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Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Thursday, Twenty-Fifth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II, 24 September 2026 Ecclesiastes 1:2-11 ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> + ><]]]]'> Luke 9:7-9
Your words today, O Lord our God, both in the first reading from Ecclesiastes and the gospel remind me of Bob Dylan's 1963 song "Blowin' in the Wind" - that all these problems we are facing like wars and social inequalities stem from our failure and refusal to open our eyes to see the most obvious things that are just blowin' in the wind.
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, and how many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they’re forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind
Thousands of years before Bob Dylan came, there was Qoheleth telling us, "Vanity of vanities... All things are vanity!" Like the wind, "Blowing now toward the south, then toward the north, the wind turns again and again, resuming its rounds" (Ecclesiastes 1:2, 6).
We simply had to feel what everyone is feeling to be kind, a "kin" to everyone but we are so vain thinking only of our very selves that we can't feel the blowin' of the wind to see you in everyone.
Yes, and how many years must a mountain exist
Before it is washed to the sea?
Yes, and how many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?
Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn’t see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind
Two thousand years ago your Son our Savior Jesus came to reveal you to us, Father, suffering, dying and rising from the dead but still, many refused to recognize him, preferring to be like Herod Antipas who ordered John the Baptist killed but when he heard about the Christ, "And he kept trying to see him" (Luke 9:9) when he eventually met and spoke with briefly but never "saw" at all. And that is vanity, O Lord: when we keep on searching, wanting to see someone, something so obviously present among; open our eyes, our hearts, let us not be vain in order to see what is obvious we are so oblivious in finding you on the face of everyone we meet no matter what his/her color and belief and background in life. Open our very selves to find you Lord on everyone's face, to hear the cries and pleas of those suffering and disadvantaged, the weakest like the sick and dying, the youngest and oldest. Amen.
Yes, and how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, and how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, and how many deaths will it take ’til he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind
