***Spoiled Generatioin

        Jesus has said to his disciples, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." To deny yourself and take up your cross is to be willing to suffer for the Lord's sake. Indeed, this tests if we are truly his disciples or not. Our generation is a totally spoiled generation; it seeks physical and material comfort and is not willing to endure any suffering, and Satan knows that and exploits it to his advantage. To accept your cross and offer all you sufferings up to God leads to liberation of the spirit, for you are no longer your own slave. You thus triumph over Satan and become united with Christ who has suffered for us and is still suffering for us. The Little Way of St. Thérèse the Little Flower teaches us that we can become saints by doing every little thing with love for God. Our crosses are little compared to what the Lord carries. So if we are willing to take up all our crosses for the sake of our Lord, we become saints.

***All About Loving God

        Jesus gave us the greatest and first commandment: "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." The following are equivalent to fulfilling this commandment: keeping the word of Jesus, total obedience to God, total abandonment in the Lord, not wanting to sin anymore, longing for Christ with all your heart, to be willing to suffer form him, remaining in union with him, and last but not least loving your neighbor as yourself.

**An Unprofitable Activity

        We can be hot or cold for God, but there is also a lukewarm area we must not fall into. It's so easy to spend a lot of time talking idly about other people or things, which doesn't result in any changes. This doesn't bear any good fruit nor advance the kingdom of God. It may make you feel good, but essentially you waste valuable time of your life when you can store up treasure in heaven. If I sound rather strict, ask the question "What if we all do this our whole life?" 

**Praying for Souls

        We need to pray hard unceasingly for the salvation of all souls, for our own souls are at stake.

***Breakthrough to Knowing God

        Sharing everything with God from your heart is opening yourself up to him completely, beyond what you ask of him. Normally, we tell the Lord what we want him to hear and not mention what we do not want him to hear. You should reverse the order to show that you truly trust in him. This should be a breakthrough to greater intimacy with your Lord God, and you'll experience great freedom and joy. You now enjoy him more than ever. 

**Relying upon the Perfect One

        Today's Communion experience. Great joy in realizing my utter dependence upon the Lord, the one who can make me perfect. 

**Peace Extraordinaire

        To me, the peace of the Christ is the greatest peace we can possibly experience on earth. We experience peace in the world when there is nothing to worry about, but this peace is always short-lived. The peace of Christ is permanent, for the Lord takes care your life for all eternity! Besides, you are filled the joy, knowing that you are loved by God.

****Our Greatest Reality!

         People avoid facing God. This is the God who has created all of us in his image, who has existed from the very beginning and will be around forever, who loves us to death, who has done all the work for us to inherit his kingdom, who is sustaining our existence every moment now on earth, who is continually calling us to respond to his love and mercy, who is intent on saving us from damnation, and who has given us all we enjoy now and will give us eternal life in heaven if you believe in him. So why are you avoiding facing this greatest reality? Please answer this question before you lose your body and soul at the same time! 

***Praying for God's Will First

       God knows what we need best. Therefore, pray for his intentions for us. This way we show obedience, trust, and support, and will receive the best from him. Of course, we can pray for what we want for ourselves too, but that should be of secondary importance.   

*****Squaring God's Justice with His Mercy*****

         God's justice is exact and thorough, and he knows every little sin we have committed. At the same time, his mercy is infinite. How do you square these two with each other? Well, we have the key in our hands—it is "repentance." If we do not repent of our sins, his justice takes full control. If we repent of our sins, then his mercy reigns. Now you know which way to turn the key!

***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?