**In Freedom**

        Communion experience. I felt ready to leave all behind to meet the Lord, as he has already set me free and I an now his alone.          

*****Horror to Avoid***

        In today's Gospel reading from John 8, Jesus told the Pharisees that because they belonged to the world and did not believe that he was I AM, they would die in their sins. "To die in sins" is something that should horrify everyone, not just the Christians. It is worse than suffering a head-on collision on earth, for it destroys the soul as well! If you avoid head-on collisions at any cost, but are not concerned about getting your sins removed, then you are not making any sense and remain as dumb as ever. Sorry I am being blunt about this, but truth must be faced squarely.

***Unawake Fools***

         Before Mass began this morning, the Lord made me realize the following: We are most fragile both physically and spiritually. Physically, we can die any moment from an accident or illness. We can be here now and gone the next moment. Spiritually, we can die in sins and get condemned forever if we reject God. Only the biggest fool would live for himself as if he were not going to ever die on earth. Sadly, many people seem to belong in that category.

***Sign You've Attained Union with God**

         Obeying and pleasing Christ is now your only joy.

***Incredible Perfect Opportunity***

        Communion experience. The Lord God offering himself to us as an invitation to attain union with him, it's the perfect opportunity for us to submit ourselves totally to him to realize this most intimate personal relationship—it's union with the Almighty God!!!

***Reason We Don't Take God Seriously***

        Do you know that we all sin against God? You probably do, but do you realize that sinning is the worst possible thing we can possibly do, for it can lead us to total self-annihilation? Think of it, we're the own creatures in this universe sinning against the Lord God who is our creator, most loving Father, and is all holy and deserves all our love. If you do not believe in or even respect him, that's because you don't realize how horribly awful sinning is yet! It's time to wake up!

***Letting God Be God or Not***

         Just a week ago, the Gospel reading at Mass was on the parable of the lost son. I blogged about it under the title God the Father's Greatest Love, for it really shows how great God's love for us is. I wrote "You have to have a heart made of stone not to be moved by it." This parable truly is the most beautiful of all the parables. In today's Gospel reading from John 8, the scribes and the Pharisee brought a woman who had been caught in adultery to Jesus and said to him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?" They said this to test him. Jesus said to them, "Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." In response, they went away one by one. So he was left alone with the woman before him. Jesus said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" She replied, "No one, sir." Then Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin any more." Here Jesus showed his greatest love for this woman. In John 3:17, The Lord said, "God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him." So no matter how much we sin, he does not condemn us—he simply wishes that we stop sinning and patiently waits for us to turn to him to repent our sins so that he might forgive us and save us from eternal death. If we do not do this when we can, we just get ourselves condemned in the end. It all comes down to if you let God be our God or not.

***Common Sense Realities***

         (1) We are all sinners. (2) Good and evil are real. (3) A spiritual battle between the two has been going on since our creation. (4) We'll all end up in either paradise or hell. (5) Christ stands out as our only true Savior.

***Only Way to Be Saved fron Sin***

        Sin is the biggest enemy to our existence, yet it's also like an old friend who sticks with us. If we let it influence us too much, it'll surely sink us. The right thing for us to do is to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior to let him take away our sins and keep us holy. There are no others out there who can do the same, for they themselves are all sinners. So stick with Christ to be set free from sin forever. 

***Best Way to Know and Learn from Christ***

        The fastest and most expedient way of knowing and learning from Christ the Lord is to go directly to him, skipping all third parties, for he is instantly accessible to you at any time. To take any roundabout way to seek to attain union with him would be nigh impossible! So be like the Apostles, who followed and learned directly from the Lord.

***That Unique Satisfying Feeling

        To remain in union with Christ, you must remain completely open to him, hiding nothing, In fact, you pour out everything in your heart for him to know, proving to him that your heart is in union with his Sacred Heart too. Knowing that you are in union with the Lord has to be the most triumphant, satisfying, and humbling feeling you can possibly have in this life.  

***Answer to Triumphant Living***

        To live triumphantly in this chaotic evil world is a huge challenge. The best way I see to meet this challenge is to remain in solid union with Christ. Only in him will we find peace, consolation, and receive power and strength. There is not another way, for he alone is in charge of all things and the one to whom we shall all return to give an account of ourselves.

***That Heavenly Feeling***

        To know that you are heaven bound is a great feeling! Since I am going to follow Christ forever, I know that I'm going to him.

***The World Losing Its Lure**

        Once you realize and sense how special, perfect, and extraordinarily beautiful God's love for us is, all the worldly things lose their appeal and those who belong to the world just look like they are acting out their parts in some pointless play.

***Worst Unjustified Maltreatment*****

        Christ has shown that God's love for us is pure, selfless, merciful, and most tender—it's truly beautiful beyond words! It melts the hearts and transforms the souls of all those who believe in him. We truly need to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength. Yet so many of us still ignore, reject, or even mock him. So the Lord God is the most loved and most maltreated being at the same time. This only shows that evil is real and the God of  Christ is truly our God!  

***How Faith Begins**

        There are people who show zero interest in knowing anything about Christ. It makes you think that faith might be a gift that God gives only to those he has first chosen. I don't know. If that were the case, I'd ask the Lord to choose everyone. What I know is how I came to choose Christ. I did not consider him until I felt the emptiness of life while I was attending college. I got to know some Christian friends who shared their faith enthusiastically with me. Eventually, I opened up and accepted Christ—that was the key moment! As I received more graces, my faith started to grow. This was affirmed by what Jesus said to his disciples in Matthew 13: "To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich." In most cases, this growth goes on one's whole life. Then if you can abandon yourself to the Lord entirely, with the aid of the Holy Eucharist you can achieve union with him in a relatively short time. In conclusion, to have faith in God, we must open ourselves up to God to get started, and then by abandoning ourselves to him to keep the growth process going.

*****JESUS IS WORTH EVERYTHING*****

         All of us, Christian or Non-Christian, need to know this about Jesus. Don't miss listening to the great St. Thomas Aquinas' epiphany moment with him beginning at 9:47.

**The LORD Is Our Joy*

        Isaiah 55:1, today's entrance antiphon: All who are thirsty, come to the waters, says the Lord.  Though you have no money, come and drink with joy. The Lord is the source of our joy and is our joy!