**Discerning Your Thoughts

        Both God and Satan can influence our thoughts. When you get thoughts, discernment is needed. Know that God is always gentle and wants to give you peace, while the Devil is and wants the very opposite. Thoughts that tend to weaken your faith in God can come only from the Evil One. If you live totally in the Lord, then you may ignore the Devil totally. 

***A Serious Reminder

        In today's Gospel reading from Luke 11, Jesus drove out a demon that was mute. Some in the crowds said that it's by the power of 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 this kingdom stand?" We all know that the old phrase "Divided we fall" speaks the truth. May I remind all that if we remain divided from God our Savior, we can suffer the greatest possible fall.

***Are We Still OK?

        In today's first reading from Jeremiah 7, the LORD wanted the people to know that they did not obey him nor pay heed, and with hardened evil hearts they turned their backs, not their faces, to him. Also, they did not listen to all the servants and prophets he had sent them untiringly since their fathers left Egypt. Faithfulness had disappeared! It sounds like the LORD was describing our generation. Throughout the ages, God has been calling us, urging us, and warning us for our own good, but we fall from him even further away. What has become of us? I feel called to ask ourselves some basic questions like this one. Who are we to blame? Is there still hope for us? Time to examine ourselves to the core. 

****Our Only Link to God*

        We need to pray to God unceasingly, for it's through prayer that we connect ourselves to God—there's not another way! Of course, praying unceasingly doesn't mean that we talk to God at all times. Basically, it's being aware of God's holy presence so that we do everything for his sake or glory. Again, this becomes easy once we attain union with the Lord through the Holy Eucharist.

***Great Consolation!

        Communion experience. Jesus is the door to heaven and I've already been granted free admission to enter it at any time. 

**The Wise Trust in God*

        Some of the banks have just gone bankrupt and their depositors lost all their money. This started happening in China and some other countries around the world, now it's happening here. Once people start to panic, we'll have chaos. It shows that we cannot depend on money alone. We need to rely upon God all the more. This country is already over 30 trillion dollars in debt, yet it continues to spend money recklessly. Instead of giving away billions to Ukraine to help killing more and more people, why can't we initiate a peace deal? I feel particularly sorry for those tens of thousands of Russian soldiers who were deceived or forced into fighting the war and have died. Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers." It follows that I can say "Cursed are those who make war." Our current government keeps spending as if there'll be no dire consequences. This is like those who do whatever they wish as if they are never going to die and face God. Fools will pay for their mistakes for sure.

***God's Greatest Glory***

         Heaven and earth are filled with God's glory. One of the greatest glories to us, often overlooked, is his unconditional pure love for us. It's awe-inspiring, magnanimous, and soul-healing. Let it touch us and our lives change forever! This is the glory that can make us become like God. Glory be to this glory!

***What I Owe God***

        In the parable of the unforgiving servant, the servant owed his master a huge debt. I started asking if I owe my God anything. Realizing how much he loves and has blessed me, I feel that I really owe him deep gratitude and total obedience.

***Be like God

        Today's Gospel reading from Matthew 18 tells the parable of the unforgiving servant. It should be clear that God is our supreme example and we are to imitate him. We must treat others the way he treats us. We must accept his ways and not ours if different from his. This is what obedience is all about.

***A Promise Only You Can Break

        If you ask God sincerely for eternal life, he'll always give that to you. Maybe you knew and just forgot or were uncertain about it. The fact that he even let his only begotten Son die in our place so that we might live forever shows clearly that we can trust in this promise of his. The Father, being the Truth, always speaks the truth and thereby is to be trusted.

**Yearning for God

        We who love the Lord yearn for him. Of course, we want to see him, but that will have to wait. So what I yearn for is hearing him speak to my heart. That mean a lot to me, for hearing his sweet, holy voice means that he is with me and really cares about me. Yes, yearning for God is most proper, most edifying, and most rewarding. 

***Need to Be In God's Hands

         I've had many accidents that could have killed me. I am still here, so I guess my time is not here yet. In any case, we are totally in God's hands. When I was around seven or eight, I accidentally fell into a large not-too-clean pond on a private property. I didn't know how to swim and still remember swallowing a lot of the water. Luckily, someone who saw what happened to me stepped into the water and was in time to pull me in by my toes. Later, while attending the University of Michigan, a friend and I took a break fishing from a rowboat on a lake, and a sudden storm came up and made the boat spin madly. We had no choice but to row with the wind toward the unseen opposite side of the lake. Eventually, we arrived, but it had been a terrifying experience. Another time I lost my foldboat, a foldable canoe, in white water. It seemed that water just didn't like me. I was hiking with a group of friends at Yosemite National Park late in the day. Somehow I walked right off a big rock, fell about six feet, and hit the ground in the dark. My head missed a rock by just a few inches. As I got older, I did less adventurous things, but accidents still happened. In pruning a tree, my ladder fell sideways and I just held onto a branch. Then my hands slipped out of the protective gloves and my butt landed on the ground ten feet below, crushing two of my vertebrae. I did more or less recover, but was never the same person again. Walking one day at a construction site, a worker holding a long 2x4 vertically carelessly let it go and it fell right on my head. He was scared; I was shocked and OK. One big problem old folks face is falling. Sometimes a fall can end your life. I've had my share of bad falls, but have always gotten well in time. The most worrisome fall happened to me on Wall Street in New York. It was evening and I missed seeing the curb in front me and fell forward. The concussion made me not knowing where I was. Again, by the grace of God, there was no internal bleeding and I recovered fully. Oh, I also remember that in my teens, I also had my head hit really hard. I was riding my bike past a tall apartment building. A strong gust of wind bounced off the building and hit me so hard that I and the bike just fell sideways with my skull banging the asphalt. I think because I was young, I didn't suffer any injury. So accidents do happens, no matter how careful you are. All the more we need to put ourselves in God's hands.

***Living Bread That Satisfies

        Communion experience. Today's Gospel from John 4 tells the encounter of the Samaritan woman with Jesus at Jacob's well in Sychar. Jesus told her that whoever drinks the living water he gives would never be thirsty again. The Lord has given me even his own body and blood, so I'll never feel thirst or hunger again. There's absolutely nothing beyond the Lord himself I would need.  

**God's Mercy Extolled*

        We must never ignore our Lord God; most specifically, his infinite mercy. It is by this mercy that we sinners are still living, that there's always hope provided us in this life, and that we can be saved from death forever. If is what we critically need and dependent upon. We must be aware of and thankful for, rejoice in, and embrace it. 

**When to Leave this World*

        Once in while, when something interesting happens in this world, be it spiritual or secular, I think of some loved one who has already passed away and kinda wish that the person were here to see it. Does that really matter? I know that after I am gone, there'll be many perhaps truly wonderful things happening. But for anyone who is ready to meet the Lord himself, the world is no longer interesting. In heaven, you would know what's happening on earth anyway. Knowing the Lord and starting to see things as he sees them, you lose all your attachments to the world and realize how foolish and juvenile it is to be solely interested in living in and for the world. So after you know the Lord and start living for him alone, anytime would be a good time to leave this earth.

***Father Most Forgiving***

         Today we heard the parable of the lost (prodigal) son from Luke 15 at Mass. This is very likely the best known and most moving parable of all the parables Jesus had told. The story reveals how much our heavenly Father loves us. You really have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by it. The Father is so forgiving that as long as we realize that we need to return to him, we can do no wrong. His mercy is great indeed. You really have to be the greatest idiot not to be forgiven by him. 

**Infinite God Our Perfect Fit*

        The Lord God is infinite and has inexhaustible riches to offer us. They are ours for the asking. How can we finite creatures not be happy with such a God who loves us so much and can satisfy our deepest desires? He is a Father who can give us good things way beyond our expectations. Personally, I am wide open and eager to receive whatever he wishes to bestow upon me in abundance. 

**My Greatest Act*

        Communion experience. I have found my eternal rest in Christ. Peace now reigns. I accomplished the greatest act of my life by reconciling and submitting myself to the Lord.