No Holding Back

        Communion experience. I felt so content that I wanted my oneness with the Lord to be as firm and intimate as possible. No holding back ~ it's all of Jesus or nothing!

To Excel as a Christian

        If you are a Christian and the type who would always do the best possible job you can in whatever you do, consider being the best possible Christian you can be first. An excellent Christian will do everything for Christ, automatically resulting in doing his or her best in everything.

Justice Turned Topsy-Turvy

      Jesus is the source from which we receive mercy, yet people crucified him 2,000 years ago and have continued to do so nonstop ever since! If we reject his mercy, we reject the only one who can take away our sins. To treat the one who can do justice to us unjustly amounts to dooming ourselves.

Abandonment Time

        Communion experience. The perfect time to rest and abandon myself completely in Christ. 

Dead Serious About Jesus

        I am dead serious about accepting and obeying Jesus, for I am dead serious that I shall die and for all eternity be with God or cut off from him. 

Feel the Same Sorrows

        If we do love Jesus and want to remain in him, we must want to know and feel his sorrows. By experiencing the same sorrows, we console the Lord. Besides, he could use whatever merit we have acquired to benefit other souls. What an opportunity to be drawn to even closer union with him! 

*To Know God Firsthand

        I know that when you are with God totally, he does all the hard work for you. This is how you get transformed by him. The same goes with knowing him. People search for all the information about Christ in order to find out if he is the real God, and they can never be certain. On the other hand, if you simply believe that he is divine and want to know him, then he does the work and you come to know firsthand that he is indeed real, more real than anything else you know. 

Final Point

        There is a final point in life for us to reach. You are there when you completely believe in and rely upon the Lord. Being in union with God will do it. Once you are there, you are fully ready to go to him. Happy is the one who are free to leave this world to enter eternal freedom!

Do We Do What Matters to God?

        I attended Vigil Mass today. In the Gospel reading from Luke 12, Jesus told the parable of the rich fool. He said, "God said to the rich man, 'You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?' Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God." Jesus wants us to store up treasures in heaven. I think we all know when we do something whether we are becoming rich in what matters to God. If not, then we'll have wasted our time on earth.

Connecting With Jesus

        If you already know Jesus, how is your connection with him? A loose one is not much good, for he deserves better. The firmer your connection, the more you get out of it. To get your money's worth, be one with him.

Our Only Concern

        God alone is holy and perfect. We can be near-holy with God's help, but never completely holy. We can be saints, but human saints are never perfect. All we need to be concerned about is to love God as much as possible through surrendering ourselves to him. 

God's Solid Promise

        Know Jesus and listen to him alone; never be swayed by the knowledge and opinions of the world. And you will be richly rewarded beyond all your expectations at the end.

Saint or Not

        If you truly want to be a saint for the sake of God, then you are a saint already. But if you want to be a saint for the Church to canonize you and declare that you are a saint, you are not a saint.

Cornered by Jesus

        Today is the Memorial of St. Martha. In the Gospel reading from John 11, Jesus told Martha, "I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and anyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" Martha said to him, "Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world." How would you have answered? You can answer no, but only if you are convinced that what Jesus had proclaimed here and everything else he did, including his own Resurrection, were all nonsense ~ there's just no way around it.

Urgent Call to Prayer

        The world is causing Christ great sorrows. As Christians, we must share his sorrows. Since there is always hope in the Lord, my call to you is to double your effort in praying for the world.

God's Mercy Shines

        Came across this Journey Home episode on EWTN, the coming-home story of Fr. Donald Calloway. If you have an hour's time, you may enjoy watching it, for his conversion was quite dramatic.
   

Softening the Heart

        In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 13.47-53, Jesus again said to his disciples that at the end of age, the angels would go out and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace ... ~ heaven and hell are real! It is truly amazing that humans have hardened their hearts to the point that they no longer look beyond this life. A heart remains blind and deaf until it has turned to God. A beautiful heart is one that's completely pliable for God to purify, mold, and shape. Union with God is all about giving your heart to God, letting the Lord transform it as he wishes.

God-Given Conscience

        If there are no good and evil, we wouldn't need a conscience. The fact that we do possessive one proves that good and evil exist. Conscience is God-given.