How appropriate it is for the Lord God to be your soulmate, for he alone created, understands perfectly, and knows how to heal your soul.
Saturday, March 7, 2020
**Meeting God's High Expectations of Us
In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 5, Jesus said to his disciples: "You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you." The Lord always raises the bar to want us to be perfect. And we should feel good that he regards us to be good enough to be made holy by him!
**How God Heals My Shoulder
I posted sometime last year about my injured left shoulder which had been troubling me for almost two years. Whenever I moved my left arm around, especially when I tried to lift it above the shoulder height, I felt a sharp pain. Various exercises, massage, heat treatment, etc., didn't help. If I were to remain like that for the rest of my life, I suppose I could handle it. But if my right shoulder goes bad, it would even make things such as getting up from the bed difficult. I blogged about this, saying that this might be my thorn of the flesh.
Encouraged by how Jesus wanted us to persist in our prayer, I started to pray that the Lord would heal me. Of course, my most urgent prayers are to ask the Lord to crush evil and save all souls, stop abortion, restore and purify the Church, protect this nation from all evil, and draw all to him. So I tack on the prayer to heal my shoulder at the very end. Now, the Lord could heal me instantly, help me heal naturally, or surprise me in some unexpected way. And he chose the last.
Late last year I cam across a YouTube video on the exercises that can help you heal the shoulder. I did not think that I would learn anything new, for I knew and had tried most of these exercises. I watched it anyway, as it's a short video. Then the two presenters in passing mentioned a book they said was very good. It's titled Shoulder Pain? The Solution & Prevention, written by Dr. John M. Kirsch, an orthopedic Surgeon. I got curious and bought a copy on Amazon. What's amazing is that Dr. Kirsch has discovered one simple exercise that pretty much cures all shoulder problems. In fact, many people who had been scheduled for shoulder surgery got well after doing his exercise in a relatively short period of time.
The exercise is called dead-hanging—you grab onto an overhead bar, with palms facing away from you, and hang yourself from it. This lets your body weight stretch your shoulder joints. Apparently, this enlarges all the spaces between the various bones of the shoulder, eliminating all causes of pain. I built a structure using the scrap wood I had to support a metal bar I also had. With one good shoulder, it took me several weeks and some help from my son and grandson to get it done. So far I have performed the exercise for five weeks, hanging twice a day. I can tell you that the pain is almost all gone, and I know that if I keep doing it, my shoulder will be totally well. Dead-hanging makes the whole upper body feel free and loose. The lesson, have faith in God and he will answer your prayer.
Friday, March 6, 2020
**Our Sorry State
God has always existed and has come with the good news of salvation, yet we don't seem to be aware of it. That's because we've been blindsided by sin.
***The Holy Spirit effect
When you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you can't help thinking about and wanting to talk about the Lord at all times. You long for him and are eager to bare your heart to him and hear his voice within it. He becomes real, more relevant and exciting than anyone or anything in the world. Only he now matter to you. I can go on and on. To sum up in one sentence: God and you now exist in complete harmony as one!
*Letting God Be Our Doctor
When we see our personal doctor, we allow him or her to examine every part of our body so that we may get our health back. Shouldn't we allow the Lord to examine our mind, our heart, our conscience, and our soul so that we may become spiritually healthy? Isn't the soul infinitely more important than the body? Right answers: yes and yes.
How to Enter God's Kingdom
In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 5, Jesus said to his disciples: "I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven." So there he set a minimum standard. In fact, he went on to tell the disciples not to follow what they had heard was said, but to listen to what he tells them. The smart move is to never mind the scribes and Pharisees and what anyone else had said, but to go straight to the Lord and listen to him alone. We make heaven not because we not holy enough; we make it because we follow the Lord.
*Good Reasons for Seeking Salvation
Today's entrance antiphon from Psalm 25 contains the verse Look upon my affliction and suffering; take away all my sins. We are sinners and need God to take away our sins. Today's response from Psalm 130: If you, O Lord, mark iniquities, who can stand? If God pronounces you guilty, you are dead guilty. Then the Communion antiphon from Ezekiel 33.11: As I live, says the Lord, I do not desire the death of the sinner, but rather that he turn back and live. God wants us to live. These three truths compel us to to turn to the Lord to ask him to save us.
Thursday, March 5, 2020
*Being Attached to the Past
I watched a British TV show, The Repair Shop. People brought old and broken objects such as pieces of furniture, stuffed dolls and animals, music boxes, toys, vases, clocks, paintings, etc. to the shop to be repaired or restored. The repair-crew were all amazing craftspersons. The owners wanted their things brought back to life because they were mostly heirlooms which they wanted to remember their ancestors by and pass onto their own descendants; and they had happy memories associated with the respective objects they owned. So when they came back and saw the object all restored, they were all so exited and happy. In some cases, they were moved to tears. I felt happy for them too, but I couldn't help also feeling sorry for them, for with such attachment to these material things and the past, they wouldn't be free to leave this world when the time comes.
**God Forever Ready and Open
In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 7, Jesus said to his disciples, "Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened." So you can confidently go direct to the Lord to seek or ask for whatever you need. It doesn't matter whether you are a sinner or a saint (although I do have the feeling that the sinner would get the bigger welcome). Our Lord is pure love, totally accessible, and eagerly wishes to be one with us. He created the universe, keeps us alive, and gave us his only Son so that we might have eternal life, surely he can and would want the best for us. Time to run toward him at full speed.
Wednesday, March 4, 2020
**Fast Track to Holiness
Trying to make spiritual progress without accessing the Lord God is like trying to lift yourself up by pulling on your bootstraps—it won't work! This is not a new message; I am giving it again only because I saw people again praying that they might become more patient, more sensitive to others' needs, more obedient to God, etc. . . . all centered upon themselves. It should be obvious that the effective way to getting results is to go straight to the Lord, telling him all that you desire and asking him to take over to help you succeed. And you'd be surprised by how easily he can fulfill all these good desires of yours.
*Sign Seeking Is Evil!
Today's Gospel reading came from Luke 11. Jesus said to the people that their generation was an evil generation, for it sought a sign, but no sign would be given it. Our generation today is the same. Many of us do not believe in the Lord unless they personally witness a sign. If you have a hardened heart, do not even acknowledge that you are a sinner, and still expect the Almighty God to do some wonder so that you might believe, you have to be out of your mind! Don't you see that Jesus has been our greatest sign for the past 2,000 years? If you don't see that, no other sign will do you any good. Be humble and know your place before the Lord first and desire to know him, then you'll have made the right start.
**To Be with Christ Completely
Jesus is always present and among us anyway. What we need is to have the Lord dwelling within each of us to be one with us. Otherwise, we are not completely with him.
Tuesday, March 3, 2020
**Purpose of the Eucharist
Communion experience. The Lord gave us the Holy Eucharist to consume so that we may know that he is always with us and that he wishes to become one with us. In receiving this most precious gift, we also get to savor and enjoy him.
***Our Perfect State***
To hear the Lord speaking to us, we need also to go limp so as not to offer any resistance. To go limp is to open up ourselves to God completely, to abandon ourselves in him totally. It's letting the Lord take over, do whatever pleases him the most with us. This is the ideal perfect state for us to be in, with us "vanishing" in him and all set to spend eternity in heaven.
*Good Intentions Matter
God reads our hearts and minds. We may not succeed in doing something good, but if our intention is good, God values that. We try to imitate the Lord to become like him. Of course, we'll never be as perfect as he is, but he would still appreciate our intention. Always have good intentions and do your best, and the Lord will not blame you.
***Like Getting Up in the Morning
Abandoning yourself to God is like trying to get up in the morning. We all want to sleep or relax some more in our comfortable bed. To get up requires making an effort. But once you are up and see what a beautiful day it is out there, you are glad that you are up. Not to deal with God may make you feel guilty, but it's a "comfort" you enjoy after all. So to abandon yourself to God would require a great deal of effort on your part. But once you've done it, you would never want to go back again, for you feel and know that you've been liberated. The truth is that as long as we play God even for a tiny bit, we are not free. Let God be God and we are finally set completely free.
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