***Be Prepared

        June begins today. The temperature had been mild and delightful in the 70s until yesterday, when it shot up to over 100 degrees. It looks like today is going to be another scorcher. Talk about sudden change. Big changes in life always seem to happen unexpectedly, such as the death of someone you love or a serious traffic accident. God's warnings and chastisements also come to us that way. Be prepared is our best preparation. If you are prepared to meet the Lord at any time, then you are prepared for anything that might happen to you in this life.

**Inspired by a Musician

        There is a very talented, creative classical pianist and composer named Nahre Sol who explores all genres of music and presents her findings on many YouTube videos. As one interested in piano music, I watched her recent video Nahre Sol Answers Your Questions. She says what she wants to accomplish is to spread her enthusiasm about music and her love for music to others. She has no idea where it will all end, but it's her obsession and feels happy about it. What came to my mind was that as Christians, what we want to accomplish should be to spread the good news about Christ and our love for him to others. We have no idea (in fact we shouldn't be concerned about) where it will all end, but it's our duty to do so and feel happy about it. Thank you, Nahre Sol.

*****Praising the Most Holy Trinity

        Today is The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. The Lord makes me see that our greatest sorrow should be for our own sins and our greatest joy for his mercy. And I see that our greatest miracle is to be able to attain union with him through the Holy Eucharist. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, how great and glorious you are! May you be praised and adored by all your creatures for ever.

***Secret of Feeing Good About Yourself***

         If you are not truly happy about things in general and yourself, you clearly need God to make you perfect. Your perfection will please God greatly. When God your Father is pleased, you'll have peace and be happy about yourself and everything else. Believe me, I am hitting the truth! We are not happy because we sin, harming others and our own soul. And God is the one who can change all that, making us clean and blameless. It all comes down to having enough humility to submit ourselves to him totally. This is the challenge we all face. Blessed are those who can overcome it by abandoning themselves to God.  

***Support O.U.R.

        Some good news in these dark days. 

***Getting Your Prayers Answered

           In today's Gospel reading from Mark 11, Jesus revealed to us the secret of having your prayers answered. He said to the disciples, "Have faith in God. Amen, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it shall be done for him. Therefore I tell you, all that you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive it and it shall be yours." The Lord loves that you place full confidence in him. How likely he'll grant you what you ask for depends upon how much you trust in him.

**The Joy of Christ

         If you already belong to Christ and know that you are heaven bound, what does it matter if you have to go through some hardships in this life? It may be easily said than done, but it does completely make sense. True, if you know you are going to be happy forever, you shouldn't feel unhappy anymore. The fact is that you can achieve this, as the joy of knowing Christ is so great that it's able to subdue all unhappiness.

***Sad State of Mankind*

         The Lord God is wide open to us. His love is boundless and mercy infinite. The process of getting saved from sin and to heaven can't be simpler. Give yourself to God and all he has is yours. Yet how do we respond? In most cases we act as if we don't care! What has happened to our hearts, our conscience? Warnings have been coming to us nonstop and chastisements have already begun, but people remain blind, deaf, and close-hearted. If they don't repent and convert now, will they likely do so in their dying moments? I wonder. 

***Minding God Alone

         God is the only one who can judge us, so whatever other people say about or think of us doesn't matter; we answer to God alone. If I draw a picture, I would show a line linking each of the billions of us to God with no linking among ourselves at all. It's how we live for God alone that matters. By the way, this is also how we can experience freedom from the world and not let anyone rob us of peace.

***God Bless Fr. Altman

        The second video by Fr. Goring is about Fr. James Altman. It's sad to hear that his bishop wanted him to resign. He needs our support and prayers. And don't forget to pray for his bishop. You may want to watch John-Henry Westen's presentation of Fr. Altman's case to find out how you can help.

*****Pentecostal Power!

          I'd like to share some videos again. Two were made by Fr. Mark Goring. I'll post the first one first, a talk about the power of the Holy Spirit. I experienced it in the 1970s and the fire that kindled by the Holy Spirit in me is still burning today! (Pretty amazing.) Every Christian should seek Baptism in the Holy Spirit to know what it feels like to be the temple of the Holy Spirit.

**Be True to Yourself & God*

        It is clear from the Gospels that the Lord is most displeased with hypocrites. He said "Woe to you" many times to the scribes and Pharisees, calling them hypocrites. They were all religious people. So for a Christian to be a hypocritical, it's no light matter.  

***WE NEED GOD!

        As I walked early this morning, I saw that the number of things that needed our prayers was absolutely staggering! This shows how much God is needed by us! No doubt that without God, we would be doomed. And with God, we need to go all out to trust in him to get all the help we need.

***What Are You Waiting For?

         My oldest granddaughter just graduated from college and is waiting to start her new job soon. My oldest grandson in college is now on a short break at home, waiting to return to his campus. Day by day, we are always waiting for something. We usually know what we are going to do next, but ask yourself what you are really waiting for? The farthest thing I can think of is to be in heaven with God. It's farthest, but it's definitely worth waiting for. Since heaven is eternal, it is the end for us too. If you are waiting for something you can go beyond, then you still have a long way to go. But to those who are wise and farsighted, they've already secured a place in heaven, and that's their next stop. 

***A Super Sharp Conscience

        One blessing when you are in union with the Lord is that he sharpens your conscience to the point that you feel sin acutely, whether it's yours or someone else's. To experience inner peace, a clear conscience is a must-have. This is how God has made us. A clear conscience is also a great joy, for you know that you are pure and pleasing for the Father to behold. So, our top priority is to surrender to God to have him cleanse us thoroughly. Once you are made clean and possess a clear, sharp conscience, you'll never want to go back to your former state again, this I can tell you!

*Dream and Faith

        I had a bad dream early this morning. It's caused by some experience that had haunted me in the past. I thought of faith which works quite the opposite way. Faith enables me to believe in something I do not see, yet fills me with joy and hope. Dreams deal with the past and last briefly, but faith looks to the future and can last forever. Do not live in any dream world, but be filled with real faith. All in all, hold onto God alone who exists forever, and cast all else aside.

**Living with Imperfections

        I realize that being human, no matter how obedient we are to God despite our best intention and effort, we still fall short of being perfect in many ways. I believe that the Lord judges us on how hard we tried and less on how well we succeeded. Both intention and sincerity count. This should make us all the more want to follow the Lord. It's best that we set our mind to it and not let any imperfection deter us.

***Don't Miss Eternal Life

         If you believe that there is life after death and we go either to heaven or to hell after we die, then your top priority now should be making sure that you get to heaven. If that's not the case, then you must not believe or are not sure about life after death and all that. In this case, you need to look into it, for what if there is an eternal life to live? Christ came to us from heaven 2,000 years ago precisely to make it possible for us to have eternal life. To show that he meant business, he sacrificed himself on the cross to save us from eternal death, then rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. What more convincing do you need?