*****Demanding Commandment

         In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 18, Peter approached Jesus and asked him, "Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?" Jesus answered, "I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times." (Some translations say seventy times seven times.) In other words, the Lord wants us to always forgive others. So if we do not forgive anyone, we go directly against the Lord—something we must not do if we don't ever want to impair our soul!

***Ultimate Objective

        We usually pray to God asking for something. But even if we don't ask for anything, communicating with God from our hearts always endear us to him, bringing him closer to us. Our objective should be to attain complete spiritual union with the Lord. Be one with him so that we may become like him. 

***Faith Being Tested**

        The world is in a horrible state. Looking at my own country, I see so many lies being propagated daily, so much hatred among people . . . godlessness and lawlessness in general. Good news is always followed by a lot more bad news. Will things reach a lowest point and turn around? At times like these, our faith is being challenged to the core. For those who follow the Lord, they are experiencing a form of martyrdom, even though they know that the Lord will triumph in the end. It's like us watching Christ undergoing his Passion, knowing that he'll rise from the dead and ascend into heaven afterwards. Meanwhile, they must offer their own passion up to the Lord, never deviating from the truth. Mercifully, life on earth doesn't last that long.

***Dealing with Suffering*

        As sinners living in this sinful world, it's impossible to avoid suffering. The right attitude is to accept it, believe in Christ who went thru so much suffering for our sake and is still suffering horribly today due to our unbelief, and offer all our sufferings up to him for his sake. This way we earn merits and will be rewarded greatly in heaven. 

***The Christ Challenge***

        You probably have heard of Pascal's wager. Pascal is a 17th century French philosopher and mathematician. The wager goes like this: If God exists and you believe in God, you'll go to heaven. If God exists and you don't believe in God, you may go to hell. Of course, if God doesn't exist, it wouldn't make any big difference whether you believe in him or not. But if he does exist and you don't believe in him, you'd be in big trouble. So it's wise that we don't take a chance in not believing in him. Let's look at Christ. He is either true or false. If you cannot prove that he never existed, he never worked miracles, he never rose from the dead, or what he had taught was all false, then you'd better believe in him totally.

****Division Among Us*

        We'll either go to heaven or go to hell for all eternity after we die. Witnessing how the world is sharply divided between those who follow Christ and those who reject him, you see clearly where they are headed now. Of course, anyone is free to change his destination at any time. A clear conscience is our best hope.  

***Wise Warning and Advice***

         We only live once on earth. It's a oneway journey and there's no reincarnation. So live the best possible life here and now.  I'd follow Christ to head straight for heaven.

***In Defense of Holy Mother***

         Today is the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mary was bodily taken up into heaven, which explains why she doesn't have any relics left behind for us as many other saints do. Non-Catholic Christians erred in believing that we Catholics worship Mary. We don't; we worship God alone. But we love Mary, for he is our Lord's beloved mother whom he also gave to us to be our mother. We also venerate her as the greatest saint among all the saints, for she was conceived without sin. This is completely fitting for someone who's going to bear the Divine Lord. Praying to her simply means asking her to intercede on our behalf. Protestants tend to ignore her, for they didn't find her mentioned much in the Gospels. Well, the Gospels don't cover everything; they are to support, not replace, the tradition of the Church. I remember reading the private revelation of one Church-approved visionary and learned that Mary, out of humility, specifically asked the Apostles not to mention her because she wished that all our attention be on her Son. In Luke 1, we do find Mary prophesying before Elizabeth ". . . behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed." From today's reading 1 from Revelation 11, we heard read: "A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth . . . She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod. Her child was caught up to God and his throne . . . Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: 'Now have salvation and power come, and the Kingdom of our God and the authority of his Anointed One.'" There's no question that Mary is the woman mentioned here. In more recent times, the Holy Mothers has appeared more and more frequently to us, giving us messages and warnings from heaven. It's quite clear that God is using her in a major way in his war against Satan. He has already promised her that she will triumph in the end. To understand more about the Assumption, you may wish to watch this Fr. Corapi video which came on YouTube today:

***Being Imperfect a Blessing

        This morning I realized that because I am imperfect, I really need God! Also, for that same reason, I wasn't quite happy with myself. Then realizing that God loves me, I accept myself as is totally. These are big revelations to me.

**Perfect Fulfillment**

        Communion experience. God's love is so beautiful that I just want to obey and follow him. That we love each other fulfills me perfectly.

**Mutual Respect

        How effective our prayers are is directly proportional to how sincere and  submissive we are to God. If we trust and listen to him, he trusts and listens to us in turn.  

**Glaring Need for God*

        We have a big problem with sin that robs the world and ourselves of peace. So we definitely need God's help. Then I thought of all our frailties and all kinds of weakness and shortcomings which have nothing to do with sin, all the more we need God now.  

*****How God Loves Us!

        Communion experience. The Lord giving himself up for us—the greatest act of love!  

***A Must Feeling to Experience***

        You feel good physically after you take a shower. And you feel completely free after you confess all you sins and the Lord makes your soul all clean. This feeling you must experience if you ever wish to enter heaven one day. 

*****Key to Increasing Your Faith*****

         In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 14, After Peter realized that it was Jesus walking toward him on the sea during the night, he said to him, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." Jesus said, "Come." Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw how strong the wind was he became frightened; and, beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!" Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him, and said to him, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" 
          Faith is something that I still need to understand more. How can I increase my faith? Should I believe that I can heal others and step out to do it? Or must I wait until the Lord has given me this gift first? The only time my prayer worked miraculously was the time when my eldest son suffered a virus attack and was near death at age 27. (I've mentioned this in a previous post.) I walked up to him in ER and blessed him on the forehead with the sign of the cross, proclaiming "Be healed in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." He recovered and was discharged from the hospital on the 4th day. That time, the words just came out of my mouth without premeditation nor hesitation. Why can't I do this to someone else again today? Does this have anything to do with faith? Jesus' last saying to Peter above is most helpful to me. We are not to go out to do anything, just because we think that we have great faith. But whatever we are called to do, we need to do it without a doubt—this is the key! In Mark 11:24, Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you, all that you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive it and it shall be yours." This is it! To increase your faith by forcing yourself to believe won't work. The right way is to believe without any doubt.

***God's Pure Love***

        Our love for others are not that pure. The feeling is commonly triggered by sexual attraction. Of course, sometimes we love others when we realize that it's our duty or do feel the pity or compassion for someone. Here the love is more pure. Then there are saints who love God so much that they are able to love others with God's pure love. As for God's love for us, it's always 100% pure, completely selfless and unaffected by anything external. His love is so great that he's ever ready to lay down his own life for any one of us. (John 15:13)

*****Proud of Our God

         Today I am so proud of my God, for he is such a holy, perfect, loving Father. He loves all his children magnanimously. He's humble and selfless, most patient, considerate, and understanding. His sole wish for us is that we return to him to live happily with him forever! There is no one else who can possibly be better than our God.

**The Lord Is My Anchor*

        Christ is my light, my strength, my rock, my shield, my refugee . . . He is also my anchor, not to weigh me down, but only to keep me from ever losing him.