**Holy Boasters

        In today's first reading from 2 Corinthians 11, Paul boasts of how he labored for Christ. He writes, "If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness." For us who love and follow the Lord, we can certainly joyfully boast of my total dependence upon the Lord. This is holy pride!

***Forgive All, We Must!***

         In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 6, Jesus taught his disciples to pray the Lord's Prayer and concluded by saying "If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions." These words came clear as a bell. So we must do our best to forgive others (evildoers included). Then the Lord will do his best to forgive us. The commandment "Stop judging, that you may not be judged" makes perfect sense now. 

*****Greatest Possible Accomplishment*****

        If you want to have a great relationship with the most loving God of Christ so that you get to know him intimately, belong to his heavenly family, and be all set for eternity, it's really simple—you just go beyond believing in him and surrender yourself completely to him. This can be accomplished in an instant and will be remembered by God the Father forever!

***World Getting Out of Bounds

       We are in end times for sure, hastening the Lord's coming. But first, there'll likely be more warnings, followed by chastisements. So be prepared and pray hard. 

****Letting God Heal and Liberate You!

        Yesterday while I was cleaning out a desk drawer in my old study, I found something I wrote in 1975 on a typewriter. It's about ten pages long, double spaced. You see, I was involved in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal at the time and that was written as an assignment for a group of us seeking inner healing from the Lord at a person's house. The Lord has the power to heal all our inner wounds, pains, and sufferings, both present and past. We were to recall and write down everything that had robbed us of inner peace and present it to the Lord. It took me quite some time to get that done. Of course, we did not share any of these private recollections with each other at the meeting, for it sufficed that the Lord knew all about them. Anyway, I quickly went over what I found. If that had been written by someone else, I'd feel very sorry for that person, for he surely was unhappy, all mixed up, and lost, struggling to be somebody. Then I realized that I was now a completely different person, being so happy in the Lord and myself that I had zero desire to be someone else. I wanted to celebrate my freedom—it's all God's doing! Because the change took place over a period of time, I didn't not realize how far I had come. The past is all gone and the future is brighter than the sun. When you know you are on your way to be with your most beloved forever, how can you possibly not feel exhilarated? 

***Difficult Teachings

         In yesterday's Gospel reading from Matthew 5, Jesus said to his disciples, "Offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well. If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles. Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow." I could see that Jesus himself certainly practiced what he preached. But how about us? I have great difficulty with the first saying about offering no resistance to one who is evil. What if someone wants to kill me and my entire family? I even have trouble giving money to anyone who asks of me, when I know that it's a scam. Should we not even fight evil? I believe that the Lord basically wants us to always love others, including our enemies. What he requires us to do is most difficult, all the more we need to abandon ourselves to him. I believe the consolation here is that if we love God, he will never put us to any test we cannot pass. 

**On God's Mercy

        I used to be teacher at a college. Usually, I set the passing score at 60%. If a student scored a 59, should I fail him? You need a cutoff, but how strictly should I adhere to it? What about the student who would have done better if some unfortunate event hadn't happened to prevent him from studying for the exam? Shouldn't the student who tried really hard to pass be given special consideration? These were the questions I asked myself. I believe that God's mercy is flexible. We already know that he loves us and wants to save as many of us as he can. Many of us are basically imperfect, but not exactly evil. He'll look for any little merit we have in order to save us. The existence of purgatory is a sign of his great mercy. Repentance ensures that we'll get into heaven. To me, the best policy is to love and serve the Lord to the max and we won't need to be concerned about how he's going to judge us anymore.

***Serving the Lord

         There are people we cannot reach or we can reach but are not able to convert. This is where we need to abandon ourselves completely to God. We work for him, but let him complete everything we do. And know that when we serve the Lord, we are always his first beneficiaries. 

**God Is Fire!

         It pains me greatly to see people not taking Christ seriously. One case in point. I saw the work of an artist playing around with the images of Christ on the cross and the Cross. These images probably amused a lot of people, but to me they were so irreverent as to be blasphemous. If I were at that art show, I would have let him know of my concern. The artist obviously didn't know Christ, but he was absolutely stupid not realizing that what he planned to do might offend many others to whom Christ was the Lord God. Know that with God, we are playing with the fire we can be cast into one day if we are not being careful with it.

*We Are Completely Exposed

         All those people who have had a near-dearth experience claim that even when they were out of their own body, they could see everything that's going on in the world except that they couldn't contact us. This was also confirmed by some seers who receive messages from heaven when they were asked this question. I personally believe that there are all kinds of spirits out there who see exactly what we are doing on earth, but are invisible to us. Of course, God is the only one who not only sees us, but also knows everything about us and can contact us. Just know that we are being watched at all times, but living for God alone is all we need to mind.