Ego Talk

           What is always puffed up? Answer: the ego. As long as it's puffed up, it'll get punctured sometimes and hurt you. Only God can take the ego away. Once it's gone, you'll never be hurt that way again.

       Without the ego, whether people praise or ignore you, it doesn't matter anymore. You are here to serve the Lord alone and do whatever he asks of you. The big gain is inner peace. 

The Invisible Person

        A truly humble person is one who is oblivious of himself, for he is only concerned about serving God. He welcomes only things that give praise to God, with himself totally excluded. You might say that he is invisible to himself.  

Unique Christian Relationship to God

        The Gospel reading for today's Mass is John 5:17-30. Again, what Jesus said was crystal clear. He revealed that God is his father and that they are equal. This is great news for us who follow him. In the Lord's Prayer, Jesus taught us to address his father as Our Father, so God is our father too. By the same token, all Christian become truly brothers and sisters to each other. Since only Christians address God as Father, we are indeed special among all who believe in God. Treasure this unique relationship and thank Jesus for it. 

To Hear God Clearly

        I've learned that to hear the Lord speak to your heart clearly, it's best that you first surrender all your thoughts to him so as to be in tune with him. Otherwise, either there'll be no communication or what comes across may not be all from the Lord. By the way, surrendering your thoughts brings peace to the heart too.

Martyrdom for Us

        A Christian martyr is one who willingly suffers death rather than renounce his or her faith in Christ. Chances are we who are faithful will not meet actual physical death, but we must be willing to suffer any other thing less severe for love of Christ. It is immensely satisfying to stand on the side of Christ and glorious to add more glory to God.  

Becoming Fearless

        People are afraid because they are aware of their own existence. When one has only Jesus on his mind and Jesus in his heart, he then forgets all about himself and he becomes fearless.

RIP for the Living

        RIP is the abbreviation for "rest in peace." We normally pray for the deceased to rest in peace. Then I started thinking. To rest in God is to rest in peace. When we rest in God, we trust in him and rest in his infinite love. The end result is peace. So, why not start to rest in peace while we're still alive?

Decisions Are Important

        When Mary said yes to God to become the mother of Jesus, her decision affected all of mankind. Our daily decisions may not be that influential; but nevertheless, they are consequential. Every decision is important to God and you. At judgment time, all your past decisions will be reviewed by God. 

God Backs Us

        Today is the Feast of St. Joseph. In the homily at Mass, the priest brought up St. Bernardine, who said that when God chooses you to do something, he will supply you with all you need (courage included) to make it possible. This is comforting to know and I believe it. There are times you feel that God is speaking to you about doing something, but you feel somewhat insecure (me doing it?). This is a good time to remember what St. Bernardine said.

Learning from God

        I realize that when the Lord gives me thoughts to share with others on this blog, he's basically teaching and shaping me. I remember that when I was learning mathematics in school a long way back, I could just sit back and listen to the teacher or actually work the problem along with the teacher. The second approach really helped in learning the subject. So every time I post something, I am reinforced and God shapes and molds me a little bit more. It's been enlightening and joyous.  

Joy at Communion Time

        Just before receiving the Holy Eucharist at Mass this morning, I felt great joy in kneeling before the Lord. I strongly felt that he was the one who was drawing me to him, had chosen me first, and loves me. I felt that I had stepped into heaven.  

On Praying for Yourself

        The Gospel reading at Mass was taken from Luke 18. It's about how a Pharisee and a tax collected prayed. As you know, the Pharisee only told God how good he was (he's quite proud of himself) and the tax collector just beat his breast and begged for God's mercy.  

        This got me thinking about how we normally pray. We probably all pray for our loved ones and others. We pray for our own health, God's blessings, etc. But do we ever pray like the tax collector who went home justified? Do we honestly admit to God all our faults, shortcomings, imperfections, bad habits or addictions, and all tendencies to sin and ask him to root them out, take them away, and transform us into better, holier persons pleasing to him?

        The bottom question for all: Do you really pray for yourself with humility? 

Argument for God

        How big is the universe? If its size is finite, then what's on the other side of it? We have no satisfactory answer unless we accept infinity. If the universe did start off with the Big Bang, then what was it like before it and before the last "it"...? Is the expansion of the universe going to continue forever? Again, we can't say that there was a beginning or will be an end. We are compelled to admit that there must be an infinite God who exists forever. If there is a beginning and an end, they are in him. 

There Is No God?

        I drove to my gym early this morning a little after six. Since we just switched to daylight saving time, it was still quite dark outside. I looked up through the windshield of the car and saw the crescent moon. I knew that the shape was caused by the shadow of the earth cast by the sun on the opposite side. Then I remembered that even with the earth rotating on its axis day and night and the moon orbiting around the earth, somehow when we look up, we always see the same side of moon. We have the earth itself and other planets all orbiting around the sun in perfect balance. Every day we have 24 hours and every year, 12 months. While the earth is solid, the sun is just a ball of gas and plasma. The solar system is just a part the galaxy called Milky Way, which is traveling through space among billions of other galaxies. Amazing facts don't stop here. The Big Bang theory tries to explain the expansion of the universe that started some 13.7 billion years ago ~ I am interested in knowing how the earth with all the other planets and the moon acquired their round shape.

        Can you be sure that it's by accident that things are so marvelous the way they are?   

Amazing God

        My wife was amazed that in a few days, new green growth has already sprouted from some cut rose stems she had dipped in a glass filled with water. I saw it but was not amazed at all because I knew that we have an amazing God working in the background on all things at all times.

Jesus, the Conqueror

        In praying the Stations of the Cross with others at church after Mass, we read that Jesus has conquered the world at one of the stations. To me, it means that Jesus has come and redeemed us, he has conquered death and risen, and has completed the work of salvation. Although looking around the world, you still see disorder, unrest, and stains of horrific sins in every corner of the earth, Jesus has done all the necessary work in the background and the path to eternal life has been paved, waiting for us to tread on.   

Consecration for Everyone

        Thoughts at Mass this morning. The religious consecrate their lives to Christ and take vows openly before others. It seems completely appropriate that we who love God no less should also consecrate ourselves to Christ and make our own comparable vows in private.

Too Hard on Ourselves?

        Sometimes we are harder on ourselves than on others. For example, if someone does a better job than we in performing a certain task, we can accept that because the other person is better. But if our performance by ourselves falls short of our own expectation or goal, we get really disappointed. The Lord showed me that I shouldn't distinguish between the two. In either case, pride is involved. As long as we do God's will or at least have good intentions, we should be content and let neither success nor failure affect us.