***Warning Coming

        A review of the coming Illumination of Conscience. Awesome or Awful, that would depend upon whether we are ready or not.

*****Living in and for the Lord

        We should live for the Lord and this means we live for ourselves in the Lord and not the world. The ideal Christian living is to remain hidden in the Lord and unknown to the world. When the Lord and we become one, the Lord receives the greatest glory and we the greatest satisfaction. 

**Untrendy Christians

        Most people follow trends. They want to be popular and not look like oddballs. On the contrary, true Christians want to remain humble and do not care about what others think. They follow only Christ Jesus and care only about what he thinks of them. They are joyful, proud "oddballs" beautiful to the Lord.

*How Sinners Behave

        I've had the chance to tell others about Jesus. A few days ago, I met one person I'd witnessed to and she still seemed uninterested about the Lord. I could understand that. For she is still young, has a decent job, and is free to do what she enjoys doing. Even though she might realize that she is a sinner, the pressing need to think that she would need salvation is just not there. To me, those who do not want to face God behave just like those kids who have misbehaved and try to avoid facing their father when they can. Of course, the day will come for all of us to face the heavenly Father.     

***The Right Way to Know God***

         The good people who follow Christ want to know him better, but they go about it not in the most effective manner. They attend conferences featuring eloquent and knowledgeable speakers to encourage them to love God, they celebrate certain feast days of the Church, dedicate statutes of saints, hold Bible studies, read spiritual articles, etc. Let's realize that our goal is to know the Lord, so why don't we go directly to him to let him know us? You see, when we open ourselves up to him, we get to know him! If you really don't know the Lord well yet, doing all the other things shows that you don't really want to know him. It's like you want to go somewhere and you spend all your time getting your cart ready, but not going about looking for a horse to pull the cart. To really want to know the Lord, you must be willing to surrender yourself completely to him, no holding back. This is the basic challenge we all face.

***What Matters More*

         It's a happy day, for I finally got my laptop back and can start blogging again. The computer now works flawlessly. For months I had been getting double letters when I typed some of the single letters. Now I know that was caused by the swollen battery pushing on the keyboard from underneath. I shall date each posting as of the day I received the thoughts, so it may take me three days or longer to catch up totally.
        (1) How much you love God matters more than how you love God. (2) How willingly you accept suffering for God's sake matters more than how you suffer. (3) How much your heart is involved in praying to God matters more than how much you pray.

**Secure Your Soul First

        In Matthew 10:28, Jesus said to his disciples, "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna." If you have already secured you soul with Christ, then there is absolutely nothing for you to fear anymore. [I'll have to take my laptop into a shop to get its swollen battery replaced. I do not know yet how much time this repair will take. If you don't see me blogging, you'll know why.]

*Wise Move as You Age

        Do you get busier when you get older? Some old folks feel that there isn't much they can do and simply wait for death. This is rather sad. Others see that their time is limited and hustle to do all the things they enjoy doing. This is better but not necessarily profitable, depending upon their motivation. The wisest choice as you age is to serve God as best as you can in every way in the remaining time you still have left. This last effort may very well put you comfortably across the finish line to heaven.

**Death Is No End of Life

        If I die right now, how would I feel? This thought came to me this morning. I would feel all right because I see life continuing on. One difference would be the change of environment. When I leave this world, I simply let everything in it go. As for those for whom I am praying, I'll just continue praying for them from heaven if necessary. Of course, the environment up there will now be divine! So dying does affect serving the Lord; only your environment becomes infinitely better. Now you are in union with the Lord God more than ever. 

**Persevering to the End

        Encouraging, consoling words from the Holy Mother. She said, "Those who remain faithful to the end will receive great reward." Let's remember that!

*****Awesome Power of God's Will

        In today's Gospel reading from Luke 6, on a certain sabbath Jesus went into the synagogue and taught, and there was a man there whose right hand was withered. The scribes and the Pharisees watched him closely to see if he would cure on the sabbath so that they might discover a reason to accuse him. But he realized their intentions and said to the man with the withered hand, “Come up and stand before us.” And he rose and stood there. Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?” Looking around at them all, he then said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” He did so and his hand was restored. It's awesome to see that when we let the Lord do what he wills, all that's good for us is done.

***Only Way to Live

        Our first duty is to love God. And it's perfectly all right to let your desire to get to heaven motivate you to love him, for it is exactly his desire for you too. He treasures you, so you should treasure yourself. This is how you can live a fruitful, rewarding life. Living without love for God is no living at all.

*Elementary Formula for Peace

        We want to change the world to make it better, right? But when the world is filled with self-centered sinners, there's no chance it can happen. Let's get right down to the fact that only God can make the world better, for he can change us. So the only way improve the world is for each of us to trust in and follow God, the God of Christ, to let him change us first. This is so clear and simple. Obey Good and we'll have peace and salvation. Ignore him and we'll have continuing chaos and damnation of many. We must work everything thru our God for his glory and our good.

*"Fear" of God

         When a righteous person "fears" God, he loses all his fears. When an evil person does not "fear" God, he'll end up in fear of God for all eternity.

***Holiness Starts with Us

        The supplications to God we make in public always seem to be prayers for the Pope and the bishop, our government officials, and others in needs, rarely for ourselves. Perhaps we pray for ourselves in private only? I hope so. Praying for others is always easier than praying for ourselves, as many of us have not completely discarded our pride yet. The truth is we need prayer as much as others. Indeed we should humbly pray for our perfection first so we can become more effective in praying for others. We say charity begins at home; we could also say holiness starts with oneself. We won't get far if we pray for others to become holy, while we remain poor examples.

***How We Should See Sinners

         It's in current news that the defrocked Cardinal McCarrick has finally been brought to court to face sexual assault charges. So far, he has pleaded not guilty. To me, if one is guilty, it would be do much better for him to repent and suffer public humiliation than not to repent and suffer eternal punishment later. Therefore, I urge you all to pray for the salvation of this former cardinal.
         How we see other sinners genuinely shows how much we know Jesus. In general, we don't like evildoers and often wish literally that they go to hell. But this is pure human thinking, no at all in line with what the Lord wishes. God loves the evildoers as much as the righteous ones. In fact, it's specifically for their salvation that he came to us from heaven. If any one of them goes to hell, Satan wins. Which side are you really on?  Next time you wish someone to go to hell, recall how Jesus rebuked Peter in Matthew 16:23, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

***Easiest Person to Get Along With***

         On earth we all have family members and/or friends, and not everyone we know we can get along with easily. Even with our most loved ones or best friends, we can misunderstand each other at times. Personally, I've found Jesus to be the easiest person to get along with. How so? First of all, he understands you perfectly, knowing all your weaknesses and imperfections. And he's most forgiving; once you admit you're wrong, he forgives you totally. Of course, he never holds grudges against you. And he's most patient, for he always listens to you. If you fall short of loving him, he helps you there too. You can trust in him completely, as he is completely reliable. He's indeed the easiest person to get along with because he doesn't mind your mistakes, imperfections, failures, as long as you trust in him. Besides, he can make you so perfect as to get along with him swimmingly. Now he and you become soulmates. Once you have the Lord as your most beloved lord and friend, you have all the people you need to know in life.

**Reacting to Any Situation

         I have an earwax buildup in my right ear, affecting its hearing. So I started putting a few drops of mineral oil in it a couple of days ago to soften the wax. This had worked in the past for me. But this morning as I tried to dab my ear to get the excess oil out with a paper tissue, I found blood stains on the tissue. Two possible extreme scenarios of how one can react in such a situation. First scenario, you become alarmed, panic, and rush to see your doctor, thinking that you may have a serious infection and lose your hearing in that ear. Second scenario, you remain calm, knowing that panic or worry will not help you a bit. You don't need negative thoughts to cloud your thinking. Mostly likely, there's nothing to be alarmed about. You should wait and not jump into any conclusion.
          I am sure that you would agree with me objectively that the second reaction is the right one. But we do know that reacting the first way comes more naturally to us and reacting the second way is difficult or nigh impossible for many of us. This is where God comes in. By trusting in him, we should be able to remain in peace under any circumstances. This is not just a theory, but a fact. Here's the Lord ready to take you to heaven—how can he possibly not take care of you on earth? (As for my ear bleed, I think I've figured out the cause. I just cut my fingernails. Earlier they were a bit long and I did try to get some of the wax out of the right ear with my index finger. Very possibly, the nail had scratched the outer ear and caused some bleeding. In that case, I should be all well in a few days.)