If you feel good when you know that you look good to others in or out of clothes, have won honors and earned higher degrees, or possess good health and great wealth, then you must be a pretty vain person. Whatever pleasure you derive from such satisfaction only feeds the ego and is therefore superficial and short-lived. By contrast, the hidden joy you feel when you humbly serve the Lord is pure and deep, permanently affecting the soul.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Most Wonderful Offering
One person prays for a job and he's offered one. Another prays for healing and gets well speedily. These are all wonderful happenings. But the most wonderful of all to me is that when a sinner prays to become holy, God transforms him or her into a saint. In all cases, God shows his love for us and hopes to draw us closer to him; but in the last, he is most pleased because instead of asking to receive something, the sinner offers himself to God for his glory ~ meeting him halfway, you could say. God's love for us deserves our all.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
To Get Closer to God
If you yearn for God, the only way to get closer to him is to love him more and he will draw you to him ~ most satisfying and rewarding.
Faith Leads to Beauty of God
The more your faith deepens, the more you see the beauty of God. This is somewhat like a spelunker exploring a cave ~ the deeper he enters the cave, the more it opens up before him a new, more beautiful world.
Holy Eucharist, the Most High
Today's Communion verse is from Matthew 28.20: "I, the Lord, am with you always, until the end of the world." To me, the Holy Eucharist Jesus instituted for us confirms this promise in a special way. The Holy Eucharist is the bread of life, the Lord himself, the greatest gift he has left us, so special, so extraordinary, a treasure beyond measure... When I receive the Holy Eucharist, not only Jesus touches me, we become one. This gift is absolutely necessary to attain full union with the Lord. I shall extol and exalt it as long as I am still breathing.
Living a Life of Love
In today's Gospel reading from Mark 10, Jesus makes it clear that anyone who gives up everything to follow him will receive a hundred times more in this life and eternal life in the next. Basically, I see that Jesus wants us to to love him, to experience his love, to be filled with his love. Our whole life then should be one fully immersed in the love of God.
To Take on the Heart & Mind of Christ
On the way to morning Mass, I felt that I wanted to pray like Jesus. He is completely intimate with the Father (they are one) and always asked for the will of the Father to be done. Then I thought that I wanted to think like Jesus and feel like Jesus too. It's clear that union with Christ will bring about these desired changes.
Back to Abandonment in God
The other day I had a chance to urge someone to come back to the Church. I began well; but gradually, because of my zeal, I started swamping him with too many words. The lesson I learned is that even with zeal, I should always follow the Holy Spirit and not take over his lead. And I must always leave the outcome to him so that my zeal may not get out of bounds. It's back to abandoning myself to God.
Monday, February 28, 2011
To Achieve True Freedom
Today's Entrance at Mass from Psalm 18: "The Lord has been my strength; he has led me into freedom..."
How to be truly free? Anyone in slavery himself has no power to free himself. It's like trying to lift yourself up by pulling on your own boot straps. He needs someone greater than himself, a master, to free him. And that master is God, with whom nothing is impossible. It is in letting ourselves be captives of God that we become free ~ one of those paradoxes that are true.
On Expecting to Be Rewarded
If you expect to be rewarded for what you do, you'll surely have disappointments; but if you do not expect any reward for what you do, then you'll be free to enjoy whatever surprises coming your way.
A footnote. Do everything for the glory of God and you'll always be rewarded.
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