The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday in the Sixth Week of Easter, 27 May 2022
Acts 18:9-18 ><}}}}*> + <*{{{{>< John 16:20-23
Photo by Mr. Jim Marpa at Carigara Market, Leyte, 2018.
Today, Lord Jesus Christ,
you describe true joy in you,
scary yet so wonderful:
Jesus said to his disciples: “Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy. When a woman is in labor, she is in anguish because her hour has arrived; but when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the pain because of her joy that a child has been born into the world.”
John 16:20-21
Joy is like a woman in labor,
in anguish because her hour has arrived
but after giving birth to a child, she
remembers no more the pain because
of her joy of bringing forth a child into
the world!
I wonder, dear Lord, in this time
when childbearing has become a major
issue with some women insisting on
their rights, refusing to bear a child,
that less and less people are also
experiencing true joy; we have come
to trust ourselves more than God that
many are so afraid of having children,
thinking it would lead to more joy when
ironically it had led to fewer joys in
their lives!
Joy is completely trusting in you, God,
in your providence and protection like
St. Paul who was so fruitful - and surely,
joyful - at his stay in Corinth because of his
complete trust in Jesus; no harm really
ever happened to him! How sad these days
when those in the pro-choice movement
focus more on the minority having problems in
childbearing than on the majority who make it
through all the pains and joys of giving birth.
Joy is more than happiness; it is a complete
trust and confidence in you, dear Jesus
that even if things turn to worst,
you will never abandon us until the end
for you alone is our joy dwelling within us
in our hearts. Amen.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Holy Saturday, 16 April 2022
Photo by Dr. Mylene A. Santos, MD, at Nazare, Portugal March 2022.
A blessed Holy Saturday to you. One of the most unforgettable scenes of COVID-19 pandemic when it started in the summer of 2020 was like what we have every Holy Saturday or, as we aptly call, Black Saturday: empty spaces, empty buildings, with everything and everyone so silent.
Holiness is being at home with silence, the very language of God. In the bible, we find that in every revelation and appearance of God to man, it is always preceded by silence. Before everything was created, according to the Book of Genesis, there was great silence. In his prologue to the fourth gospel, John said “In the beginning was the word” – clearly, there was only silence – “and the word became flesh” (Jn.1:1, 14).
And when Jesus, the Word who became flesh, came, he was totally silent during his growing up years in Nazareth and when he stared his ministry, he would always go into prayers and silence.
On this Holy Saturday, the whole creation comes to full circle. In the beginning, after completing God’s work of creation, God rested on the seventh day and made it holy (Gen.2:3). On the seventh day after completing his mission here on earth, Jesus Christ was laid to rest.
Photo by Dr. Mylene A. Santos, MD, at Lourdes, France, March 2022.
Silence and rest always go together. To be silent is not merely being quiet but listening more to your voice coming from the depths of our being; hence, it is not emptiness but fullness with God, in God. It is in silence where we truly hear ourselves and others better.
On the other hand, to rest is not merely to stop work nor stop from being busy. We rest to reconnect with God to be filled with the Holy Spirit. In Filipino, to rest is magpahinga which means “to be breathed on”. To rest is therefore to be silent and be breathed on with the breath of God. Like in the creation of the first man who was breathed on by God to be alive; on the evening of Easter, Jesus came to visit his disciples locked in the upper room and after greeting them with peace twice, he breathed on them the Holy Spirit.
Holiness is therefore found in silence and in rest, when we listen more God and allow him to breathe on us that we are filled with him. And that is holiness as we have stated at the start of this series, which is not being sinless but being filled with God.
When we rest, we return to Eden, like the garden where Jesus was buried.
Now in the place where he had been crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been buried. So they laid Jesus there because of the Jewish preparation day; for the tomb was close by.
John 19:41-42
Photo by author, garden beside Church of St. Agnes in Jerusalem, May 2017.
How beautiful is that image, of God’s rest and silence in Eden and of Jesus laid to rest at a tomb in a garden: to rest in silence is therefore to stop playing God as we return to him as his image and likeness again!
Maybe that is why many of us these days are afraid of silence because it is the realm of trust and of truth. We have always been afraid to trust and be truthful so that we crucify Jesus Christ over and over again.
Let us be like those women who rested on the sabbath when Jesus was laid to rest. That like them, we may trust God more by being true to ourselves even in the midst of this ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The women who had come from Galilee with him followed behind, and when they had seen the tomb and the way in which his body was laid in it, they returned and prepared spices and perfumed oils. Then they rested on the sabbath according to the commandment.
Luke 23:55-56
Silence is the domain of trust; people afraid of silence are afraid to trust.
It is said that the Sony Walkman is the most revolutionary invention in the last 40 years that had changed our way of life. It is not the computer. It is the Walkman, the ancestor of that ubiquitous ear pods, earphones and bluetooth everybody is wearing these days, having each one’s own world, unmindful of others.
Today let us cultivate anew the practice of silence, of listening to the various sounds around us and within us and most of all, trying to listen to the most faint, the softest sound that is often the voice of God, the sound of silence who reassures us always that in the midst of his silence, he never leaves us, that with him we are rising again to new life.
Help us to be silent today, O God our Father as we remember your Son Jesus Christ’s Great Silence – Magnum Silentium – when he was “crucified, died and was buried; he descended to the dead and on the third day he rose again.”
Breathe on us your Spirit of life and joy,
O God as we rest in you,
listening to your voice within us
so that we may follow always Jesus Christ's
path to Easter in the Cross.
Amen.
Photo by Dr. Mylene A. Santos, MD, Lourdes, France, March 2022.
Quiet Storm by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Holy Wednesday, 13 April 2022
Isaiah 50:4-9 + Matthew 26:14-25
Photo by author, St. John the Baptist Parish, Calumpit, Bulacan, 31 March 2022.
It’s Holy Wednesday, also known as Spy Wednesday, the night Judas Iscariot agreed to betray Jesus Christ to the chief priests in exchange of 30 pieces of silver (Mt.26:14-15). Tonight is the night of traitors, of betrayers, of those not true to us!
This is the reason why in most parishes after the Mass tonight, there is the ritual of tenebrae or gradual turning off of lights and extinguishing of candles in the church to show how momentarily darkness and evil prevailed in the world when Judas sold Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
Photo from saopedroesaopaolo.com.br.
To betray literally means to hand over a loved one to pain and sufferings like when a husband is unfaithful to his wife, when we spill the secrets of our friends, when we answer back our parents or refuse to obey them, when children waste their money on their vices and other non-essential things instead of studying their lessons while their mother or father is toiling day and night abroad as an OFW.
Betrayal is so painful and most unkind because we exchange or “sell” our loved ones like commodities for someone or something less in value; imagine the pain a betrayer inflicts on the someone who gave everything, with all the love and care only to be “traded” for lesser value? It is said that during the time of Jesus, a slave can be bought for 30 pieces of silver; how foolish Judas must have been in exchanging Jesus who loved and cared for him for a slave! And that is what we are too when we betray God and our loved ones – fools to replace someone so precious for anything else!
Betrayal is rebelling against a loving God, a beloved one, turning our back from them who are most true to us. And that is the short of it: betrayal is not being true.
Holiness is being true; holiness and truth always go together.
The word true is from the Anglo-Saxon treowe or tree. For them, truth is like a tree that evokes a sense of firmness, of being rooted in the ground. When our words and actions are not firm, shaky and always changing, flimsy or “pabago-bago” as we say in Filipino, then it must not be true. It must be a lie and not true at all because it is always changing or shifting.
Photo by author, St. Paul Spirituality Center, La Trinidad, Benguet, 2019.
Truth is always firm, does not change and remains true forever. It may be concealed or covered by lies for sometime but sooner or later, truth will always come out. It cannot be deleted. That is why the Greeks referred to truth as aletheia or phusis, the blooming of a flower that cannot be hidden and would always manifest or show. Jesus himself assured us that “nothing that is hidden will not be revealed; nor anything secret that will not be known and come to light” (Lk.8:17).
Closely linked with the word true is trust which also came from treowe: the Anglo-Saxons saw in the tree not only firmness but also rootedness or connectedness. The firmer the tree, the deeper are its roots. And that is what a true person is – always trustworthy, someone who can be trusted, someone who values relationships or ties and links. Traitors betray their loved ones because they do not value their relationships; a true person is always trustworthy because he values his relationships. A true and trustworthy person is one who would always listen to God and others, not insisting on his own plans and agenda like the Suffering Servant of God.
The Lord God has given me a well-trained tongue, that I might know how to speak to the weary a word that will rouse them. Morning after morning he opens my ear that I may hear, and I have not rebelled, have not turned back. I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; my face I did not shield from buffets and spitting.
Isaiah 50:4-6
Photo from Pinterest.
Remember the scene of the scourging at the pillar in the film The Passion of the Christ (2004)? Biblical experts say that gory scene was very true as it was the most painful aspect of the Lord’s passion next to the crucifixion; every time the knuckles would hit the body of Jesus, a piece of his flesh is torn off. Pilate ordered Jesus to be flogged in the belief that people might pity him when seen so tortured and bruised, perhaps agree to let him go freely.
But it did not happen as the people shouted more for his crucifixion.
And that is what happens when we betray our loved ones, including Jesus: the more we become indecisive in life like Pilate, the more we also betray them because we could not stand for what is true. That is also when we hurt them more and ourselves in the process too.
So often, traitors are not aware of their betrayals, believing in their wrongful and misplaced convictions, forgetting the people who love them most. Many times, we absolutize the truth, forgetting that only God is absolute. Most of all, that truth is a Person, Jesus Christ who said “I am the way, the truth and the life” (Jn.16:6). Being true, being holy is always directed to a person, not just a conviction.
So be careful by being true always with one’s self, with others and with God.
What makes you forget the truth and be untrue to others?
Lord Jesus Christ,
teach me to be true and holy
not only to you but most especially
to the people you give me,
those who love me truly and dearly;
make me like a tree,
firm and reliable,
dependable and trustworthy,
most of all, deeply rooted in you
through then people I love and care and serve.
Amen.
Photo by Mr. Raffy Tima of GMA7-News, January 2022.
40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Monday in the Fourth Week of Lent, 28 March 2022
Isaiah 65:17-21 <*[[[[>< + ><]]]]*> John 4:43-54
Photo by author, view of Israel from Mt. Nebo in Jordan, May 2019.
How sweet are to the ears
your words today, O God our
loving Father, when you promised
to create new heavens and
a new earth, when the things of
the past shall not be remembered
or come to mind, when there shall
always be rejoicing and happiness.
No longer shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not round out his full lifetime; he dies a mere youth who reaches but a hundred years, and he who fails of a hundred shall be thought accursed. They shall live in the houses they build, and eat the fruit of the vineyards they plant.
Isaiah 65:20-21
Sana now na, Lord!
Sanaol, God!
But I know you are speaking
not in literal sense though that
time would surely happen when
we experience no more pain and
sufferings nor crying and wailing
nor death of any infant nor of anyone
less before 100 years of age.
Yes, I know Father
this life will always be filled
with pains and sufferings,
trials and tribulations but these
are meant to make us stronger
and more trusting to your coming
to us in Jesus Christ; give us the
grace to be wholly committed
to you in Jesus, in your words
like that royal official from Capernaum
for it is only in our total trust in you
can we experience peace
and healing that only you
can give in Christ while in these
troubled earth. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Sunday Week VII-C in Ordinary Time, 20 February 2022
1 Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23 ><}}}*> 1 Corinthians 15:45-49 ><}}}*> Luke 6:27-38
Photo by author, 15 February 2022.
Jesus continues with his sermon on the plains, going into the details of his main lesson, the Beatitudes which is about love. But not just love as we know and practice: twice Jesus tells us to “Love your enemies” (Lk.6:27, 35).
His instruction to “love your enemies” captures all the other moral injunctions in his lessons this Sunday meant to teach us to love like God as revealed by Jesus Christ. Recall how these past three Sundays we have been assured of the grace of God of the paradoxical happiness in life’s many contradictions we as disciples of Christ are invited to adopt by being poor, hungry, weeping and persecuted.
Jesus is teaching us his disciples to trust in him always, to look at everything in his perspective so that we may live and act like God our Father who loves everyone without measure. And to love without measure even one’s enemies begins in foregoing revenge as shown by David in the first reading.
In those day, Saul went down to the desert of Ziph with three thousand picked men of Israel, to search for David. So David and Abishai went among Saul’s soldiers by night and found Saul lying asleep within the barricade, with his spear thrust into the ground at his head and Abner and his men sleeping around him. Going across to an opposite slope, David stood on a remote hilltop at a great distance from Abner and the troops. He said: “Here is the king’s spear. Let an attendant come over to get it. The Lord will reward each man for his justice and faithfulness. Today, the Lord delivered you into my grasp, I would not harm the Lord’s anointed.”
1 Samuel 26:2, 7, 13, 22-23
Photo by author, Dead Sea desert, 2017.
Imitating Christ in his love
David is a type of Jesus Christ, a prefiguration of his coming, of someone who completely trusts in God and his words promised to him. If we read on further, this scene beautifully ends with Saul blessing David for sparing his life as they parted ways while David tells the king, “As I valued your life highly today, so may the Lord value my life highly and deliver me from all difficulties” (1 Sam. 26:24).
To avenge one’s self on an evil doer is a “fairly” spontaneous reaction, something so automatic with our human nature. But to renounce punishment, to not retaliate like the Bishop of Belgium who was recently attacked and mocked by half-naked women recently for his stand against homosexual lifestyles is something so different and unusual. That is why the Bible teems with so many stories of similar accounts how men of God patiently bore all humiliations and pains to educate and form our conscience, forego vengeance and retaliations by trusting in the Lord always who will render to each one his and her due.
One of the most unforgettable story in modern time of such trust in God is by St. John Paul II who went to forgive assassin Mehmet Agca a year after seriously shooting him at the Vatican Square in 1981. Pope emeritus Benedict XVI shows the same confidence in God as his Savior in his latest pronouncements following recent attacks by some people regarding his handling of a sexual abuse case in Germany, not to mention his old age and sickness.
Photo by author, Tagaytay City, 15 February 2022.
Love begins with respect, seeing the worth of a person
Jesus is not asking us to be passive nor resigned in the face of injustice and violence happening around us; very clear at the inauguration of his ministry in the synagogue at Nazareth how Jesus declared he had come to heal our sickness and liberate those oppressed.
In asking us to return good for evil, to love one’s enemies is above all to love like God like he had shown us in its highest expression at the Cross. It is not something reserved only for Jesus as the Son of God nor for the saints or holy men like St. John Paul II, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI or that Bishop in Belgium.
God does not love only those who do good or finds worthy; God loves everyone because of our very existence.
This is what Jesus is telling us to always look at, to find and see in everyone. We are persons to be loved, not things and objects to be owned and possessed that when no longer useful nor “good” who can be simply dismissed or thrown away.
An important component of love is respect which literally means “to look again” from the Latin words “re” for again and “specere” to look or see. From specere came the words spectacle/s, spectator, and spectacular.
It is when we fail or refuse to look and see an individual as a person – somebody like us with feelings and dreams, someone who cannot be simply defined by history or background, color or creed but another being with life who is from God alone – that is when we sin, that is when we fight and quarrel, making enemies.
When there is no respect, when we refuse to look and see the other as another person with a face reminding us of our very selves and God as our common Source and End, that is when hate and revenge get out of bounds because we have judged the other as somebody not like us or less than us.
It is from respect for the other person where all other virtues like justice and kindness, love and forgiveness spring form because it puts us at the same level despite the wrongs done to us. Respect is recognizing and affirming the personhood of each one of us in God that must guide us in relating.
Now that COVID seems to be waning in the country, may we keep the lessons of the face mask and social distancing which is the value of every person, to always reach out to others, and most of all, to look into the eyes, to find and feel the warmth of every person’s face as image and likeness of God.
To love is to find Jesus in everyone
All the teachings and moral instructions in the Bible – from the prophets to Jesus Christ – are not only doctrines and precepts to be followed but actually the self-revelations of our personal God who relates with each of us in every person. This is why at the end of his teachings this Sunday, Jesus reminds us that the “measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you” (Lk.6:38).
Let us not look beyond for any other basis for our love and respect. Jesus alone is the One why we love without measure, even our enemies because in him we find the new Adam, the spiritual One according to St. Paul presents in the second reading whom we find in everyone as well as in our very selves. Amen.
You are loved. Have a blessed week ahead.
Photo by Mr. Vincent Go, 2020, Mang Dodong of Caloocan City who was forcibly quarantined in Navotas for a month after being caught without an ID while buying some fish to peddle in his neighborhood while a police general got free of any punishments celebrating his birthday mañanita.
The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thursday in the First Week of Advent, 02 December 2021
Isaiah 26:1-6 ><)))*> + <*(((>< Matthew 7:21, 24-27
Photo by author, Malolos Cathedral, 2018.
Jesus said to his disciples: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord. Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of heave, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”
Matthew 7:21
Dearest Jesus,
how must I call out to you?
Not merely with my lips and mouth
but most specially with my heart
and soul as I stretch my arms,
reaching out to others with my hands!
Thank you for the reminder, Lord;
calling you "Lord" is not enough
if we do not surrender our very selves
to you, if we do not trust in you;
to call on you Lord is to "open up the
gates to let in a nation that is just,
one that keeps faith" (Isaiah 26:2).
Help us to build our house on rock,
one that is built upon you and identifies
with you like a "strong city with walls
and ramparts to protect us"; let us trust
only in you, Jesus, by putting into
action our prayers, witnessing to your
words and teachings for you alone is
the everlasting rock!
True discipleship in you, dear Jesus
is believing in you, trusting in you
alone... not in one's self and abilities,
nor follies. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Monday, Week XVI, Year I in Ordinary Time, 19 July 2021
Exodus 14:5-18 ><]]]'> ><]]]*> ><]]]'> Matthew 12:38-42
Photo by Mr. Raffy Tima of GMA7-News, June 2020.
What a beautiful day to reflect
on your very unusual ways, O God our Father;
once again, there is that issue of
being lost in our readings today:
your people have to take a long and
circuitous route out of Egypt
going to your Promised Land only to be
caught up near the Red Sea by
their former masters pursuing them
to take them back to slavery.
But Moses answered the people,
"Fear not! Stand your ground,
and you will see the victory
the Lord will win for you today."
Then the Lord said to Moses,
"Why are you crying out to me?
Tell the children of Israel to go forward.
And you, lift up your staff and,
with hand outstretched over the sea,
split the sea in two, that the children
of Israel may pass through it
on dry land." (Exodus 14:13,15-16)
Yes, dearest God our Father,
sometimes we need to get lost
in order to find you and one's self;
we have to be led to unfamiliar routes
and places and situations in life for indeed,
complacency breeds contempt.
Set us free from our routines and
own ways of thinking and doing
that have unconsciously enslaved us
that we no longer trust you.
Teach us to "stand our ground"
like when Moses answered his
people amid their many complaints
that we may be consistent with our
desires to be truly free and fulfilled.
Teach us to "go forward"
as you commanded your people
to cross the Red Sea and believe in you,
follow your lead to experience
your great power and wonders.
He said to them in reply,
"An evil and unfaithful generation
seeks a sign, but no sign
will be given it except
the sign of Jonah the prophet."
(Matthew 12:39)
Forgive us, dear Jesus
in seeking so many signs from you,
doubting you, mistrusting you
despite all the love and mercy
and blessings you have showered us.
When we are lost in the many
trappings of this world,
help us find our way back
home to you, to rest anew
in your gentle mercy and love. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday, Week XII, Year I in Ordinary Time, 25 June 2021
Genesis 17:1, 9-10, 15-22 > + < Matthew 8:1-4
Photo by author at Petra, Jordan, 2019.
When Abraham was ninety-nine years old,
The Lord appeared to him and said:
"I am God the Almighty.
Walk in my presence and be blameless."
(Genesis 17:1)
What a beautiful call from you,
O God our Father:
to walk in your presence
and be blameless.
Our lives consist of so many walks
many in a hurry, some very slowly
and maybe the rest listlessly, aimlessly
refusing to move at all.
Teach us, O Lord,
to walk blamelessly
by walking in your ways
following the path of the narrow gate
learning to prostrate before you
like Abraham when filled with joy
or like the leper who approached Jesus
when deeply in pain and suffering.
When Jesus came down
from the mountain,
great crowds followed him.
And then a leper approached,
did him homage, and said,
"Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean."
He stretched out his hand,
touched him, and said,
"I will do it. Be made clean."
His leprosy was cleansed immediately.
(Matthew 8:1-3)
We pray for those who have stopped
walking to you
walking with you, Lord:
let them rise again to walk
blamelessly in your sight.
Heal them and likewise
send them again to walk in your presence
and be agents of your healing. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday in the Second Week of Easter, 16 April 2021
Acts 5:34-42 ><)))*> + ><)))*> + ><)))*> John 6:1-15
Photo by Dr. Mylene A. Santos, MD, Rhode Island, 10 April 2021.
Lord Jesus Christ, help me stop rationalizing, reasoning out so often at how you do things, on how you will change us and the world. Let me just trust you and be open to your works in me and among other people, following the inspired wisdom of Gamaliel in the first reading.
"So now I tell you,
have nothing to do with these men,
and let them go. For if this endeavor
or this activity is of human origin,
it will destroy itself.
But if it comes from God,
you will not be able to destroy them;
you may even find yourselves fighting against God."
(Acts 5:38-39)
You always know what to do, Lord; so many times in our lives like in the wilderness when crowds followed you, you ask us on what to do just to test us like Philip (Jn.6:5-6).
Teach to always trust you, Jesus. Though we have to be realistic with every situation like Philip and Andrew when they saw the great crowd of people who have followed you, let us submit ourselves to you wholly, to do as you command us.
Take away our narrow-mindedness and self-righteousness that you work only with us and through us.
Take away our pride and arrogance, making us accept the reality that you can work with everyone everywhere just like with Gamaliel of the Sanhedrin and that boy Andrew never bothered to ask his name when he came to offer you his five loaves of bread and two pieces of fish to feed the crowds.
This Easter season, may we learn that it does not matter at all where we are or with whom we are with to do your works, dear Jesus; what really matters is wherever we may be and with whom we may be, we are always in YOU our Lord and God, sharing you Jesus, only Jesus, always Jesus. Amen.
The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Second Sunday in Easter (Divine Mercy Sunday), 11 April 2021
Acts 4:32-35 >><)))*> 1John 5:1-6 >><)))*> John 20:19-31
Caravaggio’s “Doubting Thomas” from en.wikipedia.org.
Praise and glory to you, O God our loving Father in heaven! Despite the recent surge in the COVID-19 pandemic, we are still here today celebrating the Easter Octave which is also the Divine Mercy Sunday of your Son Jesus Christ.
Thank you for the gift of life.
Thank your for the tears we have been shedding lately for those whom we have lost.
Thank you for the gift of faith in you, for the grace to still pray amid all the pains and sufferings coming our way.
Thank you so much for our medical frontliners who are so exhausted and drained serving us for over a year now since this pandemic started. Keep them strong in body, mind and soul. Take care of their families and loved ones. We want to see them and celebrate with them when this is all over so we may thank them personally for being our rays of hope and life in these times.
Thank you also for those who have been working tirelessly especially at night so we can have bread and other food in the morning, those who keep our industries and utilities running, those people we hardly know and remember but so essential not only in keeping us alive and comfortable but most of all sane in this crazy period in history.
You know very well our cries, our complaints and our pleadings, dear Father.
Forgive us when we forget those living in the margins, suffering and crying in silence, those who have stopped going to school, those who have lost jobs, those to be evicted from their homes for lack of money to pay their rentals, for those who could not make their ends meet.
Dear Father in heaven… we do not know what else to do. Show us the way in Jesus, the object of our faith, the guarantee of our hope and future glory in you.
And for those now in your presence, those who have gone ahead of us, we pray for their eternal rest, O Lord. We pray also for those they have left behind. One death is too many, Lord.
Rekindle our faith, direct our gaze onto your Son Jesus Christ who had conquered death and sin, sickness and darkness in his Resurrection.
Like Thomas his apostle, make us realize that we can only recognize him in his wounds from the cross.
And like Thomas called Didymus or Twin, help us strike balance and harmony in the many twins in our lives like our faith and doubts, joys and sadness, victory and defeats, glory and sorrows, as well as life and death, rejoicing and mournings.
Oh God… help us in this time that is so Dickensenian in every sense!
It is the best of times, it is the worst of times;
it is the age of wisdom, it is the age of foolishness;
it is the epoch of belief, it is the epoch of incredulity;
it is the season of Light, it is the season of Darkness;
it is the spring of hope, it is the winter of despair;
we have everything before us, we have nothing before us;
we are all going direct to Heaven,
we are all going direct the other way—
(adapted from "A Tale of Two Cities"
by Charles Dickens)
Help us learn the lessons of this pandemic and make us turn back to you in Jesus Christ your Son, who is our Lord and our God as we pray with conviction, “Jesus, King of Mercy, we trust in you!”Amen.
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