The "In" Feeling

        Today's Communion experience: I am totally in God's hands. I no longer exist on my own ~ I am in Christ. I am "in"!

Responding to God's Call

        I am one of the parishioners in the ministry of visiting homebound elders. Recently, I visited a lady already placed under hospice care. It wasn't a scheduled day of visit, but somehow I felt drawn to go see her. I had a chance to share with her the joy of knowing Jesus and how much he loves us for about half an hour, with her daughter also present. She passed away not very long afterwards. Then I got a call from a friend asking for her mother, also under hospice care, to receive the last rites. I informed my pastor at the next morning Mass and she was taken care of right after Mass. Four days later, she also passed away. What I want to say is that when the Lord calls, even if it's about doing something quite small, we must get going. The small things can be critical and are often very much remembered and/or appreciated by others, in my two cases, the two daughters. When Jesus called those to be his disciples, they dropped everything right away and followed. Every call from the Lord is important ~ it is a call to bring others to him so that they may have eternal life. 

Detaching from One's Self

        It's easier to detach yourself from the world than from yourself. For example, I went to a gym very early this morning to exercise a little bit and found the best parking place right in front of the entrance. It was about 5:30 a.m. Apparently, someone who got there when the gym opened at 4:30 a.m. had just finished exercising and left. When I was leaving about 40 minutes later, another car was arriving and it looked like it's going to take my parking space for sure. As I was about to look in the rear view mirror to see if that's happening, I stopped because I detected that my curiosity was in part prompted by my self-interest in knowing that I gave that person my space. Perhaps I was nitpicking, but I do know that anyone who is completely detached from himself does not look back on himself anymore.   

Sad State of Our Nation

        In the wake of the recent shooting incident at an elementary school in Connecticut in which 20 children and six adults were killed, our government is trying to pass some stricter gun-control laws and pro-gun activists have started staging rallies across the nation. Of course, if there are no more weapons in the world, and that should include guns, rifles, bombs, rockets...even knives and baseball bats, the world would be a safer place. But my point is that controlling weapons and not changing the human hearts will not stop violence. And banning guns and rifles and still letting abortion continue has to be a big joke.

Joy of Following Christ

        When I was an avid photographer, capturing the desired image was extremely important to me. There was great excitement involved because you could come up with some great shots and with luck might even become well-known. But now, I experience even much greater satisfaction in communing with the Lord in private. No one needs to know about it and there is no desire to leave a trace in this world. In other worlds, I am free, no longer chasing after the passing world. The more we give up the world and ourselves, the greater our rewards will be in heaven. But I am not doing it for the reward either...I am doing it for the joy of following Christ (actually, it's all his doing).

On Bearing Our Cross

        As Catholics we learn to offer up our sufferings to God for the conversion of sinners and in reparation for sins committed against him. But for me there is one cross that's especially heavy to bear, and that is the pain I feel when I see other Catholics unknowingly hurting the Lord in various ways. Even after I offer up my pain, the cross does not seem to get any lighter because I see hurting continuing. I rather prefer that I be hurt alone and not the Lord. Then I see that when Jesus asked us to take up the cross and follow after him, he clearly meant all crosses. Also, I realize that if I truly trust in him, no cross is too big to offer up. I feel better.  

A Timely Question

        I finished reading Fr. Groeschel's Travelers Along the Way, The Men and Women Who Shaped My Life. I got a glimpse of how those 30+ man and women lived their lives. It made me see that a good question to ask ourselves is: "How do I really want to live my life?" We should not go on living without answering this question first because knowing the answer can save us a lot of life's time. Knowing how we want to live can make our living truly meaningful.

Jesus with Us Always

        Communion experience. I felt that I was at the Last Supper with Jesus himself giving me his body and blood. I knew that his promise "I am with you always, until the end of the age" (Matthew 28.20) was absolutely true.

One Judge Only

        In today's Gospel reading from Mark 2, when some Pharisees saw that Jesus was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, "Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?" The Pharisees were being judgmental again. Jesus told us not to judge others. He is right because every single one of us is a sinner and God alone is our judge. Yes, there is only one qualified to be the judge in all of heaven and earth.

A Do-You-Know-God Test

        In today's first reading at Mass from Hebrews 4, Paul wrote: "The word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart. No creature is concealed from him, but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account." If you don't feel it that way, then you don't really know the Lord yet. 

One Depiction of Life

        Today I see life as living on top of a precipice. If you strongly believe in God, then he has a strong cord tied around you to keep you safe. If your faith is weak, then the corresponding cord will be weak too. If you don't have any faith, then one careless slip and you fall off the cliff, heading straight toward the bottom, much like what happens to Wile E. Coyote sometimes when he fails to catch up with The Road Runner in one of their cartoon shorts.

God Makes Us Forgetful

        This echoes the post "Power of God's Love" two days ago. When we are fully occupied with or immersed in God, we forget all other things: our past, our enemies, our pains...you name it. You've heard the phrase "Ignorance is bliss." Now we can say that "Forgetfulness in God is bliss" and this is an even better bliss.       

A Law of Spirituality

        In today's Gospel reading from Mark 2, it's the familiar story of the paralytic being lowered through the roof to get to Jesus; his faith resulted in being healed by the Lord. We can unequivocally state that the more we lean upon Jesus, the more he's going to prop us up. Like Newton's law of action-reaction in physics, this is a law of spirituality. 

God Uplifts Us

        At church before Mass started this morning, I knew I was going to meet my most beloved, then I realized that he's already dwelling in me, and I felt great joy. I had experienced the crushing weight of sin in the past, but now everything about the Lord, including the crosses he gives me from time to time, was uplifting.  

Another Mark of Truth

        In past posts, I pointed out some of the things that to me mark Christianity as the truth. Here's another feature that came to my mind this morning. 

        Our God is demanding in that we must love him more than anything else, yet he is not demanding in the sense that he has given each one of us a free will to exercise. Thus faith is made fully meaningful. Imagine that you have a tyrannical god who lords it over you or a god or gods who don't challenge you much, making it easy for you to accept or ignore as is the case in some religion ~ neither would be satisfying to me. 

The Right Thing to Do

        Surrendering to God is surrendering to love and truth! It is totally the right thing to do because love shall keep you safe and truth shall set you free. There is nothing more to ask. 

Pleading with God

         In one of the stories in Fr. Groeschel book Travelers Along the Way, he mentions a Sister Mary who quoted something by memory from St. Teresa of Avila. Apparently St. Teresa's brother had been in serious trouble with the law. In desperation the saint prayed: "Dear Lord, if I were You and he were Your brother, I would see to it that he was saved." It would be hard to argue with that.

       I also pray for the salvation of various, specific individuals, some of whom may not be that holy, but I love them and have no problem forgiving them. So I reason (and realize) that the Lord is infinitely more merciful than I, and if I am willing to forgive them, certainly he'd be even more willing to do so. Creative pleading? 

Chosen by the Humility of God

        I've started reading my third book by Fr. Benedict Groeschel titled Travelers Along the Way, in which he wrote about 30+ men and women who shaped his life. One of them was none other than Mother Teresa. Fr. Groeschel was at the time the liaison between Mother and the New York archdiocese in which some houses were opened for her Missionaries of Charity. Once when Fr. Groeschel felt discouraged that he couldn't handle what he was told to do well enough and thought of resigning his post, Mother Teresa asked him pointedly why he thought God had chosen him to be a priest. Father had trouble coming up with a right answer and Mother Teresa looked at him and said, "You are chosen because of the humility of God. God chooses the weakest and the poorest, the most inappropriate persons to use." She followed up with what Fr. Groeschel considered to be extremely revealing, something he would never forget: "I pray that my place will be taken by the most unattractive and ungifted of all the sisters. Then everyone will know that this is not our work but God's work. Don't ever forget that you are chosen by the humility of God." [I hope that Fr. Groeschel wouldn't mind my quoting these sayings directly from his book.]

        It's true that the Holy Mother appeared to the poor and uneducated rather than the strong, rich, wise or gifted. And Jesus called a bunch of fishermen, not any learned scholars, to follow him. The lesson here is that when we are called to serve the Lord in whatever way, we should realize that God has chosen us, no matter how inadequate we might feel. It's an honor and the Lord knows exactly what he is doing.