Facing Suffering

        Communion time thoughts. Jesus enters me and heals my soul. It does not mean that I will not experience any mental or emotional suffering anymore, but it does mean that I should be whole enough to face any such suffering coming my way. 

Doing God's Will

      Today is the Memorial of St. Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church. First part of the Responsorial Psalm (#40) reads: 

        

        Sacrifice or oblation you wished not,

        but ears open to your obedience you gave me.

        Burnt offerings or sin-offerings you sought not; 

        then said I, "Behold, I come."

The Response reads: Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will.

      I do see that to do the Lord's will does not mean that I do not ask for anything for myself anymore. He may even want me to sacrifice in a certain way or offer him certain things. Doing his will simply covers (governs) how I am going to live, pray, and serve him. In short, doing the Lord's will is to do only what he tells me to do, and that could be anything. 

Happiness, Momentary or Unending

        [It you do not believe that there is life after death, you may skip reading the following.] It is true that we in the world seek pleasure, fun, entertainment, recreation...so that we can have a good time, forget our troubles and be happy. The desire is inherent in us. I see that all the temporal happiness we seek are for the moment only. For example, you go on a week's cruise ~ after the week, the enjoyment is just memory. Personally, I don't see how such passing happiness can be truly satisfying. To me, only unending (permanent) happiness is meaningful. If I know in advance that I won't be happy in the next life, then I don't think I can truly feel happy in this life anymore. On the other hand, if I know that I'll be happy for all eternity, then whether I am happy or not in this life becomes rather unimportant. Last, if we are only concerned about being happy in this life, we can easily forget planning for our eternal future ~ this then would be a  huge oversight.

God Is Extreme

        God loves us with the greatest possible love and his mercy is infinite. So it should be easy for us to get to heaven. All we need to do is to obey him. If we follow Jesus' commandment "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind," we love God to the extreme. With extremists on both sides "working towards" the same goal, success is assured.  

Life Is Frail

        I sound like an old man when I muse on life, but I am old. When you are young and healthy, you don't think about the frailty of life and that is unfortunate. Just a few days ago, we prayed at Mass for one husband who suffered a massive heart attack in his 50's. As you age, you hear more frequently that someone you knew has passed away. Only the Lord knows how long each of us will live. Life is frail also in the sense that it is unpredictable. Holding onto God is only and sure way of securing ourselves for all eternity. It's really a no-brainer.

Best Place to Be

        Communion experience. The union makes me want to put myself totally under his care and direction. There is just no better (more beautiful) place to be than in Christ.

40 Years After Roe vs. Wade

        Today is the Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children. Forty years ago today, the Roe vs. Wade decision was passed by the US Supreme Court and abortion was ruled a fundamental right. The Knights of Columbus has planted fifty-five crosses on our church lot, symbolizing the fifty-five million abortions that have been performed since the day of that decision. I have posted against abortion in the past a number of times. On this memorial day, I just want to ask: How dare we ask God to bless this nation when we as a nation are still committing this horrendous sin against him? (By the way, Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff Roe in the lawsuit, had turned pro-life in 1994 and been received into the Catholic Church in 1998.)  

Setting Lifetime Goal First

        Before morning Mass started, I had time to see that I must in the overall scheme of things set my lifetime goal first and then let all my thoughts, my words, and my actions henceforth manifest that goal. And that goal should be loving God with all my heart, with all my strength, with all my soul, and with all my mind. 

Detachment from the World

        Right now I have a problem with the wall oven at home. After spending time and money on repairs, the problem remains. How should I deal with it? I recall Jesus' counsel to love our enemies, and human enemies have got to be even more annoying than oven problems and such. Therefore, I should "love" my oven problem too, meaning that I should not let it affect me. Another helpful thought: What if today is my last day on earth? Basically, detachment from the world is the answer, and only loving and trusting in God can get me there.

Journeying from Head to Heart

        For most of us who search for God, we start out with a head journey. That is, we read about the Lord, ask questions, etc., until we are more of less convinced that we should believe. Then the heart takes over. In my own conversion story told at the beginning of this blog, I read about Catholicism for over a year before I decided to join the Church. I have seen many whose search journey remained a head one and they never found God. As we fall in love with God more and more, our journey transforms more and more into a heart one. Only when we journey with all of our heart will union with God be within our reach. 

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.