The Other Joy

        Anytime a sinner turns to God and repents, he is back in God's good graces and the whole heaven rejoices. We often forget that repentance brings great joy to the sinner too. When I repent, I am forgiven. Relieved of the burden on my heart, I am home again in the Lord ~ one of the great joys of the Christian life. "Repentance" and "forgiven" are two equally joyful words.          

"God for All, All for God"

        "One for all, all for one" is the motto of Alexandre Dumas' Three Musketeers and also the traditional motto of Switzerland. I brought this up because I thought of the phrase "God for all, all for God." Indeed, God is for all. He has created all of us; he loves all of us equally; he sustains our very existence; he provides what we need; and he wants to save us all. Realizing this helps us to love all our brothers and sisters. "All for God" to me means that all of me must be dedicated to loving and serving God; all I have is his and all that I do is to glorify him. This part is the proper response to his being for all of us.  

Realizing God's Love

        After receiving Holy Communion this morning, I asked the Lord to continue to feed me, nurture me, teach me, and fulfill all my desires. Then I realized that this is really letting God do whatever he wants with me! This is also letting him love me to his heart's content!  

Encouraged by God

        Today is the Memorial of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We heard the parable of the ten gold coins read from Luke 19. The lesson is that (1) to everyone who has, more will be given and (2) from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. The first part greatly encouraged me to move onward in anticipation of receiving even more. If I am greedy, then it's a holy greed. 

There Are No Accidents

        I know that God leads me, but normally I do not foresee where he is leading me to. Then I look back and the picture is clear. Every little thing that has happened plays its part in steering me in the right direction. Every one of my past failures contains a lesson. There are just no accidents. Therefore, I no longer ask the Lord why. I simply wait or move forward as he leads, feeling no anxiety whatsoever.

God Does It Again

        It is clear that a big ego (lack of humility) and an unforgiving heart (not loving your enemies) are the two most difficult things for us to conquer. It feels like that they are virtually an intrinsic part of us. Then nothing is impossible with God when it comes to wanting to change ourselves for his sake. Again, ask him to make us humble and forgiving, then remain passive and he'll accomplish that with no sweat on our part. God always make it easy for us when we ask him to. It's ask, trust, rest, and receive.   

The Peace Formula

        After receiving the Lord in the Holy Eucharist, I wanted to become even more passive, to let go, to trust and rest in Christ ~ I knew that this would bring me even more peace. God must do everything for me!

Skipping Trivialities

       I live in a rather rural area. As I drove to Mass this morning, the sky above and everything below looked just beautiful in the early sun light not long after the fresh rain had stopped. Having a photographic eye, I noticed the possibility of getting some good shots of the trees, houses, the field, etc. Even a blue, rental portable toilet on the side of the road looked appealing (once I saw a portable unit with the unforgettable name Wee Chateau on it). In my younger days, I would have turned the car around, rushed back home, grab my camera, and rush right back to start shooting; but today getting to Mass is of foremost importance to me, so I drove right on. 

        Later I thought about the whole thing. Getting good pictures is pure enjoyment ~ I'll have something nice to look at later, and someone may even praise my images. Is that all? It just seems to be self-centered and so trivial! There really isn't that much ultimate value to it, as it doesn't exactly build up my treasure in heaven. Seeing it this way, I am glad that I let it go and shall see things the same way in the future. 

The Ego Danger

        Years ago, it's the O. J. Simpson murder case that shocked people. Today BBC News reports that a Brazilian star football player has been accused of ordering the murder of a former lover. I am not getting into the cases ~ all I want to point out is that once an ego gets too big, you can easily lose control and become the victim of your own ego. This is the real danger. The antidote to ego is, of course, humility. Then humility is virtually impossible to acquire without God's help. 

Transformation in a Nutshell

        It occurred to me that we are still very much like little children no matter how old we get. We love security and feel good when someone cares about us. We look for food when we are hungry. We want things and get unhappy if we don't get them. In other words, the little kid is still in us, even though our appearance has changed. The only thing we do not retain is the childlike belief in things we do not see. Then we find God and he starts to transform us. Our basic desires and behaviors change from being self-centered to centering upon God and the childlike faith is restored. We are now a new creature in God.

We Are Lost Until...

        Yesterday I ran into the website http://www.tumblr.com. The blogs you find on it are amazingly creative and often interesting, but the sad part is that when you check out some of the visual works or the sayings on some of the blogs, you sense or know that they came from souls who live without aim and/or lead a somewhat surrealistic existence. One particular post that saddens me is from a teen who tries to tell people that a mother who chooses abortion is happier and much better off ~ she just does not see the other side at all. We, including all you creative and talented ones, are lost until we seek and find God the truth.

Giving the Soul Back to God

        Communion reflection. My soul was made by God and is not for sale. It belongs to him, so I gave it back to Christ right after I received him in the Holy Eucharist. Besides, God had already given himself completely to us, so that had to be the least I could do. By the power of the body and the blood of the Lord, my soul is now purified and protected from all evil. 

Incredible Leap

        Sin separates us from God. To close the gap, we must humble ourselves and beg for God's mercy, ask for his pity ~ there is no other way. The great news is that we can surrender to God and go all the way to become one with him through the Holy Eucharist and all sins will be forgotten. This is truly an incredible leap!

World in Fast Motion

        I see the world in fast motion as in a film ~ I just hit the Fast Forward button and soon we'll come to the Second Coming of Christ, the Day of Judgment. In fast motion I could make out people eating, drinking, marrying, buying, selling, planting, building (yesterday's Gospel reading from Luke 17), floods, hurricanes, landslides, earthquakes, fires, wars, killings, deaths, mass destruction, rebellion against God, sacrilegious acts, blasphemies, persecution of the Church ~ chaos all the way through, and then everything comes to a standstill and the Lord is here.    

Ready to Go in Peace

       Today is the Memorial of St. Elizabeth of Hungary and this had been my Communion experience.

           At the Presentation of the Child Jesus in the temple Simeon, to whom the Holy Spirit had revealed that he should not see death before he had seen the Messiah of the Lord, took the child in his arms and blessed God, saying: "Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation." When I received the Holy Eucharist, I had exactly the same feeling that I am ready to go in peace. I was most grateful that the Lord had made me see, changing my whole life. Outside, the wet cold wind howled, but I felt totally secure. This last sentence paints a good spiritual portrait of me.  

Life Is Making Choices

        Jesus has made it clear that we cannot serve two masters ~ we must choose to serve either God or mammon. In everything we do, whether we are aware or not, we make the choice to glory God or ignore him. The world competes with God for our attention. Do we put God ahead of us or it it the other way around? Dying for Christ or living for ourselves? Do we choose the challenging, uphill climb toward heaven over the easy, downhill slide toward hades? We don't think about it, but it's also choosing whether we want to be rewarded now or later. Basically, it is all about choosing life or death.      

Christ Alone Worth Keeping

        I just found out that a book, which is valuable because it has something to do with my grandfather who was very close to me, was most likely lost forever due to someone's fault. Of course, I could stress about it. Then I looked within myself and saw that Jesus was still dwelling in me ~ he's not missing, and I was happy. As I believe, there are no accidents. The loss now seems to be more like a blessing. Some people have the right attitude ~ they see that the loss suffered wasn't worse. Think about the people who lost their entire homes recently in Hurricane Sandy. Nevertheless, when you have Christ, the everlasting loving truth, everything else is already "worse" relative to him. Paul could have said, "Once you know Christ, everything besides him is rubbish and not worth keeping."   

Quiet Way of Increasing Faith

        Today's Gospel reading at Mass came from Luke 17, the beautiful story how Jesus cleansed ten lepers. As Jesus traveled through Samaria and Galilee toward Jerusalem, he was entering a village and ten lepers met him. They stood at a distance from him and raised their voice, saying, "Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!" When he saw them, he said, "Go show yourselves to the priests." As they were going they were cleansed. And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. He was a Samaritan. Jesus said in reply, "Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?" Then he said to him, "Stand up and go; your faith has saved you."     

        The obvious lesson is that we should not forget to thank God for being good to us, but what I want to focus upon is that last sentence "your faith has saved  you." The faith as demonstrated by the grateful leper is simply believing in God and obeying his word. I recently posted that I felt helpless in increasing my own faith ~ I was right because I was barking up the wrong tree. Now it's clear to me that to increase my faith, I only need to believe and obey the Lord in all that he tells me to do ~ it is the quiet way. Yes, be like the leper.