Recipe for Freedom

        Hold onto God alone and let all else go.

Let the Transformation Begin!

        God has made each one of us into a unique creature. We all have different personalities, traits, talents, etc. And God leads us to him along different paths too, but he has one individual plan for each of us ~ he wants to mold each one of us into the perfect person as he has envisioned. So give the Lord the green light and let it begin. Don't expect to experience the same thing as any saint has experienced, but the end result will be just as satisfactory to God (and you'll be extremely satisfied too).

Think Far Enough Ahead

        It was a beautiful morning with the sun out in the blue sky and the temperature just perfect, yet I knew that this would pass. Daytime is already getting shorter; soon there'll be colder, rainy, windy days and some plants will freeze and die ~ this has happened every year. Our life is also passing and soon we'll come to the end. We all tend to enjoy the good times and not think far enough ahead. Jesus asks us to store up treasures in heaven ~ this means that we must be aware our future after this life is over. (This kind of vision may rightly be described as heavenly.) As long as we have this awareness, we can enjoy the ongoing good times and accumulate treasures in heaven at the same time. 

God the Source of Our Joy

        After I received the Holy Eucharist this morning, I also received a dose of the sweetest joy from the Lord. Once you taste it, you gladly reaffirm your surrender to him. It's fitting that so great a love is the source of such joy.     

We Needn't Stand Alone

         The Lord impressed these thoughts upon me during morning Mass. Each one of us is a unique being created by God and given a distinct soul and his own free will. Each of us alone makes his choices in what he thinks, says, and does. We came into the world alone and will depart from it alone. When God speaks to us, he speaks to each one individually. When we face God later, each person will have to answer to him strictly on his own. So it's alone all the way. Ultimately speaking, no one or anything can come between God and us ~ we alone are responsible for ourselves. 

        But we can take advantage of the situation by reversing it! Let's seek union with God and become one with him now, then we shall never stand alone anymore. Nothing can come between God and us ~ you can say that again!        

God Delights the Humble

        In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 23, Jesus pointed out the hypocrisies of the scribes and the Pharisees to the crowds and his disciples. He then told all that "whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted." 

       This is absolutely true because when you remain humble in the Lord, he always delightfully surprises you from time to time. True delights only come to the humble, for the high and mighty have only one way to go ~ down. The greatest reserved "surprise" for the humble will come, of course, at the end of this life.      

Peace as Our Guide

        "Peace be with you" ~ that's how Jesus greets his disciples. God always wishes us peace. So if you have great peace, you know that you love him. If you don't have peace when you do something, then it could very well be that you are not doing his will.

Ignoring the Devil Again

        Many years ago, I read St. Teresa of Avila's classic Interior Castle. I am starting to read all her collected works. In the Introduction of the volume, I read: As for devils, she could say with complete freedom "I pay no more attention to them than to flies" and that the key element of her teaching about the devil is the utter uselessness of all fears concerning him. She also said, "I don't understand these fears, 'The devil! The devil!' when we can say 'God! God!' and make the devil tremble." It is gratifying to learn that she confirms what I have posted. That is, as long as we occupy ourselves with (or hide in) God, we may safely ignore the Devil. 

Dear Atheists:

        You believe that man invented God and use him as a crutch. I want to tell you that you've got it all wrong. My God did not come out of man's imagination ~ for your information, he came into the world almost 2,000 years ago and revealed to us who he is. And I did not seek him because I needed a crutch ~ it was his amazing love that drew me to him. I never expected to choose him ~ it was he who chose me! Keep your minds open and you might just be called by him yet.

About Atheists

        Atheists do not believe that God exists, so they don't know how they got here nor the meaning of life. To Christians, not a single word of Jesus can be ignored, but the atheists wipe out the entire Judea-Christian history and the Gospel records. The gate to heaven is narrow and the road to it steep and atheists choose to tread the easiest way. Unfortunately, they don't know that it's the wrong way. And they have no guides and are shaped by the world they happen to be in. They are basically self-centered, claiming that there is no God, but setting themselves up as gods ~ no different from being idolatrous. The test of faith is the giving up of oneself and obviously, they totally flunked it.  

The Lord Is Hurting

        I am still thinking about my post The Falling Away from God which I put up yesterday. If you had read that BBC report and the readers comments, you might feel just as sad as I am. At Mass this morning, the picture of the suffering Lord floated into my mind ~ it's an image of how he looked on his way to Golgotha to be crucified. Today's Gospel reading from Matthew 22 was appropriate. In this parable of the wedding feast told by Jesus, the king invited many guests to this feast he gave for his son, but some ignored the invitation or refused to come. Others even mistreated and killed the servants dispatched to summon the guests. The king was enraged and destroyed them. Then he invited whomever his servants could find in the streets. One man came, was spotted not dressed in a wedding garment and also got punished. Jesus' last words were "Many are invited, but few are chosen." Today's situation is no different or perhaps even worse. The pressing question is: "How may we console the Lord?"

Seeing the True Jesus

        Today at Communion time at Mass, I understood that receiving the Lord was to obey and submit myself to him. After Communion, I saw the loveliness of the Lord and questioned how people could possibly reject him. May he be adored forever!

Never Question God's Way

        In the Gospel reading taken from Matthew 20, Jesus mentioned "the last will be first, and the first will be last" in telling the parable of the workers in the vineyard. I think that the saying means that God can do whatever he wants and we have no right to question him. Even if my interpretation is wrong, what I have interpreted it to mean is still correct.

On Praying for Enemies

        Today is the Memorial of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Praying for our enemies is hard, so let's look to the Holy Mother as our example ~ she prays for everyone without exception and intercedes for all of us. Enemies need even more prayers than friends, so let's pray without being discriminatory. 

The Falling Away from God

        Atheism is on the rise (check out http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19262884) ~ people, including many lukewarm Christians, are rebelling against God. I feel sorry for them more than for the Lord. Like the ones who crucified Christ, they just don't know what they are doing! How sad that they do not know that union with God is the most beautiful state of existence and if everyone achieves that state, earth will become like heaven. Is there any hope for them? Definitely yes, only if they'd realize that God's mercy in infinite and that nothing is impossible with him.

The Holy Spirit & God's Will

        This morning after I woke up, I sensed that it is the Holy Spirit who prompts all followers of Christ to do God's will. You could say that the Holy Spirit "is" God's will because to know the Holy Spirit is to know God's will. Let the Holy Spirit lead us in every little step we take.

Making Union Easy

        When we attain union with God, it is God who does all the work by his holy love. All we need to do is "be open to him." The degree of difficulty following the Lord is inversely proportional to how much we open up to him ~ which is saying that the more we open up, the less difficult it is for us to follow him. 

Going by the Lord?

        Jesus entered the world to become one of us so that he could spread the good news of our salvation among us. And we have only one life to live in which to catch this critically important message of love, not before our birth or after our death. The period that's open for us is brief and unpredictable ~ I am speaking from the point of view of someone who has already found and accepted this truth. The Lord patiently awaits us ~ if we do not grab him soon enough, he'll be out of reach forever! This message is urgent indeed.