Another Critical Realization

        Today is the Feast of Holy Innocents. Evil is real. King Herod, attempting to destroy the child Jesus, the prophesied king of the Jews, ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under. Today's Response from Psalm 124: Our soul has ben rescued like a bird from the fowler's snare. Has your soul already been snared by the evil one? Is it in danger of being snared by him? We must be aware that evil snares are all around us at all times, so that if we do not remain vigilant and watchful, we can easily lose our soul. 

*Thinking Simply to the Point

        It may be difficult to believe in Christ, but it is practically impossible to prove that he never existed, that he never told the truth, or that he never rose from the dead. To believe in him only requires stopping playing God yourself, but people choose to ignore and not to resolve this issue as long as possible. So we see that Christ has to be our Lord and God. Then he must come again to judge us or our whole existence would be meaningless. Whether his Second Coming will happen in our lifetime or not, we must be ready for it, and this is my final point. 

**God Completes Us

        We all have our own shortcomings, but God can heal us spiritually, fill our hearts with joy, and make us whole so that we no longer see them as obstacles. In fact, they now make us even more dependent upon him in all things. The Lord always completes us where we fall short.

**God Is All We Need to Desire

        Communion experience. The Lord is holy and can make us holy. The Lord is perfect and can make us perfect. The Lord is also eternal and can give us eternal life. Desire all these things and they are yours. Desire to be like him and he'll fulfill you desire by becoming one with you. 

Entrusting Our Spirit

        Today is the Feast of Saint Stephen, first martyr. As he was being stoned to death, he called out, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Before Jesus breathed his last on the cross, he cried out in a loud voice, "Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit." As disciples of Christ, we must also be ready and willing to entrust our spirit to God's care, even if we are not under any threat of death.

*My Sane Advice*

      Seek to please God alone who can truly fill you with peace and joy. Do not seek anything else just to please yourself.

What Our Generation Is like

        Once you are in union with God, his values are yours and you see the world as he sees it. The people of our generation are now like kids keeping themselves entertained with whatever they can find, not knowing what they are doing nor where they are going. Unavoidably, some of them become badly spoiled and start to bully and beat up on others, creating chaos and disorder throughout the world.

***Key to Salvation

        The holier you are, the more God is pleased with you. But the key to salvation, no matter how unholy you might be, is repentance. No repentance, no salvation.

*Saddened at Christmas Time

        I attended the 4:00 p.m. Christmas Mass yesterday. I never saw my church this packed. The adjacent ministry center had to be used to offer a second Mass for those who could not fit into the main church. The spacious parking lots were full of parked cars overflowing onto unpaved areas and the roads. And there was another Vigil Mass scheduled for 7 p.m. later too. Would that all regular Sunday Masses get flooded like this! I felt sad for those Catholics who only show up at Christmas and Easter times. I was at the ministry center and the crowd there was relatively quiet, not in any celebratory mood. All this somewhat dampened my Christmas spirits. Back to praying hard.

*Christmas Advice

        You may cast many things out of your life or treat something lightly in your life, but there is one you must never shut the door on and must, in fact, take most seriously – that is the God of Christ. He has come, is here with us, and will come again. A most blessed Christmas to you all! 

*Our Best Plan

        To be in union with God is to be solidly embedded in God. It's like having an indestructible temple built within your heart for the Lord to dwell in. There is no better plan to secure your future for all eternity. 

Jesus My Greatest Joy

        Photography, music, and mathematics have been my favorite subjects. I enjoy talking about them, but you do not often meet people who share the same interest. Now, my greatest joy is to talk about Jesus, for he has given me the greatest joy in my life, but meeting people who are excited about him is even rarer.

Ceaseless Praying

        Even if we don't see all our prayers answered in this life, we can continue to pray in heaven. Never lose hope.

**Thoughts and Intention

        Being human, our thoughts dart around involuntarily, even in our dream. But as long as our intention remains pure, we commit no sin. Therefore, be rooted in the Lord, be one with him, so that no evil, impure, or inappropriate thought will ever cross your mind, then you'll be OK with the Lord, for he is most understanding.       

Another Folly

        Time belongs absolutely to God too. Our time on earth is simply borrowed time from God. We sense only the present instant, but for the eternal God, time stands still with the past, the present, and the future all rolled into one. Therefore, it would be utter folly to think that we can escape from God for a single moment.

Another Critical Realization

        Everything comes from the Lord God our creator. When we create something, we simply make something out of what has already been created. And we do not own anything either. It is important to realize that everything belongs to God, including ourselves. So it is outrageous and even outlandish to think that we do not need God anymore. In today's 1st reading from 1 Samuel 1, Hannah, the mother of Samson, dedicated her son to the Lord. It would be entirely proper for us to consecrate ourselves, our families, and all that we have to God, acknowledging that he is the creator to whom we belong. Then order will be restored in the universe.

*Christ Our Ultimate Rest

        Communion experience. Most of us labor, and in receiving Christ, we experience true rest.  In Matthew 11.28, Jesus promises: "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest."

***Our Greatest Deficiency

        Probably John 3.16 is the best known verse of the New Testament: "God so loved the world that he gave his own Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but have eternal life." God is infinitely deep and profound, yet he reveals his love for us in such a simple straight way. Are we so dense that we don't even get it? I think it's more that we do not really want to get it.