**Food for Thought*

        To know God is to know yourself.

***To Think As God Thinks

        In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 16, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly, and be killed and on the third be raised. Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, "God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you." Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do." To think as God does, we must know God first and learn from him. This is where seeking union with God can precisely help. Surrender to him to become one with the him first. Then you'll know how he thinks and understand everything he says to you! Now you are completely in tune with the Lord. What a great joy!

**Christ in Our Insane World

       Fo those of us who follow the Lord Jesus Christ, we begin living our heavenly joy right now on earth, for our journey to paradise has begun and the best is yet to come. In this insane world on earth, Christ is the only one who can keep us sane and safe from all evil. You can't be sane if you believe that you can find happiness in this sinful world without him. If you are lost, you need to find him and he'll save you forever. He is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6), our only bright hope in this insane world. 

*Happy and Grateful

        Today I am so happy and grateful that I have Christ to lead me. By following him, I know I'll do everything right, and get to heaven. You can never trust anyone with a big ego, but Jesus you can totally trust because he is forever meek and humble despite being Almighty God.

***The Lord Doing What We Wish!

        In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 15, a Canaanite woman came to Jesus to beg him to heal her daughter tormented by a demon. Jesus tested her first, but she persisted. Jesus then said to her, "O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." Her daughter was healed from that hour. It just shows that if we have faith and persist, the Lord hears us. "Let it be done for you as you wish" has to be one of most comforting sayings filled with love you can hear coming from the Lord.

***How to Follow Christ*****

        To follow Christ, you are given so many rules. I wouldn't be surprised if you can come up with a list showing hundreds of these rules. Anyway, it'd be impossible to remember and practice them all. So how do we get around this? My answer: ignore all of them an go straight to the Lord himself to learn from him. Once you attain union with him, he'll shows you what to do and what not to do at any time, without a single rule to memorize. The Lord always makes things easy for us to understand when we go to him with an open empty heart and and open empty mind, ready to absorb whatever he wishes to reveals to us.

**Pray for Spiritual Awakening

        Spiritual awakening do not happen easily in this day and age, for the material world has attracted and snared so many souls. Evil forces operate efficiently under present circumstances. We can only turn to God to awaken those who are spiritually dead. So be alive and awake yourself first and pray hard for the world, including all the countries, our Church, our government, out families, and our own selves. (I recently read that Thailand has an extremely high suicide rate among its people, so pray for that country.)

*****Discover Your Unique Gem*****

        We have only limited time on earth and a lot of us keep busy by doing all kinds of things. May I ask what you are trying to accomplish? If you just want to live a comfortable life on earth, then, well, to be blunt about it, you are wasting your whole lifetime. Our life time is so short that compared to our life eternal after death, it's not even a drop in the ocean! So be smart and look beyond this life. Maybe you are not sure that there is life after death, then you should at least look into it, for you have nothing to lose. Not to think about it is being plain dumb (just stating the fact, not meaning to insult anyone, for once I was dumb myself). If I am somewhat credible to you, then follow my advice and look seriously into Christ. (For a start, you can watch the move The Case for Christ.) Everything I say on this blog is based upon genuine personal experience. Christ is our treasure so perfect and beautiful that once you find him, you'll want to keep him all to yourself.  Yet at the same time you want everyone else to enjoy him too. It just shows how the love of the Lord can truly liberate us from being selfish, and perfect us. The Lord is absolutely a unique gem! 

***Minding God's Business OK

        We are always told to mind our own business, but we must always mind God's business, for he's the one we need to follow and know what he wills us to do every moment in our life. God would welcome that we attend to his business, for only in sharing everything between him and us can we attain union with him.

*What's Not a Bona Fide Catholic

        We can believe in God, attend Mass regularly, and be as nice as we can to everyone, but still not follow the teachings of the Church thoroughly or be aware of the urgency of following the Lord during these dark times. A casual Catholic is not a bona fide Catholic. Go all out for the Lord to receive fully what he has in store for us. 

***Aiming for Heaven Only

        We want to aim as high as possible, for God deserves our highest esteem and love. Some people are resigned to going through purgatory first, but I say we aim for going to heaven directly, bypassing purgatory altogether. We want to honor and please the Lord as much as we can by being as holy as we can. That's going all out for him as he had for us when he died on the cross for our sins!  

**Precarious Situation We Are In

        We naturally like to do what we want to do without anyone telling us what we should do. In other words, we tend to be self-centered, despite having a conscience. It's always easy to follow the easy way, and Satan knows and takes advantage of that. To capture you, he makes you believe that you are on the right path and he's with you. Of course, once he has influenced you, it becomes increasingly difficult for you to think of God. This is exactly the situation we're in. The illumination of conscience warning will be a drastic measure taken by the merciful Lord to steer us back to him. What we should do is to wake up and turn to him now rather than risk reaching the point of no return before that warning comes.

**Decluttering the Mind for Peace

       People in general are interested in what's going on around them. When they meet each other, they talk about what's happening with their family or someone else's. They talk about current events and share their views. Sometimes we just like to talk, even about trivial stuff. One reason I have peace is because I don't waste any time thinking about things that would draw me away from God or won't do me any good. Even if I hear something that needs help, if it's a situation that I cannot directly help except through prayer, I just pray and not let it weigh me down in any way. Although this can give the impression that I am not a very sociable or caring person, to preserve my peace in the Lord is the best part for me and I must not lose it. Actually, I don't have to try hard at all, for I automatically know what to pay attention to and what to tune out. We should always do our best in what we should and can do, but not waste any time thinking about things extraneous to our spiritual life.

*****God's Foremost Desire Is . . .

to save us from our sins so that we can go to heaven. I hope you realize and believe in it.

***Riddle of Life

         It's all about us and God. We have strayed away from God and he wants us to return to him. The way has been all paved, but we resist going back. We think we can be free on our own, not realizing that freedom is born the moment we let the Lord fully "capture" us. Those who see this truth are few. The war is really between us and God. Once we surrender and reconcile ourselves to him, order is restored and we are set free forever. Life is no longer a riddle.  

**Duped and Becoming Heartless

       Psalm 51 is today's responsorial psalm. From verse 5 and 6, we have "For I acknowledge my offense; and my sin is before me always. Against you only have I sinned; and done what is evil in your sight." We need to be aware of the fact that every time we sin, we hurt the Lord, and ourselves: we cause him great sorrow and stray further away from him ourselves. He has made us in his image so that we can become like him, but we just go the opposite way. We've been duped by the world and become heartless. 

**Force That Makes Us Grow

        I look out the window and see the dragon fruit cactus my wife has recently transplanted into a large pot. Its growth is quite amazing, for it's noticeable daily. Two small segments that sprouted just a few weeks ago are now over a foot long. There is a force behind it which is of course the Lord. Then I see that we have a powerful force behind us too—it's God the Holy Spirit who can help us grow amazingly spiritually, if we, like that dragon fruit, do not resist the Lord.

*Decision You Must Not Delay

        Turning to God to convert yourself is a decision you must not delay making. Putting it off is like not getting ready for evacuation when you know that a fire is approaching and could make you lose everything, including your own life. Even after our conversion the Lord wants us to remain awake, vigilant and alert for his next coming. So burying your head in the sand is never the smart thing to do.