*****The Christian Joy

         The joy of being a Christian is substantial, making life absolutely worth living. I'll just mention the basic freedom, peace, and joy you experience from knowing Christ. Even suffering for his sake becomes a joy. When you attain union with God, that joy reaches a maximum. But wait, the present joy is nothing compared to the joy we'll experience in heaven! Up there, we become totally freely from sin, the worse cause of unhappiness here on earth. Without our present physical body, we'll be free from all physical burdens and able to soar in total freedom. Most of all, we'll be enjoying fully the glory of the Most Holy Trinity and communion with all the saints. We'll be more alive than ever, fully aware of the joy impossible for us to comprehend on earth. I for one certainly wouldn't want to miss all that.

*****Truths About God's Love

        (1) God's love is pure and unconditional. He continues to love us, even if we don't love him back. On the other hand, we easily love those who are nice to us, but wish to have nothing to do with those who turn us off. By God's standard, we really don't have any love there. Know that Christ wants us to love even our enemies. (2) To truly love someone, you must be concerned about that person's soul. To use one example, we have parents today who have no faith in God but claim to love their children. They spoil them by giving them all kinds of material goods to keep them happy and comfortable, while not teaching them any truths. These children will grow up to be another generation of lost souls. With zero concern for the souls of their children, these parents have no true love for their children.  

*The Position We're In*****

        There are many things Jesus said that we mush pay attention to, for if we wait until we die to find out, it'll be too late. Some of these things are the following: Heaven and hell are real and our soul will enter one of the two after we die. He will be our final judge, and no one can go to the Father except through him. These are just a few of the things he has revealed to us. He never grabbed us and forced us to believe in him. He simply informed us and let us exercise our free will to make the choice. If you can prove that Christ is all false and wrong, then you are perfectly free to dismiss him. If not, then you cannot afford to ignore him. This is the position the Lord has put us in. To me he is the true God and our only hope. Do the right thing and we'll be most blessed.

*****There Is Nothing More

        This time I came to Southern California with my own agenda, then the Lord stepped in, gave me COVID, and completely thwarted my plan. The lesson is clear here. Let me start from the beginning.

          God loved us so much that he came down from heaven to die in our place so that we may live in heaven forever. We must recognize this and make going to heaven our No. 1 priority. It's not just to benefit ourselves; more importantly. it's to comply with God's wish! To accomplish this goal, we only need to obey the Lord completely.  If we go about doing whatever we want to do, we force the Lord to correct our course of action from time to time, and we would have wasted much of our valuable time. If we live to serve the Lord alone and not go off on our own, then our eternal happiness is assured. Otherwise, we're still gamboling with our eternal future. Living a more disciplined brief life now so that we are sure to enjoy heaven forever is no doubt worth following.

***Any Time Is End Time!

        Many of us sense that we are in end times. I am not talking about the the end of the world; I am talking about that we are at a time people have turned away from God so much that in order to save us from destroying ourselves, the Lord is going to shake us up with something big. This may well be one of his last acts of mercy. Anyway, my thoughts are that we should always see ourselves in end times, for the moment we die, we reach our end. Whether it's end times for mankind or not, it's meeting our own end that matters the most to us.

***Lord, Have Mercy!***

         God bless you, Fr. Altman.

****Our Unique Calling

        While still in isolation, trying to beat this COVID, I have more time to reflect inwardly. I see every one of us as a unique creature made in God's own image. Billions of us in existence are different from each other, yet all molded in the same way. We are truly special! The Lord wants us to appreciate the way he has made us. If we are not happy with ourselves and wish that we were someone else, that can only come from the evil one. Our God has made me fully capable of becoming like him, holy and full of love, so that we may enjoy eternal bliss when we return to him! Got it?

*****Critically Important Reminder*****

        Jesus has come and died for our sins, revealing God's pure love for us. God our Father has completely paved the way for us to get to heaven. He's been patiently waiting for us to turn and submit ourselves to him every single moment. There is nothing more he can do if we choose to ignore or reject him. Then we'll be judged when we face him next. **This will absolutely be the cutoff point for us, for beyond it what happens to us will remain fixed for all eternity! Therefore, we only have now before judgment time to shape our eternal future! It is critically important for us to be aware of this! Essentially, we are becoming lost forever or on our way to paradise, depending upon how we respond to our most loving Father.

***Evil Times Are Here

**A Lesson Learned

         When you are ill and not feeling well, you can be in the most beautiful place in the world and it's not going to make you feel any better. Imagine how happy you can be in heaven when you don't ever get sick again. Although I tested COVID-19 positive myself, such self-tests are not always reliable. So I had myself tested again at a hospital this morning and should hear the result tomorrow. So far I have a bad cough preventing me from falling asleep. I called out to the Lord to have pity on me, but the cough did not abate. Last night, I decided to abandon myself totally to Christ and not think about anything else. Surprisingly, the cough left me in peace and I was able to fall asleep. I think there is a lesson here. That is, it is better to trust in God fully than to ask for this or that, for he knows what's best for us. Becoming anxious only shows our lack of trust in him and is thus counterproductive.  

**Extraordinary Developments!

***How to Have Everything***

        If you capture the Lord, everything he has will be yours and you'll have everything. Without him, you can try to capture everything you want on your own, and you will lose all you have captured when you perish. The choice is clear. To capture the Lord is effortless—all you need to do is let him capture you and it's done. It's so simple and clear.

****Make Our Existence Meaningful

         As I quarantine myself in one room of this house which sits at a relatively high point, I look out the window and see the distant hills, some other houses far away, and many trees spread over the vast expanse of dry fields—this is the world I live in. I realize that I can think, reason, understand good and evil, and conceive God. So if there is no God nor afterlife, then my brief existence here becomes absolutely meaningless, senseless! As I believe in Christ, life becomes completely meaningful and makes perfect sense. Think about it and I believe that you'll see it my way too. 

****Wise Advice

        I am now in Southern California, away from home, and find myself with COVID-19. So I am isolating myself in someone's house. It makes me realize how fragile life can be. Dying is saying goodbye to this world forever. So it would be wise for all of us, no matter what age, to be prepared for meeting the Lord and let everything else go. In evil times like ours, it's more urgent than ever to choose Christ right now before it's too late. Think of eternity, beyond this fleeting, insecure life! 

***Cause of Disorder

        God has everything. He only lacks our obedience. We have nothing to offer him except our obedience. Therefore, obey God and we'll have perfect order in the universe.

***Christ the Best

        After experiencing of the joy of knowing Christ, everything else becomes boring or lackluster. The best-tasting food or fruit, the best entertainment the world can provide, the greatest music or artwork man has ever created, the most beautiful objects or sights of this world . . . they all pale into nothing next to the glory of the Lord. For anyone who wants to attain union with God, he must choose between God and the world. You either let the Lord set you free or remain enslaved by the world (the evil one). It's all very clear. 

****No Forgiveness, No Love

        Today is the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. A "reading I" from Romans 12 contains these verses: "Let love be sincere; hate what is evil, hold onto what is good..." and "Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse therm." What is hard for us is to hate evil and not the evildoer. In the video below, Mary tells us that forgiveness is the most exalted form of love. To love is our calling, and if we still cannot forgive someone, then our love has fallen short.  

**Need for God's Mercy

       My seasonal allergy has given me a cough. When I can't stopping coughing, I couldn't help calling out to Christ, asking him to have pity on me. Then I realize that for all of us who are in sin, how much more we need to beg for his mercy!