*Our Perfect Lord

        It is by Christ's perfection, especially his love and humility, that we are made to see our own imperfections, shortcomings, weaknesses, and faults. He is the perfect one for us to imitate and follow, the perfect shepherd for us who are his sheep. And he is also the shining light that dispels all darkness around us and keeps us on the path to heaven. Rejoice that we have such a Lord!

***Our Souls, Most Precious*****

         Once when I was traveling with my wife Maria in Yucatan, Mexico, I almost lost her. Fortunately, I found her again. I mention this because we all experience great pain when we lose a loved one, temporarily or permanently. I thought of God the Father who loves us infinitely more than we can possibly love others. Imagine how much pain we would cause him if one of us is lost to him forever! If you have any heart at all, you should realize this. So do your best not to sin, and if you failed, get your sin forgiven without delay, for you mustn't lose your soul! You are loved by the Father, the saints, the good angels, and all those who are heaven bound, and that's a lot of people. Nevertheless, God's love alone should be sufficient for you to want to safeguard you most precious soul. Heaven awaits you and is ready to give you the biggest possible welcome when you turn to the Father to tell him that you want to come home to him. Or you'd rather remain an outcast to be shut out of heaven forever? 

*Faith in Jesus

        In today's Gospel reading from Mark 8, a blind man begged Jesus to heal him. Jesus laid hands on the man's eyes and his sight was restored. To those who don't believe in Jesus yet, surely if you ask him to help you see the spiritual truth, he will heal you spiritually blindness too.

**Our Crucial Moment

        In today's first reading from James 1, the Apostle writes, "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world." I'd like to go over that last bit of advice: to keep oneself unstained by the world. Everyday we turn on the news, watch some shows on TV, or just hear others talk around us, the world is trying to stain us! To protect ourselves, we need to dwell completely in the Lord. This is accomplished by attaining union with him. There's not another way, for only God can keeps our soul unstained and safe. The fact is that God is always inviting us to abandon ourselves in him to achieve this union, but we must will to accept his invitation to make it happen. For those who have not responded yet, you are facing this crucial moment right now. This invitation will expire when you expire.

***Second Greatest Gift

         The greatest gift the Lord God has given us is of course Himself. Christ the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Eucharist we've received are all Him. After the Lord, I personally rank the Holy Mother as our next greatest gift. She, conceived without sin, loves us with God's pure love, prays for us unceasingly, and is our best partner in doing the will of God the Father. She's the Mother in whom we can fully trust and find protection and guidance as we return to the Father. With her in company, the journey is now a total delight! 

**Making an Effort in Serving God

        To serve God, we must always make an effort. I am not saying that we struggle hard in any way. In fact, we should never struggle in spiritual life; instead, we rest in the Lord to let him help us do all the necessary work. To make an effort simply means to not miss any opportunity. It's too easy to sit back and skip doing some of the little thing for the sake of God, when doing them can mean a lot to him and benefit our own spiritual life greatly. I can still recall the pop song "Little Things Mean a Lot" of the 1950s. The title means something to me now.

***Contrasty States

         A humble person realizes that he is a sinner, so he repents of his sins to God and is made clean and is saved. Now he feels free, enjoys inner peace, and is filled with great joy. On the other hand, a proud person does not admit that he is a sinner and keeps on sinning, so he never feels free, experiencing no peace nor joy—he could remain in this miserable state all his life. I am not making all this up; it's sad reality.

***Hail Mary's Special Grace

        The Hail Mary prayer, of course, I, as a Catholic, have prayed countless times. It goes like this: "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and the hour of our death. Amen." The first part is based upon the greetings given to Mary by the angel Gabriel at the Annunciation and the second part upon that given to her by her cousin Elizabeth when Mary visited her, both came from Luke 1. The last line, a petition, was added to complete the prayer. When I say that petition, I thought I simply ask Mary to intercede for us from now on to the hour of my death. Today I listened to Dr. Taylor Marshall's podcast on YouTube and he made me see something new. The petition in the prayer says "now and the hour of our death," not "now to the hour of our death" as I had thought. This is significant: we are actually asking God to grant us a special grace at the hour of our death. And it happens that God does make many aware of their sins in that last minute, giving them one more chance to repent and be saved. Therefore, we must not cease praying for anyone we wish to save.

**Our Sensible Role

        We love God, but he loved us first. We open ourselves to him, but he's always open to us. He has always existed, as he had revealed himself to be I AM, while we are the late, late arrivals on the scene. It makes complete sense that we let God initiates all actions and we just follow him.

**To Be Rich and Beautiful**

        There are two ways. Choose to be rich and beautiful in this world and after you die, you'll be poor and ugly forever. Choose to be rich and beautiful in God now and after you die, you'll be even richer and more beautiful for all eternity.

***What We Only Need to Know Now*

        I watched an educational video on Bluetooth. It was quite amazing to learn what certain electromagnetic waves can do for us. The scientists probably have only understood them to the point they can built devices using Bluetooth technology to communicate wirelessly with each other. The Lord God who created everything of course knows all about that and more. We have to think hard, do research, experiment, and finally come up with something new, but God knows it all and does not even have to think and it is accomplished. (Notice how healed the sick instantly as he willed.) Yet with such infinite knowledge and power, he never teaches us such things. He only teaches love to us, for that's most important and all we need to learn. Know how to love now and we'll know everything in the end.  

**Responding to God Only

        When we sin, can we blame it on Satan? I thought about this today. If we do not sin, then Satan can't do a thing about it—I am sure of this. For example, when you are in union with God, you enjoy his presence so much that sinning couldn't be further from your mind, and Satan would have no way of sneaking in. Then suppose I am in a bad mood and don't feel like doing something I as a Christian should do, this would please Satan for sure, then I don't know exactly how he can make things worse. I believe we are ultimately in control of deciding whether to sin or not, but Satan might have been permitted by God to tempt us to a certain extent. At any rate, we should respond to God only and ignore Satan. Always stick with the winner and dismiss the loser.

*Follow God, Not the World

        Living in the world, we learn how to survive successfully, but the world only teaches you how to serve yourself and not God. To serve God alone, we need to follow God alone. Success in the world is meaningless if you can't get into heaven. In Matthew 16:26, Jesus said to his disciples, "What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?"

***Our No. 1 Problem

        I have blogged about what life is all about from time to time. There are different ways of looking at it. Today I see that it's all about combatting sin. Since we were born with original sin, to overcome sin becomes our No. 1 problem. And we need to solve this problem within our limited time on earth. Of course, Jesus is precisely the solution God has provided us. It comes down basically to whether we want to get into heaven or not.

***Way to Freedom

        If we want to live longer, we don't have a say. If we wish to die sooner, we don't have a say either. And there are at least a million other things we can't do a thing about. The smart way is to leave everything up to God. This is total abandonment, the way to freedom. You see, you no longer lord it over yourself.

**Dramatic Turnaround

        We are sinners, so in general, we march toward hell step by step. Then we repent our sins to God, asking for his forgiveness, and he spins us 180 degrees around instantly and we start marching toward heaven.  

***Ego Warning

        Are you aware of the presence of your ego? Ego is definitely something to be starved or rid of if possible, for it destroys humility, thus keeping you from knowing God. A well-fed ego can inflate to the point that you are no longer aware of its existence—now you are in the danger zone, spiritually. Know that some day it might get popped and hurt you horribly, but that would be your big blessing.

**No Loneliness with God

        People get lonely without God. If you are young, it's not that bad because you are still much engaged with the affairs of the world. Then you grow old and retire, and you start feeling lonely. But for those who know God all along, they can never be lonely, for the Lord is their constant companion or soulmate.