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Lord My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday, Memorial of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 21 November 2025
1 Maccabees 4:36-37, 52-59 <*{{{{>< + ><}}}}*> Luke 19:45-48
God our loving Father, today I praise and thank you again for the recent chance to travel and experience your majesty and beauty abroad and among other peoples of different culture; most of all, I am grateful to have been to the home of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Ephesus; until now, I am savoring, "masticating" the blessed experience.
Jesus entered the temple area and proceeded to drive out those who were selling things, saying to them, “It is written, My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves” (Luke 19:45-46).
As I recall that brief moment of stay inside the Ephesus home of Mary, I felt my whole being emptied - hollowed - and as I knelt and prayed without any distractions, no worries about pictures nor of time, slowly I felt being filled within by you, O God: from hollowedness to holiness or hallowed; that is why Jesus drove away the merchants out of temple: every temple, every place of worship including our very selves is a home and dwelling place of God; the chief priests, scribes and leader of the people felt under attack by Jesus because they were empty of God, filled of the world and its things; the people were spellbound on the other hand because they have realized that truly, we are the indwelling of God; therefore, let us cleanse ourselves always within not only of sin but also of so many things that distract us away from God to dwell in us like social media.
O Blessed Virgin Mary, from the very start you have been reserved by God from any stain of sin to be the Mother of the Christ but it was also fulfilled because of human cooperation: of your parents dedicating you to God and most of all, of your fiat to God. Pray for us, Mama Mary that we may cultivate a prayer life that shall make us a home to God; let us express our fiat to him daily by presenting ourselves to him like you. Amen.
