Rebuild, repair, create in God

Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul, 24 September 2025
Wednesday, Twenty-Fifth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
Ezra 9:5-9     <*((((><  +  ><))))*>     Luke 9:1-6

Residents of Hagonoy Bulacan walk their way to flooded portions of premise surrondings St. Anne Parish as they protest this was following exposes of flood control anomalies. Bulacan province has been under scrutiny for receiving multi million worth of flood control projects but still suffers severe flooding. (Photo by Michael Varcas)

God our loving Father,
today I feel like Ezra,
praying filled with
shame
sadness
and hopes
at how we can
rebuild,
repair
and create
in you something good
for our country.

“My God, I am too ashamed and confounded to raise my face to you, O my God, for our wicked deeds are heaped up above our heads and our guilt reaches up to heaven… And now, but a short time ago, mercy came to us from the Lord our God, who left us a remnant and gave us a stake in his holy place; thus our God has brightened our eyes and given us relief in our servitude… in our servitude our God has not abandoned us; Thus he has given us new life to raise again the house of our God and restore its ruins, and has granted us a fence in Judah and Jerusalem” (Ezra 9:6, 8, 9).

Like Israel of Ezra's time,
your know so well,
God our Father
how our country
the Philippines
had always been guilty
of putting into power
corrupt and evil men and women
without any respect for you and
your people especially the poor
and suffering;
as a nation, we have always
been fragmented
not only among each other
but within ourselves,
doing things contrary
to your precepts
that corruption in government
had sunk deeper
into wholesale looting
of government money and resources
at the expense of the poor
and suffering.

Scene at a wedding inside the flooded Barasoain Church in Malolos City, 22 July 2025; photo by *Aaron Favila of Associated Press.*

We are all angry.
Very angry, God our Father
for the shameless
people tasked to provide
us with infrastructures
and services that are
either non-existent or
substandard
because they have
looted the funds!

But, help us,
Lord,
how we shall go from
here in
rebuilding our nation,
our government,
our institutions 
including the Church
where some parishes
as well as priests
are beneficiaries
of the stolen money;
how can we repair
not only the buildings
but the lives of those
destroyed and humiliated
and how can we create
a more just
and humane
society in Christ Jesus
so that this systematic
corruption
is finally 
put into end.
Amen.

Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Our Lady of Fatima University
Valenzuela City
(lordmychef@gmail.com)

The scourge & mercy of God

The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Wednesday, Memorial of St. Vincent de Paul, Priest, 27 September 2023
Ezra 9:5-9 <*(((>< + ><)))*> __ <*(((>< + ><)))*> Luke 9:1-6

*Photo by author, San Juan, La Union, 25 July 2023.*

Show us your will,
your ways,
and your path,
loving Father
in the face of the many
great changes happening now
in our lives,
in our world,
in our places of work;
truly, changes are
inevitable; in the process,
there would be alterations,
destructions in order to build
like the restoration of your
temple after the exile;
but, dear God, 
let us not forget in all these
our own sinfulness
and your mercy and forgiveness.
Give us the grace to cry
and pray like Ezra:

I said: “My God, I am too ashamed and confounded to raise my face to you, O my God, for our wicked deeds are heaped up above our heads and our guilt reaches up to heaven. From the time of our fathers even to this day great has been our guilt, and for our wicked deeds we have been delivered up, we and our kings and our priests, to the will of the kings of foreign lands, to the sword, to captivity, to pillage, and to disgrace, as is the case today. And now, but a short time ago, mercy came to us from the Lord our God…”
Ezra 9:6-8

How sad that we
never learn from
our lessons of past sins,
of how the many scourges
we deserve fell on us that
we still keep on living in evil,
denying its hold on us,
becoming blind to all
the excesses around us
that indeed our wicked deeds
are heaped up above our heads!
 
How sad, most of all,
that we easily forget your
love and mercy,
the forgiveness and 
new life you gave us
to start anew
in rebuilding our lives
in you.

Let us heed
your call and summons
to proclaim Christ's
gospel of forgiveness
and healing like 
St. Vincent de Paul
to the many people
deep into sin
and evil these days
because of fame
and power
and wealth.
Amen.

Pick up the pieces

The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Monday in the Twenty-fifth Week of Ordinary Time, Year I, 25 September 2023
Ezra 1:1-6 ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> + >]]]]'> Luke 8:16-18

*Photo by author, view from Jerusalem temple, May 2019.*

Thank you,
dearest God our Father,
in giving us this new day
to pick up the pieces of
our lives, to become better,
to be well, to be fulfilled in you
through Christ Jesus.

Let me claim this life,
Father; let me own 
and embrace this gift
of life to make it good;
let me be focus with 
the present and what lies
ahead, to let go but learn from
the past.  Let me live 
the life you have meant 
for me so that when finally
I have reached the end 
of this journey, you may take
my whole life as my only offering
to you, dear God.

As the psalmist says today,
"The Lord has done great things
for us; we are glad indeed.  
Restore our fortunes, O Lord...
those who sow in tears shall reap
rejoicing.  Although they go forth
weeping, carrying the seed to be sown,
they shall come back rejoicing,
carrying their sheaves."
(Ps. 126:3,5-6).

May your word guide us
as we live our lives, Jesus;
let us shine like lamps to make
you known to everyone,
that you alone O Lord is 
our life and meaning,
our only fulfillment.

We pray also today
for those rebuilding their
lives - those who are finally
set free by all kinds of bondage
to sin and evil, those who have
finally decided on their own
to choose you, to do what is
good, those who have finally
broke free from vices and
every kind of slavery this world
has continued to surreptitiously
promote to hide its sinister plans;
may we find the "goodwill" of 
the many other "King Cyrus of Persia"
you continue to send us, Father, 
so we too, like your exiled people
of old, may start to pick up the
pieces of our lives 
and rebuild our
lives in you again.
Amen.