Best Lenten Offering

        During this Lent, giving up something like eating chocolate cookies is good, but it's infinitely better to give up yourself to God so as to attain union with him. This positive approach will result in your becoming a saint for the rest of your life. With God, always go as far as you can for maximum security and enjoyment.

***Perfect Submission to God

        Communion experience. It should be a time of experiencing peace, but I felt that it's also a good time to let the Lord shake us up. Whatever God does to us can only be good for us. Therefore, remain completely passive to let him do whatever he wishes with you. 

***Living the Perfect Life

        Let the love of God reign in your heart so that everything you do will be motivated by him who is love. This happens when you let God increase to 100% and yourself decrease to zero. Then guess what, the Lord increases you to 100% in him! This is how he rewards us!

***Our Most Beloved Father

        Today's Gospel reading from Luke 15 was the well-known Parable of the Lost Son. All of us are sons and daughters of our heavenly Father. When we accept Jesus as our Savior, we are officially adopted by God. Can't you hear the Father calling each one of us "My son" or "My daughter"? How endearing he is to us! At the same time, we must realize how much we can hurt him if we sin against him, for he loves us so much.

*To Rein in Our Speeches

        We speak freely on our own most of the time, and when we are inspired by the Holy Spirit, we speak what the Lord prompts us to say. When speaking on our own, if we are not discerning enough, what comes out can be critical of others or even start an argument. This happened to me recently at a small group sharing. In responding to something someone said, I expressed my point of view and sounded as if I was criticizing the person. If Jesus were at this meeting, he probably wouldn't have minded at all. Afterwards, I realized that I still did not have enough humility in me. From now on, I want to say only what Jesus wants me to say or whatever meets his approval. Humility must rule and the ego never surface. More submission to the Lord is in order.

*Ultimate Spiritual Action

        God alone is more than sufficient for us. Once you have him, you can let everything else go. Therefore, the ultimate spiritual action to take is to dive deep into the Lord to remain in union with him. You fulfill all your desire and receive continual graces from him. This is living in the Lord, not just surviving on your own.

***Our Last Hope

        Today's Gospel reading from Luke 16 gave us the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Both the rich man and poor Lazarus died; the former descended to the netherworld and the latter was carried away by angles to the bosom of Abraham. In torment, the rich man begged Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his five brothers still living lest they also end up in the place of torment. Abraham replied, "They have Moses and the prophets to listen to. If they will not listen to them, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead." Now we have Jesus, the Son of God! If we won't even listen to him, we certainly banish our last hope of being saved. 

**Our Most Amazing Master!*

        In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 20, Jesus told the Twelve about his coming Passion, yet after the mother of the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, asked Jesus to make her two sons sit, one at his right and one at his left, in his kingdom, the other ten heard about it and became indignant at the two brothers. It just shows how far our thoughts and ways are from God's. Jesus summoned them and said to them, "Whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servants; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." Indeed, Jesus came and never lorded it over us nor made us feel his authority over us. This is the amazing fact: our God is our greatest servant!

**Devotion to God Alone

        Today is the Solemnity of St. Joseph. Many of us Catholics have great devotion to saints. My personal favorite saint is St. Thérèse of Lisieux whose spirituality is most attractive to me. At Mass, the Lord gave me these thoughts. Devotion to any saint is good as long as it draws us to him. That is, devotion to Christ must always be foremost. Likewise, miracles should always lead us to their producer. When we start chasing after miracles instead of God, we start going astray. I know all great saints are most humble beings and would rather remain hidden in God. Putting them on too high a pedestal would probably make them squirm. They'd rather we go to the Lord directly than through them. So my point is again to always go to the Lord first. If you happen to celebrate the Feast of some saint, don't focus upon the saint; rather, ask the saint to help you increase your devotion to Christ. We can live without the saints, but we can't without the Lord. 

**To Live in the Present

          I see so many people worrying about so many things in this world. At my age, most people I know are older folks and they are very much concerned about how they are going to be taken care of in the near future. This is a legitimate concern, but to worry about it is wrong, especially if you profess to be a Christian. I can quote from Matthew to show that Jesus does not want us to worry about tomorrow or about life, and if we seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness first, everything will be taken care of for us. But most people dismiss these sayings outright because they think you have to be pretty naive to believe in such easily made statements. What I want to say is if you really believe in them to the letter, you'll find that they speak the truth. What is needed is faith.

        Today I see clearly that God has a plan for me. He knows how much time I have left in this world and what he has in mind for me to accomplish if I continue following him. I myself only have an inkling of what I should do within the next year or so. Therefore, I do not worry about anything, knowing that God knows it all already. Should my inkling turn out to be off, that's fine too. We only need to do our best each moment and not be concerned about the next.