**We Need Christ to Anchor Us*

         We all live in different environments. Some people live in countries so poor that their main concern is to be able to make a living. And there are rich people in affluent countries whose main occupation is to seek material comfort and worldly pleasures. For those who do not believe in God, they don't care about government oppression so long as they are not affected, while those who believe in God under the circumstances may completely change their outlook on life and rearrange their priorities. We all live in our own world and react differently to different things. How to always know the right thing we should do? I say that we need to firmly believe in Christ and get to know him intimately so that we'll know his ways, his thoughts, and his will. Then we'll just follow him, no matter how circumstances change, where we are, and what we face. We'll feel good, knowing that we are with Christ always.  

**Again, Do Not Judge

        In today's Gospel reading from Mark 6, Jesus got rejected at Nazareth, his native place. When the sabbath came the Lord began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished. And they took offense at him. They came to judging the Lord quickly as the people of today do. To me, no matter how bad someone is, you should always give that person another chance. Jesus does not condemn anyone who is still living because there is alway a chance that person might repent and turn to him. In any case, leave the judging to God, as our judgment of anyone does not affect his in the slightest besides making us look bad.

*****Where to Find Freedom (Power of Infinite Love)*****

        God's love and mercy for us is infinite, and we can let him love us as much as we allow him to. When we open ourselves up completely to him to let his love fill us to the brim, we are set free in our infinite Lord! The love of God now unites us to him as one. In short, when we let God love us as much as he wishes, we are set free.

****Get Disciplined the Smart Way

        In today's reading 1 from Hebrews 12, Paul writes that the Lord disciplines those he loves and that he disciplines us as a father because he treats us as his children. We are not perfect children, so we should welcome discipline when we misbehave. But I do see a way of preempting any harsh discipline. Here's how. You surrender yourself to the Lord, aiming at attaining union with him. Now you let him teach, shape, and mold you to his heart's content to perfect you, while you experience only sweet and tender love! A case of no pain and lots of gain.

*Overcoming Fear of Death

         If you still fear death, you haven't been liberated from the world and yourself yet. The only way to overcome that fear is to attach yourself entirely to God, as in union with him. When you know that you belong to God alone and is totally under his care, you lose all fears, not just the fear of death. 

*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.