*Getting Down off Our Pedestal

        Today is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord. The Psalm reading comes from Psalm 24. Here's verse 8: Who is this king of glory? The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle. Then Jesus, the king of glory, came, humble and meek, not strong and mighty as people had expected nor fighting the kind of battle they had envisioned. For his ways and thoughts are higher than theirs as the heavens are higher than the earth (Isaiah 55:9). We are the ones who do not get it. To the ones who got it, they were overwhelmed, for the Lord was more amazing than they could possibly have imagined! We need to be open-minded, objective, and never look down on anyone different from us. Whatever we do to the littles ones, the meek and humble, the weak, the poor ... we do it to the King of Glory.

***In These Dark Days

        We are going through dark times. In this country, we are losing our freedom of speech, religious freedom, our right to life, right to vote, and democracy. It's never been like this since the founding of the republic. This is the result of man falling away from God and ignoring all his warnings that we need to repent and return to him or be chastised. Even the Church did not take these warnings given to us through the Holy Mother, other saints, and various seers seriously. Since my soul is already safe and secure in my God, I no longer fear the death of my body. Psalm 23:4 comes to my mind: Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for the LORD is with me. But I pity those who are lost and not repenting. It seems that they are just asking to be punished—how tragic! And I do share the Lord's great sorrow over their self-centeredness, ingratitude, and hardened hearts. How difficult it is to be childlike indeed!

**Wise Living

       In this material world, God as our Lord is meaningful to us only because God is knowable to us. As our Lord he knows everything about us. Every thought, word, and deed of ours cannot escape him. Whatever we do, good or bad, will have its consequences. This is good to know so that we may live right to be sure that we'll have secured our eternal life! It's a pure case of "we reap what we sow." 

***Most Satisfying, Rewarding Living

         February has begun; time marches on. We are all getting closer to being judged by God, so are you rejoicing and not even thinking about it? I want to praise the Lord as much as I can by word or deed in the time I have left on earth. My prayer is that every single person in the world will turn to Christ and be saved. To trust in, obey, and serve our most wonderful Lord is what makes our life most satisfying and rewarding. You see, when we submit ourselves to him, he makes us selfless. When we are selfless, we become free! So live for the God of Christ alone, which is really letting him live exclusively in you. This is loving your God with all your heart, with all you soul, and with all your mind. 

**Akita Warings and Prophecies

          The Akita messages seem to reinforce the Fatima ones. The possible fire falling from the sky mentioned could conceivably be a large meteor on its way to hitting the earth.

**A Matter of Knowing the Lord

        In today's Gospel reading from Mark 1, Jesus came to Capernaum, entered the synagogue and taught. The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. Today many teachers or homilists are weak or instantly forgettable, for they sound like someone who doesn't personally know the Lord yet. To be effective, you must know the Lord and then share you thoughts based upon personal experience. Knowing the Lord in person is the key here.
          Also, in the synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit, he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?  I know who you are—the Holy one of God!" Jesus rebuked him and said, "Quiet! Come out of him!" The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him. Since the unclean spirit knew who Jesus was, it had to obey him. If we truly know who Jesus is, we would have no choice but to obey him too. The fact that many still do not believe in Christ is because they do not truly know him yet.

**Agonies to Be Welcomed

          If you have a good conscience and sinned against the Lord, you experience the agony as you are being tested by the Lord. Then you can be sinless yourself and see that the world is offending the Lord horribly, and you taste the Lord's agony in the Garden of Gethsemane before his arrest and Crucifixion. In the first case, the agony makes you abandon yourself to the Lord. In the second, you and the Lord become united in suffering. Welcome these agonies, for through them God purifies and strengthens you and draws you deep into him. 

*Saint Anthony of Padua

          St. Anthony is well-known as the patron saint of lost things. As far as I can remember, every time my wife and I lose something and ask for help from the saint, we always get it back. My younger son recently gave my wife a pair of AirPods to help her hearing. Yesterday she wore them before going to Walmart to shop. This is the biggest new Walmart around here. After shopping for 40 minutes or so, she was on her way home and realized that her left AirPod was gone. So she drove back to the store, praying to St. Anthony along the way. She then parked her car close to where she parked earlier and started tracing her steps back to the store, looking for the pod the whole way, but saw nothing. So she went to the customer service counter inside the store and asked about it. The lady rep told my wife that another employee Cindy who usually worked outside the store had picked up a pod. So she had someone go look for Cindy to get it. Lo, it matched my wife's right one perfectly. Again, thanks to St. Anthony and the Lord. [One clarification. Protestants pray to God only. When Catholics pray to a saint, they do not worship the saint as God at all. "Pray" here simply means "to make a request to someone or for something," one of the definitions of the word "pray" as a verb.]

*We vs. God

        Infinity is a concept, not a number. It is infinitely large. Any finite number compared to infinity becomes zero. A google is the number written with a hundred zeros following the numeral 1. It's big all right, but still finite and becomes nothing next to infinity. Our finite life on earth also becomes nothing when we consider that our soul will live on in heaven or hell for all eternity. Since we are finite and limited, all the more we need God who alone is infinite in every way. You have to be out of your mind to believe that we can survive on our own without God. And it would be sheer folly to think that we can rebel against God and still come out ahead. Looking at the finite us before the infinite Lord, submission to him is our only sane and sensible choice. Besides, he loves us.

Priest Speaking from the Heart

           Judases are not Catholics.  We need to support courageous priests!

***All the Lord's Doing

         In today's Gospel reading from Mark 4, Jesus continued speaking to the crowd with parables. In the parable of the seed growing, he said, "This is how it is with the kingdom of God, it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how. Of it own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. When the grain is ripe, it is harvest time." Do you know that this is exactly how we grow when we yield ourselves to God? We come to know his ways and thoughts, attain union with him, grow wise and holy, become eager to do his will, experience freedom, peace, and joy, and lose all fear of death—we know not how either. It's all the Lord's doing.

**Living as a Christian

        In today's first reading from Hebrews 10, Paul says it all about living as a Christian. We have been enlightened and will suffer for the Lord's sake. Remain confident and we'll have great recompense. We need endurance to do the will of God and receive what he has promised. Live by faith. We are not among those who draw back and perish, but among those who have faith and possess life. Exactly!

**Warnings from Our Lady of La Salette

        I was blessed to have visited Our Lady of La Salette in the French Alps twice. The Blessed Mother appeared there to two children in 1846. Here is one video I just saw informing us of some of her prophecies. It seems that they are being fulfilled today. Take a listen. 

****Have God or Nothing****

        In today's Gospel reading, Jesus also said, "To the one who has, more will be given; from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away." So you have the haves and the have-nots. You either are with Jesus or are not with him. You either get to heaven or you don't. With God, it's all or nothing; you can't go halfway or be lukewarm. Didn't the Lord command "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind"? Believing in God is for the humble-hearted only, not the half-hearted nor the faint-hearted. Have God or have nothing, your choice.

***Warning to Evildoers

        In today's Gospel reading from Mark 4, Jesus told the parable of the lamp to his disciples. He said "There is nothing hidden except to be made visible; nothing is secret except to come yo light." He also said, "The measure with which you measure will be measured out to you." Evildoers, take notice. If you harm the good people, how much more God will "harm" you who are evil! For nothing can be hidden from him. Everything we do will come back to either justify or condemn us.

****Making the Universe Perfect****

        Today is Memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas. Reading 1 continued from Hebrews 10. Paul wrote the following: Since we have "a great priest [Jesus] over the house of God," let us approach with a sincere heart and in absolute trust, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water. Let us hold unwaveringly to our confession that gives us hope for he who made the promise is trustworthy. A sincere heart, absolute trust, a clean conscience . . . these are what the Lord deserves from us. If you give him all that and more, you'll know that you are doing the right thing and it'll give you the greatest good feeling! Make submitting yourself to God your top priority so that you may become one with him. When man becomes obedient to God again, God's will is done on earth and the universe is made perfect. 

**To Bear Fruit for God

         In today's Gospel reading from Mark 4, Jesus told the parable the sower to the crowd. Later he explained to his disciples that he was the sower who sows the word of God in us. In some cases, Satan comes at once to take away the word sown. In some cases, people receive the word at once with joy, but when tribulation or persecution comes, they quickly fall away. There are also people tho hear the word, but worldly anxiety, the lure of riches, and the craving for other things intrude and choke the word, and it bears no fruit. But those sown on rich soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit thirty and sixty and a hundredfold. So, to be rich soil for the word of God and bear fruit abundantly, we need to keep Satan away, be strong in the Lord and trust in him, and be detached from the world. It seems that remaining in union with God is the state for us to be in.

***Most Wonderful News

         In today's first reading from Hebrews, Paul made it clear that the priests of his days who offered those same sacrifices could never take away sins. But by the one offering of himself, Jesus has made perfect forever those who are being consecrated. And where there is forgiveness of sins, there is no longer offering for sin.
         This is the main message of our salvation. That is, if we believe that God has redeemed us through the sacrifice of his own Son, we only need to believe in the Son, repent of our sins, and he'll take them away and grant us eternal life. You probably have heard this so many times and no longer pay much attention to it. When I really think about it, I see that this revelation is truly incredible, awesome, amazing, momentous, earthshaking, compelling, right on target, and exactly what we need to know. That's why it's called the "good news." In fact, it is the best possible news you can hear in your lifetime. Everyone should give it his utmost attention, look into it, and test it out. It is unthinkable that one would ignore this most wonderful news about gaining eternal life.