**Not Quite Successfully Transformed

         Christ can completely transform us, making us anew, yet it's often hard to tell Christians from non-Christians. So many Christians hold onto their old ways, following the tradition or the custom of the world. All their empty gestures may appear OK, but not truly genuine. Christ wouldn't have acted like that. Of course, you can say that God's ways and thoughts are way higher than ours, but to let the Lord transform us is to make us think and act more like him. And this is not obvious, when you look at how these Christians live and act. So we are not perfect yet, showing that we have not surrendered ourselves completely to God yet. This is the fundamental challenge all Christians face and must meet if we are to be successfully transformed.

**Folly of Much Ado About Nothing

        Much Ado About Nothing is the title of a comedy by Shakespeare. It describes so well what most people are doing nowadays. They lead their lives and do their things divorced from God altogether. They are busy and occupied, but unknowingly drifting away from God further and further. It there ever will be an awakening, it will most likely come as a shock, still infinitely better than receiving ultimately the worst shock without an awakening.   

**How to Remain Undefiled

        In today's Gospel reading from Mark 7, Jesus said to his disciples, "What comes out of the man, that is what defiles him. From within the man, from his heart, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile." If you agree to what the Lord had said here, then give your heart to him so that you may remain clean from now on.

***To Be with Christ***

        When I am physically suffering, I realize that I am just tasting a tiny, tiny bit of what Jesus experienced when he went through the Passion. Nevertheless, this realization unites me more to the Lord and is a good thing. To go further, if we truly want to be with Christ at all times, we need to experience what he is experiencing at all times.

*****Abandonment-to-God Time

          Yesterday I blogged that I fell while walking. I felt OK at the time, but started to feel the pain afterwards. My left shoulder already had a tendon injury that had never completely healed, so I had been relying on my right arm most of the time. Now, after this fall, the left shoulder has gotten a lot worse; I could hardly lift the arm up high. My left chest is hurting too from the impact of the fall. I had a worse fall some years back. It was the right chest that got impacted badly; it took a month for the pain to go away. I expect it'll be at least a month this time, as I am now older. At a time like this, I must reprioritize my activities. I'll probably stop walking for a while and not do anything that requires the use of both arms. It is the time to pray even more, perhaps get in touch with some friends and relatives to tell them about Christ. When you realize that what you can do is limited, you can see that it is the perfect time to abandon yourself in God! This happens again when you are dying and see that abandoning yourself to God is the only sensible thing left for you to do. But why wait until such moments? Experience the freedom of letting go in God right now. We may suffer physically, but we are free to enjoy even more freedom spiritually!

***Be Aware of Body and Soul

        Let's be absolutely clear that each of us inhabits a perishable physical body on earth and possesses an unperishable soul that lives on forever. Often when our body is giving in to death, we see that as the end of our life and forget that we still have an everlasting soul that's about to begin living a new life, the real life! Realizing this can help us live a much happier and fruitful life. Otherwise, you are just a lost soul, not knowing where you are going. Know Christ the Lord and Savior to let him put your soul on the path to heaven while you still have your physical body.

**God Not Finished with Us

        Another good message from Fr. Corapi to share. 

**No Nonsense Teaching

        It is so refreshing to hear a concise, clear, to-the-point message than some long-winded, confusing, convoluted teaching.

*A Lesson Learned (& First Things First)

         I walk daily from the house to the street and back three times, just enough time to pray five decades of the Rosary. I walk briskly to help the heart. This morning as I was walking and looking sideways for something, I unexpectedly stepped on the edge of the asphalt road, tripped, fell forward and hit the pavement. The impact knocked the frame of my glasses out of shape. I was all right after sitting and resting on the ground for a couple of minutes. I have been falling yearly these past few years. I know that a fall can be detrimental to old folks like me. I am blessed that the Lord has given me strong bones. The lesson learned: no matter how much precaution we take, accidents can still happen. We must not only be careful, we must be extra, extra careful. Here I am only concerned about our physical wellbeing. What about our soul which is infinitely more important than the body? Good thing is that you only need to believe in the Lord and he will take care of our soul completely forever! Do this first before trying not to fall.

**False Teaching by Bishops

         This is a short video on false teaching within the Church posted by Fr. Corapi  today. End times are here. 
      

*****Biggest Sin of This Nation

        Fr. John Corapi has started speaking out again. I have always thought that before asking God to bless this nation, it is appropriate that we repent of the sin of having legalized abortion first. Now listen to Fr. Corapi's clear pro-life message. (Note: The 48 million figure Fr. Corapi quoted for the number of abortions since Roe vs. Wade was on the low side. The number of know abortions hit 60 million in 2017.)

***Unwavering Faith***

        Faith in the God of Christ should be unconditional and unwavering. This sounds good and is right and beautiful. It calls for believing in the Lord under all circumstances, irrespective of whatever happens to you. You may have to live through complete darkness your whole life, but you are fully aware that you'll be with your God for all eternity, knowing that he will never forsake you.

***Be like a Child

         In search of God, the educated ones would read books, research online, or even traveling abroad to find gurus. Sadly, finding nothing concrete, they end up believing that all religions are the same or everybody goes to heaven anyway or that there is neither heaven nor hell, etc. I see myself as a kindergarten kid before the Lord. I just believe what Jesus said to me that if we believe in him, we'll have eternal life. I now feel free, enjoy deep peace, and receive great joy. God has become my dearest father and soulmate. To God we are his little children, but sadly our pride has made us believe that we can find our way around without him.

*Love of Money

        In order to be able to love God fully and freely, we must detach ourselves from the world. Since money is known to be the root of all evil and loved by almost everyone, if we can detach ourselves from money, we are pretty much there. If you hear that someone just made a lot of money quite easily and want to find out how he did it, you still love money too much. You need to know how good it is to attach yourself to God alone before you can detach yourself to money and all the other things. Depending on how willingly you are to let God change you, the process can take a certain period of time or remain incomplete your whole life. It again comes down to "our way or God's way." 

*Be Prepared for the Worst

        This is always good advice. Here, I have in mind preparing ourselves for meeting the Lord in particular. I must apologize to the Lord for sounding as if meeting him is not a good thing. Certainly, for the unrepentant sinners, it will be terrible, but for those who already belong to him, it will be absolutely glorious. We'll meet the Lord after we die or when he comes again, whichever comes first. When you are ready for Christ, you are  ready for eternity! Amen.

***Great Question to Ask Yourself

        If you love to eat and I place a delicious dish in front of you, but also told you that it you eat the food, you'll get a stomach ache or even suffer food poisoning, you probably won't even touch the food. This is being sensible. Then I think of the many men who are obsessed with sex. In our culture this is a huge problem, giving rise to infidelity, pornography, and sex trafficking. In this case, even knowing that illicit sex could spread sexual diseases and cause pregnancies that can lead to abortion of the infant, these men still go ahead just to get some pleasure for their flesh. Probably the one thing that can stop them is knowing that committing such a sin can land them in hell. So we need to consider the consequences seriously before we give in to temptation. Always ask yourself "Do I want to offend the Lord my God and jeopardize my soul?"

*Odd Christians*

         They love to tell others about their family members or friends who are doctors, lawyers, professors, or prestigious in any way, yet they don't tell others or are even ashamed of telling them that they believe in Christ who is supposedly the most important and prestigious person of their life. Why do Christians often relegate the Lord to the periphery or even oblivion?

**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.