The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Monday, Memorial, St. Pedro Bautista & Companions, Priests/Martyrs, 06 February 2023
Genesis 1:1-19 <*(((>< + ><)))*> + <*(((>< + ><)))*> Mark 6:53-56
Photo by author, 6:30 AM, 29 January 2023,in Bgy. Igulot, Bocaue, Bulacan
"In the beginning,
when God created the heavens
and the earth,
the earth was a formless wasteland,
and darkness covered the abyss,
while a mighty wind swept over
the waters" (Genesis 1:1-2).
Praise and glory to you,
God our loving Father,
in waking us up to a wonderful
morning, reminding us of
another beginning!
Though many of us have
the Monday blues,
whining and complaining
of great tasks ahead,
of the many problems still not
solved especially unpaid bills
while others are still sick with
some feeling lost and empty
for so many reasons;
forgive us in first seeing what we
do not have without seeing what
you have given us!
Awaken our senses, Father!
Awaken us to this great
reality of our daily "genesis" story:
of how in the beginning
there was nothing at all!
Help us appreciate how we
all started in the beginning
without the many things
we have today that despite
the gloom and darkness,
pains and hurts,
we are still better off today
than before when we were just
beginning in our career,
in our business,
inn our studies,
in our lives.
Let us keep that in mind
and heart, O Lord, that
in the beginning,
there was nothing until
you blessed us with everything
that is good.
Let us be filled with hope
in you that while everything
may be in chaos in every
beginning,
order soon follows
as you unfold your
wonderful plans
for us.
Your Son Jesus Christ
came to enable us to start anew
in daily life, to find every day
a new beginning, a genesis,
and go back to you, Father;
to be touched with your love
and mercy so that we too
may touch others to experience
new beginnings in life.
The great martyr-priests
of Japan led by St. Pedro Bautista
suffered greatly in bringing the faith
in the land of the rising sun;
their martyrdom may have ended
their lives but their faith in you
touched so many others that
brought new beginnings to life
here on earth; may we touch
others with your love and mercy,
dear Jesus today to start a new
beginning
for a new earth.
Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday in the Second Week of Ordinary Time, Year I, 20 January 2023
Hebrews 8:6-13 <*(((>< + ><)))*> + <*(((>< + ><)))*> Mark 3:13-19
Photo by Dra. Mylene A. Santos, MD, 2020.
Praise and gratitude to you,
our loving Father for this day
filled with newness,
when everything is new -
new lease on life,
new hopes,
new joys,
new opportunities,
new blessings,
new friends to meet,
new problems to solve,
new situations to deal with,
new chances to grow and mature,
new me!
Most of all,
a new day to renew
your new covenant in Jesus!
Brothers and sisters: Now our high priest (Jesus Christ) has obtained so much more excellent a ministry as he is mediator of a better covenant, enacted on better promises. When he speaks of “new” covenant, he declares the first one obsolete. and what has become obsolete and has grown old is close to disappearing.
Hebrews 8:6, 13
Thank you, dear Jesus,
for your gift of call,
in renewing your call
every new day to be
your disciple,
your apostle like
the Twelve;
let me value and
treasure, and
nurture your call,
Jesus, by growing
closer to you;
help me overcome
my sinful past
to welcome every
graceful present
in you even at the Cross;
let me renew myself
to you today,
to focus more on you
amid our many differences.
How ironic, dear Jesus,
when we were younger
we love and welcome
everything that is new;
as we get older, the more
we refuse to let go of the old
to give way to new
like YOU who is ever new
and radiant!
Amen.
Photo by author, Lake of Galilee(Tiberias), Israel, 2017.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II, 28 July 2020
Photo by Mr. Raffy Tima of GMA-7 News, March 2020
Experts have been telling us since the start of this COVID-19 pandemic that our lives would no longer be the same like before 2020. Even if a new vaccine and more effective treatment are discovered to fight this disease, life on this planet is definitely changed.
But, for better or for worse?
That is the most important challenge of this pandemic next to finding a vaccine and cure or treatment against it: that we seize this unique opportunity from COVID-19 to “reset” or “refresh” the world so we can all start anew by correcting the mistakes and excesses of the past to finally kickoff a true and meaningful growth and development among peoples, especially the poor and marginalized.
Photo from TurboSquid.com
This we can start – or restart – by immediately deleting from our vocabulary and consciousness that word we have been erroneously using since summer, “new normal”.
New normal is abnormal because norms or standards like morality always remain.
Washing of hands frequently, covering one’s mouth and nose when sneezing and coughing, not spitting everywhere are not new normal. Cleanliness has always been the norm since the beginning that we have that saying always true, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”.
Praying every day, individually and as a family especially the Holy Rosary is not a new normal. Connecting with the Divine has always been the norm of man since the beginning even before Jesus Christ came to the world.
More than half a century ago, the late Fr. Patrick Peyton has been saying, “The family that prays together, stays together; and the world at prayer is a world at peace.” Praying has always been the norm in our lives.
Normal or norms do not change because they are the standard measure. Even before COVID-19 came, normal temperature has always been 37 degrees Celsius, 12-inches make a foot, and so on and so forth.
So, please forget this abnormality of referring to our new way of living as “new normal” because it is not new at all.
Worst, this usage of the term “new normal” courtesy of the media, politicians, and policy makers is a dangerous indication of unconsciously or subconsciously perpetuating our excesses of the past that the Wuhan virus have rightly exposed: too much greed especially among capitalists, materialism and consumerism, and individualism.
From vaticannews.va
Pope emeritus Benedict XVI had long been speaking against these by describing it as “dictatorship of relativism”.
Acceptance of this term or concept that was actually coined at the aftermath of the 2007 financial crisis indicates that we are miserably not learning the lessons of this global crisis.
Our sights remain myopic, even blinded in looking at this pandemic without realizing at all how this was spawned by our own excesses and sins. Long before we have been told to maintain physical or social distancing to stop spread of the new corona virus, we have long been distant from one another. We have been spending more time with our computers and smartphones, trying to connect with friends and everyone in various social media platforms unmindful of the persons seated near us. “Table for one” in restaurants is fast becoming the order of the day than the exception to the rule.
My point is, accepting everything now as the new normal is also accepting wholesale the new ordering of things going on that continues to neglect the weakest and poorest among us. We are only perpetuating an error and worst an evil among us that we have refused to examine closely in the past.
This “new normal” is a conditioning concept that pushes the marginalized and disadvantaged people deeper into misery as the daily news tells us. Unconsciously to many of us, “new normal” is an excuse even a justification for the continued poverty and slavery of the weak and disadvantaged.
What a shame that while so many countries are suffering from COVID-19 like ours, Beijing is flexing its muscles around the world economically and militarily – right in our seas!- as if they are not bothered at all by this virus that came from their own province of Wuhan.
A very interesting read I have found last month was written by Nigerian Chime Asonye who rightly claims that “the new normal” “should not be the lens through which we examine our changed world”.
The ‘new normal’ discourse sanitizes the idea that our present is okay because normal is regular. Yes, there may be public health challenges, but these are issues that can be managed. We accept life under the omnipresent threat of disease as ordinary. But what exactly is normal about this pandemic? It is not normal for society en masse to be isolated, but if this is normal, then we are supposed to have control of the situation. Even if we feel loss or despair, we are expected to get used to it — accepting that this morbid reality is now standard.
COVID-19 can serve both as a catharsis to our past excesses and a watershed for a brighter future.
The old system, or what people refer to as “normal” before in the world had erroneously set is not working, plainly wrong and abusive; why continue or import it into this coming new period?
As the pandemic rages on it gives us a chance to reimagine the world by tracing history, not forgetting it.
We should revel in the discomfort of the current moment to generate a ‘new paradigm’, not a ‘new normal’. Feeling unsettled, destabilized and alone can help us empathize with individuals who have faced systematic exclusions long-ignored by society even before the rise of COVID-19 — thus stimulating urgent action to improve their condition. For these communities, things have never been ‘normal’.
COVIDS-19 is definitely not a punishment from God but a result of man playing God.
And like in the past, whether in world history or in our own lives when things go wrong even worst, God ensures to make ways that anything bad happening to us would always lead to something good.
Photo by author, Christmas 2019 in our Parish.
See how providential in the sense that microscopic viruses are reminding us that true power is not in being big but in being small, not in being strong but being weak — the very example of God to us when he became human like us more than 2000 years ago.
Unfortunately, his lessons remain unheeded up to our time even among us in the Church.
It is a most welcomed change in the midst of this pandemic that the Vatican last week issued new guidelines through the Congregation for the Clergy (directed to us priests) for the world’s parishes that can help us respond adequately to the challenges of this crisis (http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2020/07/20/200720a.html).
But, that will require another blog.
For the meantime, please stop using that abnormal term “new normal”.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Tuesday, Week XVII, Year II in Ordinary Time, 28 July 2020
Jeremiah 14:17-22 >>><)))*> >><)))*> ><)))*> Matthew 13:36-43
God our merciful Father, today we pray for our countrymen blinded by the many evils happening in our land today. For those who continue to defend the cycle of murders and killings to weed us out of criminals and addicts, for those who defend the blasphemies uttered against you and jokes against everyone, for those who continue to deny something is terribly wrong among our leaders.
We pray for them all, Lord. Open their eyes and their ears to the many sufferings around us: the cries of mothers losing a child, the pains of fathers losing their jobs, the frustrations of young people in finding a job, and the alienation of a nation lost in a circus where clowns are running the government.
Like your Prophet Jeremiah whom you have asked to tell your people in Judah and Israel how their sins have caused all their miseries and sufferings, enlighten us more to wake up our nation to the truth we have turned away from you.
Let my eyes stream with tears day and night, without rest, over the great destruction which overwhelms the virgin daughter of my people, over her incurable wound. If I walk into the field, look! Those slain by the sword; if I enter the city, look! Those consumed by hunger. Why have you struck us a blow that cannot be healed? We wait for peace, to no avail; for a time of healing, but terror comes instead. We recognize, O Lord, our wickedness, the guilt of our fathers; that we have sinned against you. Is it not you alone, O Lord, our God, to whom we look?
Jeremiah 14:17-18, 19-20, 22
Show us the way, the path back to you, O Lord.
We have become the weeds among the wheat, trying to ruin everything.
We have become callous and numb with our sins, too, that others cannot believe our calls for conversion and renewal.
Renew us, O Lord, so we may listen more to your words that will guide us to recovery and conversion. Amen.
Photo by author, Sonnen Berg Mountain View, Davao City, August 2018.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday, Week XVI, Year II in Ordinary Time, 24 July 2020
Jeremiah 3:14-17 <*(((><< ) + ( >><)))*> Matthew 13:18-23
Photo by author, Sonnen Berg Mountain View, Davao City, August 2018.
It is a Friday and we thank you, O God our loving Father, for your boundless grace and mercy of another week to close and a new one to start. Amid the many struggles we have to go through this week with the staggering number of people infected with COVID-19, you continue to bless us.
Help us return to you, your “rebellious children” (Jer.3:14), so we may be renewed in you and with you.
Keep our sights looking forward to our future with your promises of growth and fulfillment.
Let us forget and learn our lessons from our past mistakes and sins so we may walk uprightly, guided by “shepherds you have appointed after your own heart who will shepherd us wisely and prudently” (Jer.3:15), never again to grow “hardhearted in wickedness” against you and others.
Thank you for sending us your Son Jesus Christ, the Sower who never gets tired sowing seeds into our hearts of all your grace necessary for us to be fruitful in life. May we become good soil who will accept and take care of your seeds. Amen.
Photo by author, ricefields in Pulilan, Bulacan, January 2020.
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