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The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Monday in the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time, Year I, 13 February 2023 Genesis 4:1-15, 25 ><))))*> + ><))))*> + ><))))*> Mark 8:11-13
Praise and glory to you, God our loving Father, for this wonderful Monday! How amazing and lovely to contemplate your words daily, to experience your love and mercy you lavishly pour upon us despite our sinfulness.
Then the Lord asked Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” He answered, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” The Lord then said: “What have you done! Listen: your brother’s blood cries out to me from the soil!”
Genesis 4:9-10
How often we act like Cain, O Lord! How often we miserably fail one another, pretending not to know each one when we cut off our ties as kins, as brothers and sisters in you our Father!
What a shame how everyday, you ask us those basic questions in Paradise after the fall of our first parents: "Where are you?" and then, "Where is your brother?"
Merciful Father, let us ponder on these questions of "where are you?" and now "where is your brother?": to find our place in you is always to find and recognize too those around us as our kin, our family in you; open our eyes and our hearts to one another as a sign of your presence in Jesus Christ (Mk.8:11-13); let us feel the gravity of our sinfulness of how evil in its darkest reality happens right inside our circles of family and friends, when we strike one another with our painful words, or sharp looks, or indifference and coldness; let us realize, however, that even in the midst of these sinful thoughts and jealousies we harbor against others in our hearts, you remain in us, still there continuing your inner dialogue with us not to be "resentful and crestfallen, to do well in order to hold up our heads, and resist the demon urging toward us" (Gen. 4:6-7).
In the name of Jesus Christ your Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit, enlighten our minds and our hearts, dear Father, to keep this basic truth that we are indeed our brother's keeper, that to keep our ties in you tightly knit is to keep our kinship always because you are our Father, our origin and our end, We pray in the most special way for our family members who have cut off ties with us, those we have hurt or have hurt us, choosing not to know us. Touch their hearts. Ask them too, "Where is your brother, your sister?" Show them the way back home, to experience love and forgiveness and mercy again. Amen.
