***Distinct Benefits of Union with God***

        (1) You are aware of God's presence at all times.       
        (2) Your conscience becomes super sharp.
        (3) You lose the fear of death.

*****Incredibly Loving & Generous Father!

        In today's Gospel reading from Luke 15, we heard the parable of the lost son read. For me, this is Jesus' most beautiful parable. It shows how incredibly our Father loves us. If we tell him we are sorry for what we've done, he is overjoyed and all our faults are forgotten and forgiven! It's almost as if he is at our mercy, which shouldn't be! Then when we become his good children, all he has is ours. How most generous he is! This is holy "spoiling"! So to those of you who have not returned to the Father yet, you don't know how much you are missing that could be all yours! I truly feel sorry for you. 

**Complaining Not from God*

        Blessed and wise are those who never complain about anything that come to them. They have submitted themselves completely to God, knowing that complaining comes from the Devil to rob them of peace. Praise God always and complain not about anything.

**Entrusting Our Death to God

        The war in Ukraine has already caused thousands of deaths. The news media report daily how the Russian soldiers got neutralized; look, they all got blown up by drones, anti-tank rockets, or mines. Such news is tragic, but how one dies does not reflect where the soul goes after death. The souls of many Christian martyrs went straight to heaven, whereas anyone who lives comfortably and dies naturally could still end up in hell. All we know is that God is all-knowing and just. We can help by praying for all those who have died and gone to purgatory; better yet, pray that all who are living will turn to God before they die.

**Definitive Divergent Paths

        Reject Christ and what will ultimately happen to you will be a lot worse than you can imagine. I want everyone to realize this to avoid being shocked later. On the other hand, follow Christ faithfully and what will ultimately happen to you will be way beyond what you can possibly expect. I wouldn't think about it now so that my joy may be greater when I experience it.

*God Has to Be Real

        You may not believe in God, but you see evil all around you. You feel it in your heart and soul too when you do something bad. If evil is real and you can feel it, logically and intuitively God has to be real too (even if we do not consider Christ, our overwhelming evidence). 

**Getting God to Accept Us

         In the world, we learn how to get along with others in order to achieve success. Dale Carnegie's book How to Make Friends and Influence People is a classic. I read it when I was young and found the advice given to be wise, sensible, and most helpful. In today's reading from Psalm 51, verse 19 reads "My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit; a heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn." This is it—to get along with God, approach him with a contrite and humbled heart. Here we have the secret of getting God to accept us.

***How God's Justice works

        In the current Ukraine war, many thousands of lives have already been lost in one month. Perhaps Russia has suffered the largest loss of its armed forces so far. I feel sad that all the deaths occurred because one man, Putin, decided to invade Ukraine. I started thinking about God's justice. Say you have two individuals, A & B. Let say that A killed B, but finally repented of his sin, so God forgave and saved him. B was not a bad person, but when he died, he was in a state of mortal sin, so he wasn't saved. To us, it seems unfair because it appears that the killer got away, but his victim didn't. We can learn two important things here. (1) Repentance is absolutely essential to salvation. (2) Each of us is responsible for his own soul. How someone else's soul ends up is all up to God, none of our business. 

***Calling All Hardened Hearts***

        We so often harden our hearts, not even willing to listen to our Lord and Savior. Guess who has the softest heart of all? It's the Lord who has the most merciful Sacred Heart! It seems so unfair to have billions of hardened hearts turning against one most loving soft heart. Pray to the Sacred Heart of Jesus to soften and melt your hearts to experience a transformation. All you prodigal children need to return to your heavenly Father or remain lost forever!

***Don't Evict the Lord!***

        Once you receive Christ in the Holy Eucharist, he begins dwelling within you. To make sure that he is most happy, you must remain as holy as possible. Otherwise, you would be evicting him!

***True Humility Is . . .***

perfect obedience to God. (Our true God is most meek and humble. When we obey him, we become like him.)

**Repaying the Lord

        Communion experience. The Holy Eucharist is our greatest gift on earth. It nurtures us, elevates us, and fulfills us spiritually. How can we repay the Lord? It seems most appropriate that we put ourselves completely at his disposal.

*Having Undivided Faith in Christ*

        In today's Gospel reading from Luke 11, Jesus drove out a demon from a mute man, and some people said that it's by the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that he drove out demons. Jesus said to them, "Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste and house will fall against house. And if Satan is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand?" I believe we've all heard the saying "United we stand, divided we fall"—it's practically common sense. I started thinking that if we want to remain strong in Christ the Lord, our faith must not be divided in any way. That is, we must single-mindedly trust in him. A strong faith gets results.

**Best Action to Take Now

        From today's Reading I from Jeremiah 7, we heard that the people no longer obeyed nor paid heed to the Lord. They walked in the hardness of their evil hearts and turned their backs to him. It's a nation that would not listen to the voice of its God. Today, the peoples on earth are doing no better. With the ongoing war in Ukraine, abortion continuing worldwide, most governments and the Church corrupt to the core, mass media spreading fake news, and shocking evil deeds being performed by so many people every minute, I no longer pay much attention to all these things. The world will reap what it sows. My only resort is to go deep into the Lord and pray even harder, for only he can do great things for us. If everyone would trust and follow Christ, we'll have peace within us and throughout the world. This shows that I am doing the right thing.

*****All Thru Christ

        It is thru Christ that we were created, remain alive on earth, are given all the things we need, are saved from our sins, obtain all kinds of favors from God, do great things, and finally get to return to the heavenly Father. For he is the way, and the truth, and the life. We owe everything to him. Without him, we wouldn't even be around! 

**Lack of Humility . . .

can cost us the loss of eternal life!         

***Christ Our Savior and Perfector

        Jesus came to us to save us and also to perfect us. Let him perfect us and we are automatically saved. 

**God to Be Our Only Guide

        When you love God, he knows exactly how you can serve him best. Since we are all different, we are called to serve him in different ways. If others seem to do greater works, let yourselves be inspired by them, but do not imitate them. Let the Lord alone be your guide.