Again at Mass during the consecration of the bread and wine, Fr. Stephen used the words of Jesus said at the Last Supper:
Take this, all of you, and eat of it: For this is my body which will be given up for you.,
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.
These have to be Jesus' most selfless sayings!
In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 20, Jesus predicted for the third time his own Passion. The chief priests and the scribes had already started plotting to kill him. If you study the history of the Church, you'll found out that she'd undergone so many horrible persecutions. Today, evil forces are so obviously trying to destroy the Church, our society, and everything else that's good. Is evil now worse than ever? That's hard to say. What we can say is that evil has always been around, battling God. And we in the midst of this must see things clearly and choose to side with God. In Matthew 12:30, Jesus said, "Whoever is not with me is against me." Not taking a stand, you fall right into your own trap and doom.
In Matthew 19, Jesus said to his disciples, "Everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life." Is there anything better to inherit than eternal life? I don't think so. If that's absolutely the most desirable and best for us, then of course we should be willing to leave all and follow Christ the Lord!
We pray for our own sake, but we also pray for God's sake too. If the Lord wants us to pray much, we should just do it for obedience to him. If he recommends that we say certain prayers, we should just do it without question. Come to think of it, prayer should always be for God. Praying to perfect ourselves is for God too, as our ultimate wish is to glorify God. I got it!
Christ is the one in whom we can rejoice forever. He is the cause of my joy. Today I feel extra joyful because I realize that my rejoicing in Christ is causing the whole heaven to be extra joyful.
Communion experience. I have received the Lord. He is my ultimate quest and there is nothing besides him that's worth knowing.
In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 23, Jesus said to the crowds and his disciples, "As for you, do not be called 'Rabbi.' You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers. Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. Do not be called 'Master'; you have but one master, the Christ." If we have to choose just one being to be our teacher, father, and master, it has to be the Lord God, the God of Christ. He is the one for us to learn from, listen to, and follow. This should be obvious and I am bring it up for all to realize once more.
Today's first reading comes from Isaiah 1. In verses 16-17, the prophet gives the word of the LORD: "Wash yourselves clean! Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good." To do evil is easy, while to do good we need to learn. But once we attain union with the LORD, the tables are turned. Now evil becomes extremely repugnant to us, while doing good becomes natural under the influence of the Holy Spirit.
Communion experience. After I received the Lord, for a moment I became only aware of his existence as if everything else had vanished.
It is important to realize that we are not only sinners, but on our own we are weaklings, not capable of accomplishing anything of true merit. By acknowledging that we can do nothing without Christ (John 15:5), we open the door to receiving power from the Lord. To be weak in God is a must for accomplishing his will.
Today's Gospel reading from Matthew 17 was on the glorious Transfiguration of Jesus. After receiving the Lord in the Holy Eucharist, I felt as if my soul had been transported to heaven. A dry run of what's going to take place later?
In Luke 12:51, Jesus said, "Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division." What the Lord meant was that over him, we would be divided. To this day, we witness the division between those who accept him and those who reject him. This division is so great that you end up either in heaven or in hell! Yet the Lord can also bring about the greatest possible union among us. We achieve that when we all attain union with him through the Holy Eucharist. I think we've all heard the motto "United we stand, divided we fall." Just know that if we are divided over Jesus, our Lord and Savior, we risk suffering the greatest possible fall.
We do physical work and get tired. We rest and we're OK again. If we use our mind too much, we can get tired mentally too. This is the perfect time to abandon ourselves to the Lord to find rest in him.
Communion time feeling. I was impressed by the fact I had become inseparable from Christ who is my creator, Savior, constant companion, and a whole lot more. Consider that my good fortune, but it's more than that. It's realizing that God truly loved us and died for us to save us. This is what makes our bonding, union with him, so powerful and strong! The Lord is most impressive—let him impress you for your good and for his glory.
Personally, I believe that in our universe, we are the only creatures with souls, rebelling against God. That makes us look pretty bad because we mess up God's order. Satan is one big bad apple, but he'll be locked up at the end forever. Praise God that he has given us the free will so that we can choose to be good too. So leave Satan alone and obey Christ single-mindedly instead to become heaven bound. Then we'll have erased our bad name and be happy forever.
In good or bad times, we Christians cannot remain complacent. Drifting along in life, believing that God will take care of everything, is just not good enough. To follow Christ every step of the way, we need to ask the Holy Spirit to set our hearts on fire so that we may cry out, begging for the Lord's mercy on all the souls in the world. We are warriors fighting a spiritual battle, although our weapons are not conventional ones. We are not just fighting for our own salvation, we are first and foremost fighting for the glory of God! In Revelation 3, the Lord says, "I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth." So, let's be hot for God! 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Sadly, many people have lost the will to live. Common causes are depression, loneliness, illness, drug addiction, financial struggle, etc. In other words, they have lost hope. How I wish that they'd know Christ, who is our hope, our only real hope in fact, and the hope meant just for us. He is Lord the Savior, our creator, the one who loves us the most and can transform us to make us anew. We do not see nor hear him physically, but faith is all you need to know and commune with him. He is everlasting, more real than anyone you actually see. How do I know? I know because he has revealed himself to me. This is my best and only answer I can give you, for it stems from my own honest personal experience. Without Christ, you are justified to feel hopeless. But since he is alive and never dies, to lose hope has to be the worst mistake of your whole existence! Start talking to the Lord and learn about him in the Gospels is a good start. Then ask him to reveal himself to you so that you may be set free and filled with hope!
From today's first reading from Ezekiel 18, we learn that if the wicked man turns away from all his sins and become virtuous, the Lord GOD shall not remember his crimes and he shall live. And if a virtuous man turns away from virtue to do evil, the LORD shall not remember all his virtuous deeds and he shall die. So we get to choose becoming either virtuous or evil. God always makes things clear to us, but more often than not, we just our drag our feet.
