After Mass this morning, I had the tremendous desire for God to know me. I knew that he already knew me, so I suppose basically I desired to be loved by him even more, which of course is impossible.
Sunday, February 6, 2022
**How to Love
Give yourself to God first, then you will know his love. With this love, you'll know how to love others.
***Receiving the Greatest Gift
Communion experience. Fr. Steven recalled the words of Jesus at the Last supper during consecration of the bread and wine: "TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND EAT OF IT: FOR THIS IS MY BODY WHICH WILL BE GIVEN UP FOR YOU" and "TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND DRINK FROM IT: FOR THIS IS THE CHALICE OF MY BLOOD, THE BLOOD OF THE NEW AND ETERNAL COVENANT, WHICH WILL BE POURED OUT FOR YOU AND FOR MANY FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. DO THIS IN MEMORY OF ME." When I heard these words, it's the Lord giving himself up for us—this is absolutely a huge deal! I was going the receive the greatest possible gift, the Lord himself, shortly!
**God's Sanctity*
God's holiness is so awesome that upon realizing it, those who do not know him would experience great fear and those who already know him would gladly submit themselves to him totally.
**God's One-Two
The selfless, pure love of God first drew me to him and subsequently made me fall in love with him. Then his awesome holiness awed me and made me want to obey him totally.
**Beautiful Eye-Opening Moment
In today's Gospel reading from Luke 5, Jesus, sitting in Simon's fishing boat, asked Simon to put out into deep water and lower the nets for a catch. Simon and his fellow fishermen had worked hard all night and caught nothing, but at Jesus' command lowered the nets. And they caught such a great number of fish that the nets started to tear. The catch filled their boat and their partners' boat to the point of being in danger of sinking. Simon Peter saw this and fell at the knees of Jesus and said, "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." For astonishment seized him. May all nonbelievers and believers have a wake up moment like this. It's such a beautiful moment. It's like the Lord suddenly opening your eyes for you to see the light.
**The Test Catholics Face
As the Holy Church is going thru a period of great turmoil and confusion, Catholics are being tested severely. One thing we must realize is that all Church members, including the Pope and the entire clergy, can sin, but the Lord is always holy. We must never leave the Church, for doing it breaks up the Church which is the body of Christ. We must not do anything to hurt the Lord further. The right course of action to take is to pray for the Church, ourselves, and the whole world even more fervently.
****Love and Obedience
In Corinthians 13, Paul writes, "If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but I do not have love, I gain nothing." This has inspired me to say that if I worship, adore, and praise the Lord but do not obey him in all things; I worship, adore, and praise him in vain and am a hypocrite.
Saturday, February 5, 2022
Making Special Requests to God
In today's first reading from 1 Kings 3, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream and said, "Ask something of me and I will give it to you." Solomon humbly asked for an understanding heart so that he might distinguish right from wrong and judge the people wisely. The Lord was pleased with Solomon and did as he requested. It struck me that we can ask the Lord for what we think would glorify him and he's likely to honor our requests too.
***Challenging Choice
Do you wish to be with God alone or to be with the whole world? The prices you pay and the rewards you receive are vastly different.
***Recipe for Achieving Freedom
You are not free if you only want to do what you want to do. But if you only do what God wants you to do, you become free. This really tells you something.
***Our Only Source of Happiness
There are no perfect nations in this world. You can go to a country and live a pretty comfortable life as long as you don't speak up against the government. Or you can live in a country where the people have the freedom of speech and that right gets abused and you end up with chaos. Also, you can find nations that are materially affluent but morally corrupt. I can go on and on. Yet people still seek to live a happy life in this world, not realizing that life is a lot more than just being happy in this life. It should be clear that you cannot find true happiness on earth. Even if you can, it'll be short-lived. We are made by God to find true, permanent joy in him. So quit chasing after an empty dream on earth and start storing up treasures in heaven to prepare for your eternity. This was what Christ had come to tell us all along. It's either him or oblivion.
***Our Smart Alternative***
As I was praying the 5th Joyful Mystery of the Holy Rosary this morning, the Finding of Jesus in Temple, I recalled the 12-year-old Jesus told his parents after they found him that he must be in his Father's house. This got me thinking that we must be wanting to go back to the Father in his house. We surely don't want to be left outside the Father's house forever!
**Be Christ-Centered
To know Christ, we must know about him first. At some point, we make a leap of faith and become believers. Now the danger is that many things can distract you and lure you away from him. So I advise that you focus exclusively upon him and never let anything make you look away from him. Of course, anything that draws you even closer to him would be fine. Remain Christ-centered and you are sure to reap your heavenly reward.
**Trust in God, Not Ourselves
We do so many things in life, trusting in ourselves. And we don't really turn to God unless we are in some kind of trouble. The question is whether we truly treat God as our Lord. If we do, then we need to trust in him only, consulting him in all things beforehand and leaving the outcome to him. This is the proper, easy, and happy way, believe me. Trusting in yourself basically amounts to letting the blind lead the blind.
****Just in Case You Die
It was in the news that on the 29th of this past month, a young Catholic priest, Fr. Joseph Tran Ngoc Thanh, was killed while hearing confession in his parish church in a city in Vietnam. The death was tragic, but triumphant, for he died serving the Lord. It's better to die like this than dying in sin. Here are two worst ways of dying. (1) You die at the hands of a sin. For example, you lose your temper, fly into a rage, and suffer a fatal heart attack. (2) You die while you are committing some serious sin. Since we don't know the hour of our death, it's best that we be holy at all times. You wouldn't want to be caught dead doing anything that could make you lose your soul forever, would you?
Friday, February 4, 2022
**A Good Start to Becoming Holy
From what I've read so far, it seems that when we go before the Lord to be judged by him, he's going to show us the harm we've done to others, how we badly we've made them feel. (I believe this is what we'll experience when the illumination of conscience takes place.) So it would do us great good to start working on not hurting anyone in any way.
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