*****Union Leads to Perfection

        To be perfect, we must be like Jesus. To be like him, we must seek to attain union with him first. And the perfect moment to do that is right after you receive the Holy Eucharist, which is a direct invitation from the Lord to ask you to be one with him in spirit.

***Goal of Receiving Holy Eucharist

        We receive the Holy Eucharist at Mass to be nourished by the Lord to become spiritually strong. But specifically, it is more important and a higher goal to receive the Lord so that you may attain union with him.

***Quality Prayer Needed

        The Lord needs our prayers to convert the world. For Catholics, the Holy Rosary and the Chaplet of Divine Mercy are powerful weapons. Of course, we can always pray in our own words too. The more people we have praying, the more we can be of help to the Lord. If there are not enough prayer warriors, we who pray can always increase our fervor. There is no limit to how earnestly we can say our prayers. Meaning every word we pray from our hearts is a lot more helpful than having a much greater number of people praying without zeal. So pray boldly, humbly, and with your heart on fire.   

***God a Joy to Deal With*

        I am a human being and as one who have lived long enough, I know that we beings love to be clever, to devise ingenious ways of attracting others or making things attractive, and plot and scheme to achieve our goals. Now, I look at the Lord. He is so refreshing because he is absolutely straight forward, completely transparent, always genuine, tells it like it is, and his "Yes" means "Yes" and his "No" means "No." He is a joy to deal with. That's why I love and trust in my Lord.

**Praying for Recourse to Mary

        Mary's favorite prayer is the one she instructed St. Catherine Labouré to inscribe on the Miraculous Medal: O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee. (I know it's her favorite prayer after hearing the amazing conversion story on this video.) I thought for those who do not know the Holy Mother yet, we could pray "O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for those who do not have recourse to thee yet."

**We Are Miracle Workers!

        God works all kinds of miracles. Many such miracles happen because of our prayer. So we are in that sense miracle workers too. We don't create miracles ourselves, but we can make God do it for our sake. In Matthew 17:21, Jesus said to his disciples, "Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." Yes, have faith and become miracle workers.     

**God Grants Joys

        I have blogged that quite a number of years ago, some goats killed a tall tree whose leaves turned yellow beautifully in the fall on my property and I felt pretty bad about that. This morning as I was walking around the house praying, I looked out the window and saw a young tree with the same beautiful yellow leaves in the distance. Of course, that's a volunteer, for I have never planted anything out there. And it was a happy sight! I really felt that it was the Lord giving me something to make me happy. It's not a huge thing, but knowing that he rewards me like this is gratifying.

**Most Satisfying Knowledge

        When you are one with the Lord, you experience freedom, peace, and joy. But today I realize that just knowing that you are one with him is most satisfying. It may not be as "glamorous" as freedom and joy, but equally satisfying nevertheless.

**Wake Up to Reality*

        If you can see clearly that every single one of us will soon end up in heaven or in hell, you will change your entire outlook on life. For you will wonder why you still pile up perishable things on earth, why you waste so much time trying to humiliate someone you don't like, why you do not forgive anyone, why you still worry about things of this life so much, why you live such a self-centered life, etc. This should help you see that you need to focus upon God and the not-too-distant future and not upon how you are going to have your way the next day. Wake up and live a life worthy of being allowed into heaven. God is waiting.

**A Christian's Super Vision

        Knowing Christ well is like being given a pair of eyes with super vision. You see the world clearly as the Lord sees it. Both righteousness and evil markedly stand out. You see the the fakery and foolery of the world and the hollowness of people's ways. It can be depressing. Then you turn to the Lord and see all his glory, holiness, and mercy, and you are totally uplifted.

***God the Miracle Worker

        The birth of a new baby is a miracle. It's the Lord God creating a new life that never existed before. Then I thought of how the Lord can transform any one of us into a new creature. This is equally amazing. For one could have been a most wretched sinner and now he is a holy saint. It's all his doing and we should be excited about the Lord's amazing power and grace. 

***Cause of Division

        The Lord God can surely cause division among us. You can say you trust in God and people laugh at you. Then to justify your own action, you say I leave it up to God. Christians even quote Holy Scripture to attack other Christians. This is the cause: we still listen to ourselves and not to the Lord. It comes down to our lack of humility. Shame on us.

**What to Do with What You'll Leave Behind

        We all have possessions in life that mean something or a lot to us, and we think about how they should be taken care of after we leave this world. You certainly wouldn't like to see them disposed of as trash. This is a legitimate concern. Then it seems rather ridiculous to be concerned about that if you are not even sure that you're going to heaven. A natural disaster can happen and wipe out everything you have and there's nothing you can do about it. Once you are gone, people might do anything to what you had and there's nothing you can do about it either. So my advice is to make sure that you are heaven bound first, and then take care of what you'll be leaving behind and let it go. If our intent is to follow Christ all the way, we just don't look back, period.

***Getting Along with Others

        So many people can't get along with others for all kinds of reasons, not knowing or ignoring the fact that Christ can completely change us to make us get along with anyone. Nothing is impossible for God if we let him. The bottom line, if we can get along with Christ the Lord, we'll be able to get along with everyone else and have peace in this world!

The Miraculous Medal

         I wear the Miraculous Medal and it is truly a miraculous medal.  Originally, it was called the Medal of the Immaculate Conception, also know as the Medal of Our Lady of Good Graces, for the wearer receives many graces from God through Mary.

**Sacrilegious Communion!

        Working for the Devil and receiving the Holy Eucharist—how sacrilegious can you get! 

**Sharp Contrast for Us

        In today's first reading from Romans 6, Paul couldn't have made the contrast starker: For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. We have "working for the Devil" vs. "receiving a great gift from God" and "death" vs. "eternal life."

***Deep Faith in God

        We may feel that we are not doing much for God and still fulfilling what he wants us to achieve. As long as we obey him always, our fruit may not be known to us. Just like prayer, if we pray from our heart, the Lord will accomplish what we pray for, even though we may not see the result at all or not yet. Only in the true God is blind faith a beautiful thing.