*****Holy Eucharist Being Abused

           As I was walking this morning, I saw that the Holy Eucharist is an amazing awesome gift the Lord has given us. It is the Lord's own flesh and blood. In John 6:54-55, Jesus said, "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. For my flesh is true food, and my blood true drink."
        When you receive this Most Blessed Sacrament, you are receiving your creator and the Lord of heaven and earth physically into you! Therefore, you must be in a state of grace. In 1 Corinthians 11:27-29, Paul wrote: Whoever eat the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.
       How can we not be ready beforehand and still remain the same sinner afterwards? Not only we must prepare myself for receiving such a glorious gift, we should also spend time thanking the Lord for such a great privilege and favor. Instead, parishioners leave right after or even before Mass ends. How could we treat the Lord so casually? The Church has surely failed in teaching her flocks. Now pretty much anyone who goes up to receive the Eucharist gets it—one may not even believe in the real presence of the Lord in the Eucharist or is in a state of mortal sin. Why don't priests from time to time before Mass remind us of the requirements for receiving the Holy Eucharist, especially at Easter and Christmas times when all the CINOs surface? Don't we care about how the Lord feels anymore? 

**Letting God Change You

         Do you ever feel the need to change yourself for the better? As sinners, we know that we are not perfect, and the Lord God of Christ is the perfect one who can fundamentally change us to make us perfect. Ask him to to do that and you'll please God as well as feel happy with yourself.

**Great Tragedy to Avoid

         God is always calling us. We are all given a conscience, and we need to have a clear conscience to hear his calls. The voice of the Lord is ever so gentle that a soul in turmoil won't be able to hear it. To have some time to turn to God is absolutely crucial to hearing him. Living a busy life, you can easily not hear the Lord your whole life and miss all the golden opportunities to reconcile yourself to him. This would indeed be a great tragedy.

**Saving Souls

         We want to bring as many souls as possible to Christ. There are some who are doing this work admirably, for they are gifted speakers or writers and know how to spread their messages through mass media and by other means. How about many of us who are not able to reach so many souls. The Lord made me see that we only need to enter deeper into him. For the more we are in tune with him, the more effective our prayers will be, and deep prayer is the key to saving more souls. Where we lack power, the Lord fills in. Do our small part well and our works will become great too.

***Treat God the Way You Want to Be Treated by Him

       Listen to God and he'll listen to you. Respect God and he'll respect you. Praise him and he'll praise you. Trust him and he'll trust you. Enjoy him and he'll enjoy you. Open up to him and he'll open up to you. Communicate with him and he'll communicate with you. If he is beautiful to you, you'll be beautiful to him. Appreciate him and he'd appreciate that. See how you can make God treat you according to your wish? But no matter what you treat him, he'll always love you. 

****Breaking Free from Sexual Enslavement

         Men are often enslaved by physical desires, among which the sexual desire, especially in today's culture, can be dominant and overpowering. The pleasure men get from sex makes such a sin most difficult to overcome, even though they know that if they indulge in it too much, the pleasure can become sickening. Nevertheless, with gratification on mind, you don't think beyond it. To break free of such enslavement or any serious bondage, you absolute need God to enter your life. Submitting yourself completely to the Lord is always hard, but you must make your first attempt. Much prayer is needed. Find someone with faith to pray with you. Know that your soul is at stake and it's either do or die. Only by experiencing the peace and joy of the Lord will you be able to overcome this sin. Know that nothing is impossible for God. Cry out to the Lord from you heart if you must and he will surely hear and take care of you. 

**Thanks to Another Musician

         Through Nahre Sol, the pianist and composer whom I posted about on May 31, I came to learn about Andrew Huang whom Nahre Sol interviewed in her video The Brilliance of Andrew Huang. He is a Canadian musician very popular on social media. On YouTube alone he has almost 600 videos, garnering 2.2 million subscribers. I think Andrew is creative, ingenious, and a hard worker, not afraid of exploring lots of genres and instruments. While many talented people are admirable, they also make me treasure what I've chosen to follow even more. What I have discovered in my Christ is not only rich and beautiful beyond words, but also absolutely pure and simple. I only need to lie back and enjoy the Lord.

***Challenging Message from Jesus

        In today's Gospel acclamation from John 11, Jesus said: "I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me will never die." Is there anything not clear to you? If you do not believe in Jesus, it has to be either you believe that he was lying to you or you just reject the truth.

***Requisite for Knowing God

        Since God knows everything about us, what's in our heart and on our mind, we must be completely honest and truthful to him, for an iota of deviation from that he can instantly detect. Being completely honest and truthful to God greatly strengthens our union with him. This is how we really get to know the Lord.

***Stop Persecuting Priests

          This is today's post from Fr. Corapi. We need to support and pray for all the priests who speak the truth. The video shows the silencing of some of these priests, but there are more cases. 

**Great Realization

        As we age and experience physical deterioration and begin to depend upon others more to do some of the things for us, we think about God more. When we were young, we might be attracted to God, but still thought that there's so much time left that we easily attended to things of the world first. For me, I now catch myself making more and more mistakes even in typing a message like this one, as the old physical dexterity is no longer there. Anyway, turning to God is a great blessing! The ultimate realization is that the God of Christ is all we need. For all things of the world pass. 

**Most Glorious Feeling!

        Today's Gospel acclamation comes from Ephesians 1 in which Paul prayed for all that God the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ might open the eyes of their hearts. Yes, our hearts also have eyes and ears through which God communicates with us and we get to know him intimately. When you are totally obedient and receptive to the Lord (or in union with him), you hear and see him. He now is your lifeline, your inspiration, your counselor and guide. Hearing the voice from him alone is enough to transform, nourish, and sustain us. Now you know that you are one with and belong to your God. What a glorious feeling!

***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.