away or gone forever, we make them a part again of our lives here and now, the present moment. The same thing is true with events in the past, whether good or bad.
Thank you so much O God for this gift of remembering!
Make us like the children in today’s gospel who came to you, wanting to be one with you, wanting to be your member and part too! Amen.
Do we really have a choice with you? Of course, you are not forcing us to choose you because you gave us freedom, your most wonderful gift expressing your love for us. You never impose yourself on us and, we are always free to choose you or not!
But, how can we not choose you, O God? You are the only good, the ultimate good. And you never fail to give us the best, nothing less.
Joshua addressed all the people: “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I gave you a land which you had not tilled and cities which you had not built, to dwell in; you have eaten of vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.”
Joshua 24:2, 13
Problem with us, Lord, is our failure to accept and own your gifts. We keep on looking for something else when you are giving us the very best. We always insist on what we want, on our choices we think to be good but not really good. But, because we are free, you allow us to disregard your gifts and choose something else – and still bless us!
And so we pray today that you teach us to both accept and own your gifts to us, Lord.
It is not enough that we accept gifts but we must also own them to be truly a blessing that can be shared and given to others.
Material and spiritual blessings, life lessons and life-blows, and all the other good gifts from you Lord are easy to accept but unless we own them too as ours, they get wasted.
Anything received but not owned becomes useless because it does not prosper nor grow nor mature and bear fruits. Be it our very selves, our country, our jobs, our family and friends. Everything, especially you, Lord, whom we always receive but never shared because we never truly have you in us. Let us own you, Lord! Amen.
Friday, Memorial of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, 09 August 2019
Deuteronomy 4:32-40 >< )))*> <*((( >< Matthew 16:24-28
A 1970 stained-glass window of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross by German artist Alois Plum at the Herz Jesu Church in Kassel, Germany. She holds a book symbolising her learning, wears a Star of David as a sign of her Jewish roots, and is consumed by flames to refer to her martyrdom at the Nazi gas chambers of Auschwitz. Photo from Google.
Praise and glory to you O Lord our God! Indeed, there is no other God except you as Moses reminds us in today’s first reading:
“Ask now of the days of old, before your time, ever since God created man upon the earth; ask from one end of the sky to the other: Did anything so great ever happen before? Was it ever heard of? Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live? Or did any god venture to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, with his strong hand and outstretched arm, and by great terrors, all of which the Lord, your God, did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? All this you were allowed to see that you might know the Lord is God and there is no other.”
Deuteronomy 4:32-35
And yet, O Lord, still many refuse to believe in you especially when hard times come upon us like wars and persecution.
This month of August, you gifted us with two great saints martyred at the gas chambers of Auschwitz: St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, also known as St. Edith Stein whose memorial we celebrate today, and, St. Maximilian Kolbe whose feast is on the 14th.
Both are modern saints whose lives and times are very close and similar with our generation. Both saints have made you present, O God, at a time when many people thought and believed you were absent.
“Those who seek the truth seek God, whether they realize it or not.” St. Edith Stein.
Born from a devout Jewish family, you showed your presence in the life of St. Teresa Benedicta with your gift of superior intellect. Although she had openly declared her being an atheist at the young age of 13, you never stopped “seducing” her in searching you in her studies of philosophy, giving her a rare chance to work closely with the leading thinkers at that time.
Slowly, she found you in her studies and in the Church that she converted to Catholicism!
And when you have caught her, O Lord, the more you inflamed her heart to seek you and be one with you by becoming a Carmelite nun through the writings of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross.
You have revealed so much truths to her, O God, reaching its highest point in giving her the grace to join your Son Jesus Christ in losing her life as his witness in the gas chambers in 1942.
Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
Matthew 16:24-25
In our present age, so many people are also thinking that you do not exist, Lord; some have already stopped believing in you, having themselves as the measure and standard of what is true, moral, and decent.
How sad that in this modern age when we are supposed to have advanced in our knowledge and thinking, we have remained so inhuman in our dealing with one another: wars and genocides of peoples continue while the weakest members of the human race, those old and sick and those helpless in their mother’s wombs, are murdered for the sake of economic well-being. How wonderful in having a woman saint so accomplished in life like St. Edith Stein when until now women are disrespected and regarded inferior to men.
Give us, Lord, the same clarity of mind and firmness of will and heart in standing for what is true like St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross so that we may also make you present in this world. Amen.
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