Lent Intentions

        Tomorrow Lent begins with Ash Wednesday. You can choose to make more sacrifices or to love more. While the former brings up a gloomy image, the latter sounds so much more cheerful. Besides, in loving you are making sacrifices and you don't even think of it as such! I think it's the better intention of the two. Lenten season is a perfect time for us to grow holier. 

Love Ever Present

        God is ever present and since he is Love, his love is ever present too. God has no beginning nor end, so his love is everlasting too. All creation may pass, but not his love ~ this is of great comfort to me. On top of it all, it's yours whenever you ask for it ~ I would ask for as much as the Father will give me. The more love you receive, the more fringe benefits you get too.        

Love like Fire

        God's love is gentle and soothing, yet serious and intense at the same time. If you welcome and embrace this love, it will heal, cleanse, and purify your heart. If you ignore, reject, or offend his love, your risk getting yourself separated from him forever. Like real fire, the love of God can warm or scorch you, so don't play with it.

God's Takeover

        This Morning when I received Christ in the Holy Eucharist, I just remained open, passive, and let him take over, knowing that he's going to heal my soul. I instantly felt myself "weightless" and free. When the Lord takes over, all shackles and fetters vanish.

Most Personal God

       The God of Christ is a most personal God. He died for all of us to redeem us and he would have done the same even if you are the only person existing. He loves you as if you're the only one in his sight. And everything you do, no matter how small, affects him! His blesses us as much as we ask for. Whoever believes in him becomes a son or daughter to him. And through union, you and God can become one, belonging to each other. You cannot possibly get more personal than that. 

Self-Control Not Needed

        I mentioned in an earlier post that once you are in union with God, the free will is no longer exercised because your will is already following God's will. In the same way, self-control is no longer needed because you now automatically do what pleases God. In theory, when you are in perfect union with God, you become truly Christlike. 

Melting in God

        At Mass today, as the consecrated host of the Holy Eucharist slowly melted in my mouth, I felt myself melting away in the ocean of God's love ~ a great feeling and a great mental image. 

Remain True and Secure

        Do not let anyone who says false things about you disturb you, for what's true remains true and what's not will self-destroy. God is the eternal truth and nothing man does can change that. Untruth vaporizes before God. Remain in the Lord always and you will be secure.        

Choosing Your Part

        In the story of Mary and Martha, Jesus made it clear that Mary, for sitting beside him at his feet and listening to him speak, had chosen the better part. Today, amidst all those people who have succeeded in the eyes of the world, I know that I have chosen the best part, for I have the Lord.        

Communion Time Give-and-Take

        Today, before I received Holy Communion, I prayed to God to make me perfect for his joy.

        After I received Holy Communion, he told me to treasure everything he had given me.  

God Has Made Us So

        I've quoted at lease twice before St. Augustine's saying "Our hearts are restless until they rest in you." That's how God has made us. This morning at Mass, it was still hard for me to believe that God would give his own Son to save us (John 3:16). Then I saw that this is also a built-in thing ~ God wants us to wonder about his incredible love and be amazed so that we may believe and be drawn to him. 

Jesus Is All We Need

        In my younger days, it's important to me that I go through my life to leave a mark in the world. I did not exactly rule out making the world a better place for all to live in, but I basically wanted to feel good about accomplishing something on my own. Looking back, I see the foolishness of it all. Today I'd rather remain unknown and aim only to please God ~ so much more satisfying, and peaceful too. I could hear mentally Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring by Bach playing.   

Beware of False Prophets

        Today's Gospel Acclamation at Mass is the verse John 15:15b. "I call you my friends, says the Lord (to his disciples), for I have made known to you all that the Father has told me." I believe that Jesus had revealed all we need to know for our salvation and that his Church has preserved all his revelations to this day. Therefore, anyone who claims that he or she has received new revelations from God that change the status of Jesus or contradict the preserved revelations has to be a false prophet, and there has been plenty of that kind popping up now and then.

Most Amazing Love

        This is Friday, the day to meditate on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary. I thought about the first mystery, Agony in the Garden. Earlier, Jesus already told his disciples that he's going to suffer and be killed. Personally, I believe that unlike prophets who realized their roles only at the time God called them, Jesus, as God, knew all along his mission from the very beginning. Imagine the agony he must have felt in all those years leading to his Crucifixion! One consolation I see is that his love for us is so great that you might say that he gladly suffered and died for us and was happy that he completed the work of salvation he'd set out to do. No matter what you think, his love is the most amazing thing in the whole universe.  

To Think as God Does

        Today's Gospel reading came from Mark 8. Jesus openly taught his disciples that he must suffer greatly, be rejected and killed, and rise after three days. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. Jesus then, before all the other disciples, rebuked Peter, saying, "Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do." Naturally, to be correct, we must think as God does. And the only way to achieve that is to be in union with him. 

        I heard on radio while driving back home after Mass two speakers talking about the Catholic Church (and other denominations and sects). It shocked me to hear that in their opinion, the teachings of the Church are just human inventions ~ they have absolutely no understanding of what I and many of you the faithful believe in. Here's an example of thinking totally as human beings do. At the end, as I had suspected, the program turned out to be an atheist one. One interesting thing though I caught in the last minute or so ~ when one of the speakers asked the other if religions will all be gone a couple of thousand years from now, the other said probably not because people always want to look for a god. This just confirmed what St. Augustine said.

God Deserves the Best

        This morning the new tabernacle finally showed up at my church. Before Mass began, the priest, with all of us present gathered in front of it on the altar, blessed it and placed the Most Holy Sacrament in its new abode for the very first time. This is the tabernacle which had been anticipated for a couple of months already. It's quite beautiful and shows the detailed craftsmanship ~ perhaps this explains its delayed arrival. Seeing it made me see that God absolutely deserves the best. He deserves the best from each one of us ~ this means that we must present ourselves in the light that makes us appear most pleasing to him. This calls for nothing short of being pure and holy in his sight.   

Heavenly Feast

        As I was going up to receive Holy Communion at Mass this morning, I knew that I was going to a heavenly feast. God himself was the host who invited me on this occasion and the feast was nothing but Jesus himself, the bread of life, who heals my soul. I mentioned before that I receive the Lord in the Holy Eucharist to express my love for him, but I also need constant healing of the soul too. When he heals the soul, it is made fit for heaven. A taste of heaven starts right here on earth.

No Escape from God

        Thought of this morning. I am alive with my heart continuously pumping ~ surely it's not me who is making this possible. In fact, I don't even know how I got here nor when I'll be leaving this world as so many others have departed, often rather suddenly. Therefore, I am totally in God's hands ~ it's his call. We all came from him and we shall return to him too. Escape from God is impossible. To run away from him is worse than self-banishment to oblivion. Recognizing our total dependence upon God, the only wise and sensible thing left for us to do is to stop running and hiding from him. Instead, turn to him and embrace him with all our heart and you'll know that you've made the right decision.