The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Music, 19 November 2023

Hi everyone! So glad to be back this Sunday for our music related with our Mass celebration. We hope you have gone to your local church or wherever for the Sunday Mass where the first reading was taken from the Book of Proverbs that spoke of a “worthy wife”, a perfect wife.

When one finds a worthy wife, her value is far beyond pearls. Her husband, untrusting his heart to her, has an unfailing prize. She brings him good, and not evil, all the days of her life. She obtains wool and flax and works with loving hands. She puts her hands to the distaff, and her fingers ply the spindle. She reaches out her hands to the poor, and extends her arms to the needy.

Proverbs 31:10-13, 19-20

You must be wondering if there is a perfect wife – or a perfect husband – who really exist.

Of course, none. Nobody is perfect. You have to understand human words are so limited to express God’s thoughts and words. What the author of Proverbs mean today is an “ideal wife” – someone who keeps all the little things at home we (especially men and children) often take for granted that are actually the most important things that keep our homes nice and clean, cozy and orderly (https://lordmychef.com/2023/11/18/little-things-are-the-big-things/).

The reading from the Book of Proverbs this Sunday invites us to imitate the attitudes of the “worthy wife” like her diligence and fidelity to her tasks at home in actively waiting for the Second Coming of Christ at the end of the world. It supports the teaching of Jesus in today’s parable of the talents that God is not asking us great things in life but simply to be faithful to the tasks and responsibilities he entrusted to us. Exactly like the perfect wife who got everything covered not only at home but even outside! When we die, the only thing Jesus will ask us is how we have cared for those persons and things he entrusted us in this life – not what we have done nor achieved nor amassed like wealth.

And that is why as I prayed while preparing this Sunday’s homily, I kept hearing at the back of my head Sting and the Police singing their 1981 hit Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic.

Though I’ve tried before to tell her
Of the feelings I have for her in my heart
Every time that I come near her
I just lose my nerve as I’ve done from the start

Every little thing she does is magic
Everything she do just turns me on
Even though my life before was tragic
Now I know my love for her goes on

Do I have to tell the story
Of a thousand rainy days since we first met?
It’s a big enough umbrella
But it’s always me that ends up getting wet

Every little thing she does is magic
Everything she do just turns me on
Even though my life before was tragic
Now I know my love for her goes on

Written by Sting, the song is about a man who could not express his love for a woman he finds so beautiful and amazing. The song is actually about unrequited love and she never became his wife!

I resolved to call her up
A thousand times a day
And ask her if she’ll marry me
Some old-fashioned way

But my silent fears have gripped me
Long before I reach the phone
Long before my tongue has tripped me
Must I always be alone

And so you ask how do I find this song related with that reading from the Book of Proverbs about a perfect wife? We find that in the repetitive chorus line “Every little thing she does is magic” as well as in the superb instrumentation, especially its opening tune. This piece of music in itself is magic.

Let’s face it, man… women are so good in this life that without them, our world would stop, including the Church. For me, that “battle of sexes” had long been won by women because they are better than us in many accounts. That is why God gave them to us as our part-ners in life. Women, especially mothers and wives, have that attention to details we could not see (ask any husband how his wife could still see even even nothing can be seen?). Most of all, they have that flair and elan so built in within them that everything they do is magic – effortless, easy, so natural and personal.

Jesus is not asking us to do something so great or monumental in life. He simply wants us to be faithful and consistent with our calling as his disciples, as Christians who lovingly serve God through one another. Something that women, especially wives and mothers, could teach us a lot with in this life. Here’s the Police to all the great women out there with their loving and faithful men.