***Jesus' Holy Face Again***

        My Lord and my God!

***Between Just You and God***

         Today's Psalm 51:6a: Against you [God] only have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight. Yes, when we sin, we truly hurt God only, for he is the holy one. And we'll all be judged by him alone. It all comes down to whether we obey God or not. Quoting Mother Teresa:—"In the final analysis, it is between you and God."

***Learning from the Lord***

         In today's Gospel reading from Luke 9, Jesus said to all, "If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?" Here are some of my thoughts. (1) The Lord has already carried his gigantic cross for our sake. How can we possibly not want to carry our own little ones and still wish to follow him? (2) "Whoever loses his life for my sake will save it": No one other than the Lord God can say this and make sense. He is awesome! (3) The last statement "What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?": This was addressed to all of us then and now. We all understand it, but how many of us take it seriously? The Lord leaves it up to us. By the way, we do reap what we sow.

***Most Foolish Are the Ones Who . . .

live as if God doesn't exist or doesn't know what's going on with them.

*****Miracle Food*****

         Communion experience. The heavenly bread nourishes, purifies, and heals the soul, wiping out all fears.

***Perfecting Your Reconciliation to God Is . . .

perfecting your return to him.

**Holy Habit

         No one likes complainers. Thank the Lord for whatever you experience, pleasant or painful, and he'll reward you many-fold.

**Day to Start Looking Beautiful

         Ash Wednesday is the perfect day to realize that we are nothing but dust. When we are humble, we look beautiful to the Lord. So this is also the perfect day for us to start looking beautiful to the Father if we are not that pretty yet.

*****Simple Secret We Must Know***

         In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 6, Jesus told his disciples to take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that the people might see them; otherwise, they would be like the hypocrites. In other words, we must be egoless and focus upon glorifying the Lord alone. This is the whole secret to peace and salvation: Let God all in and we are in! It's so simple, but are we smart enough to handle that?

*****What the World Misses***

        Today is Ash Wednesday. The response from Psalm 51 reads "Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned." It would be such an unbelievably beautiful thing if all of us in this world would want to shout this out from the heart! The deep joy the poor world sorely misses is the joy of repentance, that joy of being back in grace with our heavenly Dad!