Power of the Responding Heart

        Our physical strength is clearly limited. Our mind too ~ when I use mine to solve a problem, I can only go so far. When I want to praise God, I run out of words to say. Now, when it comes to our heart, it knows no such bounds as it responds to the Lord directly. He can make us love him and others as much as he wants to with no cutoffs. If I yearn for God, he can increase that desire as much as he wishes. It's all up to him. A heart responding to God unites us to God, giving us unlimited power to change ourselves and the world.

Simplifying Your Life

        Seek only God. Once you have found him, stay with, attach to, focus upon, and trust in him alone, letting everything else go. Then interiorly, you'll have freedom, peace, and joy. 

Doing Whatever You Want

        When can you do whatever you want? It's not meant to be a trick question. The simple answer: when you are in union with God. That's because in that state, all you want to do is God's will. 

No Comparing with Others

        If you are physically more endowed, intellectually more astute, verbally more skillful, artistically more talented, spiritually holier, better educated, more famous or wealthier than others, never compare yourself with them because all that you possess do not belong to you ~ they came from God. Furthermore, remind yourself that you are also inferior in so many ways to others. Your first priority is to please the Lord, and being humble would surely do it.

No Time for Sin

        We sin and we lose interior peace. By contrast, when we are in union with God, sin becomes repulsive. Besides, we'll be so absorbed in God that there is no time left to even think of sin. Now we have peace.    

All About Union with God

        Today is the Memorial of St. Ignatius. The Entrance Song from Galatians 2 starts out: "I am crucified with Christ, yet I live; no longer I, but Christ lives in me." This is such a simple but profound statement. It's all about union with God. It reveals the secret of perfect living and is a recipe for attaining freedom of the spirit.

Islam and Christianity

        I started reading a little bit about what Muslims believe. I learned that they believe that God is in one Person only, so this wipes out the Christian belief in the Holy Trinity. They believe in angels and the prophets of the Old Testament, but Jesus was just a prophet, not divine ~ this wipes out the Christian message of salvation through Christ, and I wonder why he even got crucified. (Later I read that they believe that someone else took the place of Jesus on the cross.) Muslims believe that Muhammad was the prophet with the last word on God's revelation to us. If that were true, then Jesus cannot possibly be a true prophet. They also maintain that messages and revelations from God previous to Muhammad's appearance on the scene had been partially changed or corrupted over time, so what can you say? At any rate, Islam and Christianity are fundamentally different. One can only believe in one, not both. 

Sleepwalking Through Life

        While exercising on a treadmill this morning at a nearby gym, you could hear the background music coming through the constant noises made by people working out on various types of machines. It was rock with a persistent beat and "sung" in indistinguishable words ~ rather annoying. The thought of the world sleepwalking through life, not being aware of the love and mercy of God and the bright hope of salvation there is for us, came to my mind. It's indeed easy to live on and not think about our ultimate destiny with time passing and gone forever. God has sent prophets to his people through the centuries and finally his own Son to all of us, yet so many of us now still sleepwalk through life. What do they truly want? I suppose that when you are sleepwalking, you can't really think about what you want.

Christ Our Best Guide

        Jesus shows us how to think right, to see right, to hear right, to speak right, to feel right, to love right, and to live right. Among all the gurus and spiritual teachers of the world, he is the standard and most trustworthy one because he alone has shown the greatest possible love for us. Besides, he is God!

Feeling Free in the Lord

        During Mass, it just hit me that there is no mystery about Christianity at all. The message of salvation is plain, clear, logical, and based entirely upon God's love. Receiving Holy Communion was a monumental moment for me. I felt deeply anchored in the Lord. I was completely in him, yet feeling completely free ~ another paradoxical fact of Christianity.