***Either God or We***

        To trust in God is to forget ourselves. This is another truth. Since life is all about whether we let the Lord be our Lord or not, if we don't forget ourselves, we stand in God's way. One can't be aware of his own presence and trust in God fully at the same time. 

***With All Our Heart Always

        While our soul is most important to us, our heart is most useful. To do all things with the heart is to be genuine. Unite our heart with his Sacred Heart and we receive wisdom and power. Let him set our heart on fire and it becomes pure and spotless. Have heart-to-hearts with the Lord every moment and we enjoy great intimacy. If we are to love the Lord with all our heart, we must let him have our heart so that we may attain union with him as one forever.

**Honesty in Confession

         Confession is the sacrament of reconciliation given to us by the Lord. It's necessary for Catholics to go to confession if they have committed a serious sin, and, of course, it doesn't hurt to do it even if all your sins are minor. When confessing, we tend not to make ourselves look too bad, but this is dishonesty. True, you don't need to spell out everything in detail, but the gist of your sin must be truthful. If you were not totally honest with God, you may not even be forgiven by him. In addition, you have added the sin of dishonesty to confess. The Lord is always straight forward to us, and we must always be straight forward to him too.

*****Idolatry Warning!*****

        Today I read about the fall of Yundi Li, known as the Piano Prince in China. He won the International Chopin Piano Competition in 2000 at the age of 18. He was caught with a prostitute and the Chinese government arrested him. It looks like his bright careen is over. (In the West, no one would care about any pop star committing many immoral acts, but that's another story.) Anyway, the unfortunate happening is that many of Li's possibly millions of young fans are now devastated by the fall from grace of their idol. Some have given up learning to play the piano altogether and fallen into depression. *This is the time for us all to remember God's first of his Ten Commandments: "I am the LORD your God: you shall not have strange Gods before me." Today the young idolize pop stars and we "worship" material things and even Satan. There is only one God who will never fail or disappoint us: he is the God of Christ, our only Savior. Violate his first commandment and we will surely suffer the consequences.

**How to Have True Life

        In today's Gospel reading from Luke 17, Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will have it." To me, the Lord is telling us that if we live for ourselves only, we won't have eternal life. Living for God is the only sure way to salvation.

**A Christian's Primary Mission

        This should be obvious, but it doesn't hurt to state it clearly again. As a Christian, I believe Christ is our Lord and Savior, and every soul enters either heaven of hell after death. Sin is a reality and the spiritual battle between God and Satan is all about saving souls. Therefore, a Christian's primary mission is saving souls, his own foremost, of course. This mission continues even after he enters heaven. At Christ's Second Coming, everything will be wrapped up and earth no longer will be our abode. So as Christians, let us follow Christ by evangelizing and praying for as many souls as possible, and our reward will be great in heaven. 

***Most Humble Miracle

         The last Luminous Mystery of the Rosary for today is The Institution of the Holy Eucharist. The Eucharist, the Lord himself, is our greatest gift from God. The changing of the elements of the bread and wine, when they are consecrated in the Eucharist, into the body and blood of Christ has to be one most amazing miracle. Yet this change is physically invisible (although many visible Eucharistic miracles have occurred). The fact that the Lord totally gives himself to us in the Eucharist and the fact that the transformation into his body and blood takes place so unostentatiously strike me that The Institution of the Holy Eucharist is the most humble miracle that God has ever performed. 

***Best Time to Follow Christ

        When you try to convert someone to become a Christian, one common response you get is "I have many things to take care of now, so I am not quite ready yet." This sounds more like an excuse than a valid reason. In Luke 9:62, Jesus said, "No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God." With the Lord, you always move forward. Not even wanting to move is not wanting to follow him at all. If you do not follow him now, there will never be a better time! You have only your time on earth to decide and you don't know how much time you still have left. Why gamble with your soul? 

*****Secret to Knowing God

        To let the Lord enter our lives and to hear his voice, we must step out of his way. This means we remain passive and not try to accomplish this through our own exertion. We remain wide open to let the Lord reveal himself to us—this is all it takes, for the Lord who loves us wishes ardently to become one with us! Let it all be his doing!

***The Warning According to St. Faustina

 

*Be Grateful to God Always

         1 Thessalonians 5:18, today's Gospel acclamation: In all circumstances, give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. Indeed, whenever we realize that we are alive and have been given eternal life, we should give thanks.

*Soul More Important than Body

        Since the everlasting soul is infinitely more important than our perishable body, we should pray harder for all souls than we exercise our bodies. Common sense.

***Re Purgatory and Loving God

        Two older messages from our heavenly Mother, but worth listening to again. 
       

*Wise Advice

         Don't waste time trying to leave a mark on this world or hand down some sort of legacy. Spend your time wisely on storing up your treasure in heaven instead.

***Christ Is Joy!

        Once you know Christ most intimately, joy underlies all your experiences, the sorrowful ones included! For the Lord is joy!

***Jesus' Tremendous Agony

        As I was praying the first sorrowful mystery of the Rosary, Agony in the Garden, I could feel Christ undergoing tremendous mental suffering as a human being. All the sins that have been committed by all sinners are now on him, and he is going to have to pay for that with his own life so that we may be freed from sin. How can we not be grateful and love him?

**Blessing Out of Order?

        Whenever I hear people asking God to bless this country, I cringe a little bit, for our Supreme Court has legalized abortion! If I have done evil, I'd be a hypocrite to go before my father to ask him to bless me. Shouldn't I repent and reform first like the prodigal son before returning to his father? It seems that we should repent and ask for God's forgiveness first before asking him to bless us.

***Only You and God

        There are just you and God. You get to know a lot of people in your short time on earth, but you'll have them for just a short time. Besides, none of them can do a thing when you face the Lord at judgment time. It is he alone that matters to you. Either you'll be with or without him forever. So it comes down to just you and God. Live for him alone and you should do fine.