**Getting Ready to Meet God

        I remember watching the British TV sitcom Waiting for God in the 1990s about a pair of aging delinquents living in a retirement home, which was pretty funny. Since I am aging too (but no delinquent, thanks be to God), I don't think "waiting for God" is good enough. "Getting ready to meet God" would be more appropriate for oldsters. What I am happy about is that if this is what you desire, the Lord will actually prepare you for meeting him, and you can be sure that he'll do a bang-up job on you. 

***Bearing Burdens Together with God

        From today's Psalm 68, I read "Blessed day by day be the Lord, who bears our burdens..." It is true that God bears our burdens. He even died in our place on the cross for us. Every burden we feel he feels. And he wants to carry our burdens for us so that we may have some rest. Such is our loving Lord. By the way, bearing burdens along with the Lord is a most beautiful way to bond with him.

***Fleeing from God Impossible

        The enemies of God ignore, reject, or even attack God, but they don't realize that they will not be able to escape his judgment! No one can flee before the Lord, period. And whatever they do to others will come back hitting them like a boomerang a thousand times harder. We should let the love of God alone draw us to him. If we wait until we feel God's wrath, we should know that we are now being given our last chance to make peace with him.

**Suffering with God

        In today's first reading from Romans 8, Paul writes that we become heirs of God if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. To suffer with God is to feel or experience his sufferings. This unites us to him as one! The glory we receive will be joy now and heaven forever later.

Prayer Battle

         You ask the Lord to do a good thing and wait for him to respond. You know that he wants you to persist in asking, so you pray even harder. You don't give up until he gives in. Now, prayer becomes like a battle between God and you. Unless what you ask for is clearly wrong, I don't believe that the Lord minds.

**Response to Communion

         Today's Communion experience. I was speechless. Total submission was all I could think of.

***Realization Before Communion

        At Mass today when the bread and wine were consecrated to become the body and blood of the Lord, I realized that the Lord gave up his own body for our salvation and poured out his own blood for our redemption. This shows how truly precious we are to him! Therefore, we must not neglect ourselves spiritually anymore.  

***Our Only True Joy

        At Mass this morning, I felt that Christ was my only true joy. Sure, there are many things that do make me feel happy at times in this world, but that kind of happiness is never deep or permanent and is often just self-gratification, while the joy of Christ liberates your soul and permanently renews your spirit. All pleasures and delights of the world simply pale in comparison. That Christ is our only true joy is no exaggeration. 

*****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.