*It's All Up to You.

        Only you can initiate union with God and once in union, only you can break that bond, for the Lord will never abandon you and the Devil is powerless against him. 

**Faith Essential*

        In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 9, two blind men followed Jesus, crying out, "Son of David, have pity on us!" Jesus said to them, "Do you believe that I can do this?" "Yes, Lord, they said to him. Then he touched their eyes and said, "Let it be done for you according to your faith." And their eyes were opened. Faith is what enables miracles to happen. Without it, you don't see God as you remain in darkness. In today's world, I am afraid that when the Lord comes, he'll find little faith. Even believers place him pretty much on the periphery. God's mercy is infinite, but it cannot help you if you lack faith. Faith is our essential link to God and a strong faith makes us one with him, forming the most beautiful union this side of heaven.  

Taste God's Peace Now

        We've been listening to readings from Isaiah at Mass. If the Lord had foretold that peace would reign in the end, I can tell you that we can already experience this peace in our hearts when we have Christ the Lord dwelling within us. It is his presence that produces inner peace. When we have inner peace, external peace follows.

*Playing Hide-and-Seek with God

        We love to play hide-and-seek with God, even when we know we are lost. God is always trying to find us in order to bring us home. Those who give up playing and show themselves to God will be homebound, but those who keep on hiding all their life will be dead when God finds them. this is a game you want to lose if you play. As Jesus said: Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

***The Fire of Christ

        The Holy Spirit is the fire of Christ. Let the Lord Spirit fill you to the brim so that he may set your love for Christ in your heart aflame forever!

**Everything You Need*

        When you possess God, you are perfectly content. You no longer worry; you experience deep peace and lack nothing. Your cup runneth over.

***How to Give Your Heart to God*

        Do you take your heart out and throw it to God? No. You simply open up to the Lord completely and remain passive, and he will delightfully take possession of your heart (and you will be filled with great joy, the joy of freedom!).

*Awesome Combination of Virtues*

        Humility and bold faith make a wonderful combination. We are nothing, yet we believe that the Lord can make us into anything he wishes.

**Holding onto Ourselves

        We forget that God is all-powerful and we are weak, so we still hold onto ourselves tightly, even in loving God, instead of seeking power from the Lord to help us accomplish all things. Letting go of ourselves can be so tough!

***Secret to Entering Heaven

        The Gospel reading came from Matthew 7. In it, Jesus said to his disciples: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven." So the "secret" to getting into heaven is to do the will of the Father–so simple. Attain union with God and you'll know and want to do his will.

*Cure for Moodiness

        If you get moody sometimes and don't enjoy that, Christ is your answer. Once you attain union with him, you'll never feel gloomy, depressed, or ill-humored again.  

***Act of Creation Witnessed

        Today's Gospel reading from Matthew 15. Jesus miraculously multiplied seven loaves of bread and a few fish to feed the hungry crowd of four thousand that had followed him for three days. After they all ate, they picked up the fragments left over—seven baskets full. Here Jesus produced bread and fish out of nowhere—it was an act of creation by God! 

**Our Greatest Revelation*

        Today's entrance antiphon, based upon 1 Corinthians 4.5: The Lord will illumine what is hidden in darkness and reveal himself to all the nations. I feel so blessed that Christ had already come and revealed himself to us. Now we know how much the Lord loves us and wants to save us from sin. This has to be the greatest revelation from God to mankind.

**Most Satisfying Breakthrough*

        I started watching a Netflix film on human creativity. The creative people seek new ideas, break new grounds, explore new areas, and come up with new creations or new ways of doing old things. During the process, they experience transformation as they discover themselves and realize their own potential. Basically, I see them having a number of breakthroughs. Then I realized that I had the biggest out-of-the-world breakthrough—that was becoming one with the living God and my creator! This is the only breakthrough that enables us to break out of our earthly prison, while all other breakthroughs still keep us earthbound. 

***To Know or to Know About Christ

        I am sure you know the difference between knowing Christ and knowing about Christ. I had a tour guide in Holy Land once. He knew all about the Gospels and Jesus, but he was and remained a Moroccan Jew. I thought about preaching Christ and preaching about Christ—here's a difference too. It's easy to preach about him without knowing him. But if you know him, you can't help but want to preach him!

**The Desire to Proclaim Christ

        Today's Communion antiphon, Matthew 10.27: What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light, says the Lord, what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. The Lord now speaks to my heart in the darkness or the light. Even in the early days when I did not hear from him as much as now, he blessed me with the desire to proclaim him by giving testimonies to others. At one time, I was traveling and reached a high point among the hills. I stopped, got out of my car, and saw a whole range of hilltops in front of me. I had the desire to get on top of the tallest one and proclaim Christ as loud as I possibly could, for the hills would surely echo my message around the whole world. This desire has been a great joy and sustained me all these years, even though I feel the pain whenever I am not able to talk about the Lord or share him with others. That he has called me is beyond doubt.

*Love's Ultimate Concern*

        Someone I know, a non-Christian, just suffered a stroke. Naturally, her family showed up to support and console her at the hospital. They prepared special food items she liked and did other things to make her happy. Many of her friends also visited her to talk to her or just to keep her company. All this outpouring of love is laudable, but I just can't help thinking that doing all this is limited if no one, not even any of her Christian friends, mentions Christ or prays with her. We can do everything to make someone happy in this life, but not try to bring the person to Christ to receive true joy now and for all eternity. Is this really doing the person a favor? True love behooves us to be concerned about the others' soul!

**Keeping Distance from God*

        Whether we believe in the God or not, we tend to keep our distance from him. It is true that God is to be feared, but not for the wrong reason. Nonbelievers keep their distance from God because they do not want to be exposed to him, understandable. But those who believe and still keep some distance from God are surprisingly doing it for the same reason! As believers, they are still afraid to give themselves up completely to God. Know that with God, being lukewarm is worse than being out. Abandon yourself totally to him is the way to go.