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The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Thursday in the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time, Year I, 27 July 2023
Exodus 19:1-2, 9-11, 16-20 <*{{{{><< + >><}}}}*> Matthew 13:10-17
You said it perfectly well, Lord Jesus Christ, our very own parable of life and of time: "because they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand" (Matthew 13:13). Why, O Lord, despite the modern communications meant to bring us closer, the more we have actually grown apart from each other? Why, O Lord, despite the great speed of our communications, the more we cannot be reached, or slower we have become in reaching out, in coming to everyone especially those in need? Why, O Lord, despite the clarity of signals of communications, the more things and persons are blurred, including our relationships?
When you spoke to your people in the Old Testament with peals of thunder and lightning, they were scared to death; when your Son Jesus came and lived among them, speaking their language, they found him too ordinary, even a nobody; today, you continue to speak to us in nature and in person, through our many experiences, through the people we meet, through the sacraments, through many means and occasions even right in our hearts but still, we neither see, nor hear nor listen.
What a parable we live! Open our hearts, O Lord, so we may believe, hear and listen, allow ourselves to be surprised and amazed by you with the most simple things to make us realize you are true and so real right within us. Amen.
