*Choosing to Be Happy

        Today's alleluia verse before the Gospel from Psalm 118: This is the day the LORD has made; let us be glad and rejoice in it. It seems that broadly speaking, there are three groups of people. We have those who are deeply entrapped in sin; those who just drift along, not in particular thinking about God or anything; and those who are glad and rejoice in the Lord everyday. It's easy for me to choose which group I want to belong to.

**God's Sorrow

        The more we love someone, the heavier the burden we feel when that person abandons God. Now God loves us infinitely more than we love others. Imagine how heavy the burden he must feel on his heart when so many of us abandon him!

*Fake News Then and Now

        In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 28, after learning that Jesus had risen, the chief priests assembled with the elders and took counsel; then they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, telling them, "You are to say, 'His disciples came by night and stole him while we were asleep.' And if this gets to the ears of the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble." The soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. They thought that they had everyone fooled, but we two thousands years later know that it was all fake news. Today maybe 80-90% of the news media spread fake news in this country and the majority of the people already know that they are fake. And, of course, the Lord God you can never fool. It is sad that in general, evildoers are not smart enough to see that they are destined to lose big in the end.

**How to Live Right

        Each of us is a spirit with a soul and a body. Since our body is only a temporary abode, we should not ever let it dictate the way we live. It is the imperishable soul that we must safeguard for it to live on forever with God. By the way, this makes believing in Christ a must.

***Jesus Is Our Life!

        In today's reading 1 from Acts 2, Peter gave a speech on the day of Pentecost. He let it be known that God raised Jesus the Nazorean up, releasing him from the throes of death because it was impossible for him to be held by it. And he quoted David who prophesied and knew that God would set one of his descendants upon his throne, and foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ. I see that since death has no power over Christ, he has to exist forever, and be our life, our creator, and our God! You cannot possibly separate these three roles! In John 11.25, Jesus said to Martha, "I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, he will live." In John 14.6, Jesus said to Thomas, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." So the Resurrection of Jesus should be sufficient evidence for us to believe in him. (*In case you still have doubts, watch the the film The Case for Christ on YouTube. It tells the true story of an investigative journalist who tried hard to disprove the Resurrection of Jesus and failed.)

***I Know the Lord!

        Today's Gospel reading from John 20 is about the empty tomb which Mary of Magdala first discovered. She ran and went to Simon Peter and John and told them about it. Then they all ran to the tomb and saw only the burial cloths and the cloth that had covered Jesus' head in the tomb. After the disciples returned home, Mary stayed outside the tomb weeping. Later Jesus appeared to Mary and told her to go to his brothers and tell them that he was going to his Father and their Father, to his God and their God. Mary went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord," and told what he told her.

        It must be such a great joy to see the Risen Lord! We do not see him, but we can know him! In fact, knowing the Lord is much better than seeing him but not knowing him. Jesus said to Thomas, "Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed." Let's get to know Jesus as much as possible so that we may proclaim "I know the Lord!"

Peter as an Eyewitness

        Happy Easter to all! We have the Risen Lord! Reading 1 comes from Acts 10, it is Peter's speech! He told us as an eyewitness the many things Jesus did. He and other witnesses even ate and drank with Jesus after he rose from the dead. Peter also knew that Jesus was appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead and that everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name. If you can't say that Peter wasn't speaking the truth, then you must believe in Jesus.

*Time-Wasting Thoughts

        Thinking about various things occupies the greater part of our life. Contemplating worldly things, worrying about the future, dwelling upon the past, being unduly curious about others . . . all these things take up our time. In fact, they keep us away from God. If you want the Lord to uplift you spiritually, ask him to uplift your thoughts too. The time of our life is precious. Any time wasted is time lost forever, the time you could have used for building up treasure in heaven. Seek to attain union with God to have him occupy your mind completely to block out all wasteful thoughts. And I  assure you that you'll experience inner peace.

*Knowing God Is Best

        You can study physics, math, medicine, or even theology, and become the top expert in your field, but if you do not know God, what you have learned doesn't amount to much. Knowing God personally is worth more than possessing all the knowledge in any other subject field. It is through God that you come to know the truth about this life and beyond. Also, you can only know God through the heart, so he is special. Rejoice, if you hear him calling you to know him in your heart.

***How Jesus Won Me Over

          Matthew 28.1-10 is today's Gospel reading about the Resurrection of Jesus. It starts out this way. "After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, approached, rolled back the stone, and sat upon it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing was white as snow. The guards were shaken with fear of him and became like dead men." Let me stop right here. Our Lord never tries to win us over by being self-aggrandizing, intimidatory, or harsh in any way. Seeing his glorious appearance is enough to make you shake with fear or submit yourself to him in joy. This will happen at his Second coming. When I realized his awesome glory, he completely won me over. 

        I resumed reading and the Holy Spirit stirred up a powerful joy in my heart that's so overwhelming that I had to stop reading again. Jesus is more than sufficient for me!

***Back in God's Good Graces*

        Today is Holy Saturday. Reading 1 starting from Genesis 1 gives The Story of Creation. God created the whole universe, the earth, all the vegetation, plants, the animals and other living creatures on earth and culminated in the creation of man, male and female, in his image. "Wow!" is all I can say. My simple thought is that surely he can make us holy in no time. The only problem is that man committed the original sin of disobedience later and we now have to "permit" God to make us holy first. That is, we need to submit ourselves to God, expressing our sorrow for the original sin, as it were, and for our continued disobedience. Taking this one simple step will get us back in God's good graces again. And we can easily accomplish this if we are humble and willing! 

***Our Ultimate Quest*

        I used to chase after music. I would spend a lot of time at various Tower Records stores searching for records and CDs. I found great pleasure in listening to music and collecting recordings. I also subscribe to a number of magazines such as Fanfare, American Record Guide, Gramophone, etc. Looking back, I see that I was unknowingly looking for God. Although I already knew God at the time, I had not completely submitted myself to him yet. All of you who are doing all kinds of things, good or bad, to please or satisfy yourselves are, you may not realize it yet, basically searching for God, because without him life is empty. How do I know? Well, once you truly know the God of Christ, all your other desires just fade away. You are not obsessed with any of them anymore. Compared to the joy and freedom you experience in God, all your old pleasures are now "boring." You finally know that the Lord God is the real thing, that he has made us in such a way that we won't be truly happy until we have him! 

*One Christian Failure

        The world is full of unhappy people living unhappy lives. Here we have Christ who can make us anew and change our lives. Of course, many heard about him and choose not to accept him. But there are many more who have not even heard about him! It's a case of "the harvest is abundant but the laborers are few." Sadly, Christians in general have not taken the Lord's last command "Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature" seriously. They need to know the Lord more to feel the urgency of bringing him to others. Otherwise, they'll have to answer to the Lord one day.

***Key to Perfection

        From Hebrews 4, today's second reading: Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him. Jesus' perfect obedience to the Father showed that he was perfect. Surely, if we humble ourselves and obey God, he will exalt us and make us perfect.

***Words to Set Us Free***

        Luke 23.46, today's Psalm response: Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. This was what Jesus cried out from the cross before he breathed his last. These parting words of his are words that can actually set us free! When we say them to God the Father from our very heart, we abandon ourselves completely in him and we are free!

**Fulfilling the Prophecies

        Today is Good Friday of the Lord's Passion. Isaiah 52.13–53.12 is the first reading. I confess that I am not that familiar with the Old Testament, but what Isaiah had prophesied about Christ's suffering 700+ years in advance was amazing! Here are some of the verses from Isaiah 53 I have lumped together. 

        

         It was our pain that he bore, our sufferings he endured. He was pierced for our sins, crushed for our iniquity. He bore the punishment that makes us whole, by his wounds we were healed. We had all gone astray like sheep, all following our own way; but the LORD laid upon him the guilt of all. Though harshly treated, he submitted and did not open his mouth, like a lamb let to slaughter. Seized and condemned, he was taken away, though he had done no wrong, nor was deceit found in his mouth. But it was the LORD's will to crush him with pain, by making his life as a reparation offering. My servant, the just one, shall justify the many, their iniquity he shall bear.

         There are many other prophecies in the Old Testament which Jesus fulfilled, down to a specific detail in some cases. The Lord God had made the prophets foresee the coming of Christ as our Savior, surely he can make us believe in him as our Savior now that he had already come.  

***Loneliness, Begone!

        Each of us is basically alone in this vast universe. If there is no God, our existence becomes meaningless. Deep down, we know that there must be a creator. The fact that we understand good and evil shows that we have a spiritual God. We may belong to a huge family and living among billions of other human beings, but if we don't have a personal God, each of us is still alone, for no one truly knows us thoroughly. Then Christ came and became one of us, giving us the great news of salvation. We can even become one with him in spirit through receiving him in the Holy Eucharist! Being our creator, he knows all about us. Violà, we are no longer alone! He is the only one who can take away our loneliness and the feeling of being lost. (I am not even mentioning that he can make us go to heaven easy too—whoops!) 

Only What God Thinks Matters

        If you are still affected much by what people think about you, good or bad, you still have an ego problem. We should care only about what God thinks about us. When God praises us, we rejoice. And he would never say bad things about us. When we fail, he gently reminds us. We then repent and are forgiven and back to rejoicing. Let the Lord dwell in you fully and there will be no room left for ego.