**Joy of Hearing from the Lord*

        It is a joy and blessing to hear from the Lord. He speaks directly to the heart and that makes the communication so much more personal and intimate. And his messages always inspire and build you up spiritually. Now you have a personal protector, a travel guide, the perfect soulmate, and your greatest joy.

**How We Can End Up

        God will treat us the way we treat him or others. If we reject God, he will reject us. If we are ashamed of him, he'll be ashamed of us. He will judge us the way we judge others. He will forgive us the way we forgive others. So we'll be treated in accord with how others are treated by us and receive what God receives from us. To be precise, since God always loves us, it is really us who put ourselves in any bad position. Aim to be perfect, and we'll be OK. 

**Our Ultimate Wish

        Today's Gospel reading came from Matthew 15. A Canaanite woman came to beg Jesus to deliver her daughter from being tormented by a demon. Because she showed great faith, Jesus finally said to her, "Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed from that hour. This is the pronouncement we'd love to hear from the Lord. When we attain union with him, we will hear that, for we and the Lord then will alway wish for the same thing. By the way, this is the ultimate we can ever wish for.

**Where We Need God's Help Most

        Today's entrance antiphon from Psalm 70: O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me! You are my rescuer, my help; O Lord, do not delay. We need God's help in so many things. But most importantly, we need him to help us open up to him so that we may obey him always, not doing his will only when we feel like it.

God Needs Our Fervent Support

        When we petition the Lord for something with a burning desire, it is not that we lack faith and thus need to pray extra hard to make up for that; on the contrary, it's because we know what we ask for is in accordance with his holy will and are with him 100%.

**Our No. 1 Desire and Goal

        Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord. Here is 1 John 3.2, the Communion antiphon: When Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. To be like Jesus – this is most personal and even better than to be in heaven! Brothers and sisters, let's make that our No. 1 desire and goal! Start seeking union with the Lord right this moment.

***Our Final Fulfillment

        We are basically lonely creatures. There is no one on earth whom we can truly rely upon, for we are all alike. Then we run into Christ, start to follow him and we are not alone anymore. As he draws us closer and closer to him, we desire to become one with one. When we attain union, we are completely fulfilled, for we now belong to God totally! 

**Gift to Keep You Holy

        We are set free when we surrender to God the Truth. The first emerging sign is that our conscience becomes super sharp, making you aware of what pleases and what offends God. You lose peace the moment you sin, even if you sin ever so slightly. This is great help in keeping you holy.

***Urgent Call to All Christians

        The Lord wants us to remain vigilant, for we don't know when he'll be coming. But he also wants us to be vigilant about attacks coming from Satan! We must fight evil as hard as we can every chance we get. This is serious business, for all souls including our own are at stake. Because of the laxity of all Christians, evil has managed to infiltrated our societies and the Church rapidly during the last half century or so. The time to go all out to fight for God our savior has been long overdue. Surrender to the Lord to be one with him now so that we may become strong, bold, and fearless.

***Awesome Union

        Communion experience. Since the whole Christ is present in the Holy Eucharist, when I received his Body and Blood, I also received his Soul and Divinity! Realize this and you are never the same again. 

**Worse than Being a Fool

        In my last post, I talked about not to let God see you as a fool. What's worse than being a fool? California is ready to pass the so-called "abortion pill" bill, forcing all on-campus California public universities to provide the abortion pill at student health clinics. From the spiritual point of view, this is clearly choosing evil over God, going beyond being foolish. Alas, Judas Iscariot is alive and well today. Please pray for California.

**Don't Be a Fool to God

        In today's Gospel reading from Luke 12 at Mass, Jesus told the parable of the rich fool. A rich man produced a bountiful harvest and decided to tear down his barns and build larger ones to store his harvest and other goods. He said to himself, "Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!" But God said to him, "You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?" Many of us are just like the rich man. Recently, I thought of the things such as my piano which I had enjoyed playing for years and the many most personal photographs I'd made over the years. To whom should they go after I die? The answer was "I really shouldn't care." If God is calling you go to him, how can you not drop everything and leave? If you have not been perfectly obedient to God, here is your last chance to show him that you do obey him!

Characteristics of a Disciple

        One of today's suggested Communion antiphons, Matthew 5,7-8, are two of the Beatitudes given by Jesus: Blesses are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God. Being merciful to others and having a clean heart certainly should characterize any true disciple of Christ.

*Power of the Heart

        The heart is like our steering wheel. It can steer us toward God or away from God. The end results couldn't be more different from each other. But you are the driver in control of your heart. If you steer your heart toward God, as you get close to him, your heart gets purified more and more, and you would want to go all the away. If you had steered your heart to go the other way, turning around can become harder and harder as time goes on. So be a smart driver; steer you heart in the right direction at the start.

***Smart Petitioning

        In just about all the preached messages I've heard anywhere, we ask the Lord to help us love him more, believe in him more, to be more forgiving, etc. But the effective approach is to ask the Lord to help us open up to him, surrender ourselves to him, letting him take complete charge of us! We cannot make ourselves holy, only God can make us holy. If we don't let him in, how can he do the work? We forget that we are the stumbling block that needs to be removed first. This has been the message the Lord wants me to spread and I am repeating it again. 

*Intention Wins

        Attended first Saturday morning Mass today. The congregation sang the entrance hymn and didn't sound too good, for there was no unison. Then I realized that the Lord cared only about our intention, so what I heard was still beautiful to him.

*Choosing Your Reward

        Any reward you receive in this life that feeds your ego comes from the Evil One, and it diminishes your chance of receiving any reward from God. Any reward that humbles you in secret comes from God, and you will be rewarded even more in heaven. 

Rejoice in the Lord Always

        Again, I prayed the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary today. It really breaks your heart to think about how Christ suffered so excruciatingly for us. But I felt that the Lord just wanted me to be grateful and rejoice, for he has triumphed!