***No Limit to How Holy We Can Be***

        Communion experience. Christ can make us as holy as we wish, but we must let him know of our wish first! 

****Prayer Response Assured

        Jesus prayed to the Father when he was on earth. Since Christ is now totally with me, I pray to the Father whenever he motivates me to. Surely the Father would hear and respond to me.

***Joy of Knowing Jesus***

        Looking back on our lives, we all can remember happenings that we regret. For example, I had always wanted to play the piano. Then in college while playing basketball, I collided with one player so hard that the nail of my right hand little finger got pulled out a little bit. This permanently warped the joint closest to the fingertip, so I have since played the piano with this handicap. And there have been many shall I say unfortunate happenings. Now that I know Jesus, they no longer bother me. I even see them as blessings, for it's thru them that I came to know the Lord. The joy of knowing him has simply made me "forget" all my past sorrows as I see even greater joy ahead! 

***Simple Truth and Fact***

        If you don't have Jesus with you, you can lose your soul forever. If you have him with you, you'll remain safe for all eternity. It's that simple!

**Experiencing God's Spirit*

         Communion experience. The Spirit of the Lord filled the whole of me. It's an experience out-of-this-world.

***A Mystical Experience***

        I left my clock radio on playing classical music softly when I went to bed last night. At about 2 a.m. this morning, I woke up and heard the music playing. Then I had a vivid dream. Normally, you don't dream when you are more or less awake. But dream I did, for I don't know how else to call it. In this dream I saw a life-size carved wooden statue of Christ's head and his upper torso on the cross. The only thing unusual about it was that he had a thick greenish vest-like garment with no buttons down the front on him. A maintenance man showed up who I thought was going to clean the statue. Instead I saw him pull out a tool and start to cut off part of the garment that rested on the Lord's right shoulder. I was shocked and immediately yelled at him "What are you doing to my Jesus?" twice. I woke up fully and knew that Christ was now fully mine, and whoever hurt him would hurt me too! I felt he's closer to me more than ever and experienced a new deep profound joy. Once more, I won't be the same again.

*****Living in Jesus*****

         We are still in the world, but we can live in the world of Jesus which is the Lord himself! He is an infinite space, providing total freedom and security. You are in the world, but of Christ now! The feeling is beautiful beyond words! You have to experience it yourself to understand it. To live in Christ is to live in the truth. And the truth sets you free! You see everything in the world passing but yourself anchored in the Lord for all eternity. What a great feeling! How can anyone not want to live in him?

***Blessed Extra

        Communion experience. Today I received two consecrated hosts—they must have stuck together. Since I don't believe in accidents, the Lord must have wanted to bless me extra. It gave me extra joy!

***On Way to Perfection

        It's my personal belief that on earth, God can help me grow holier and holier so that we become good enough to enter heaven, and in heaven God will make us as perfect as he wishes without any problem.This is something to look forward to and rejoice in right now.

***Christian Hypocrites

         In reading 1 from 1 Samuel 15, the prophet said to king Saul, "Because you have rejected the command of the LORD, he, too, has rejected you as ruler." This reminds me of Matthew 10:33 in which Jesus said to the twelve, "Whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father." We must not take this saying lightly. There are Christians who don't want others to know that they are—they'd better know that the consequences can be most severe! Whoever is ashamed of being known as a Christian has to be a hypocrite.

**To Be Smart

         We make so many decisions and do so many things on our own. But in the end, whether we were right or wrong, God will have the final say. To be smart, I am going to do God's will always and hear him say "well-done" when I appear before him. 

**Incredible Offering

        Communion experience. It's still incredible that the Lord would give up his own body and blood for us. 

***Why We should Obey God

        Today I acutely realize that the Lord delights in us. He cares so much for us that he only wants the best for us. We are his favorite creation. He just doesn't want us to sin and lose us! Know this so that we may be happy and not lament for all eternity.  

**Glorifying God in the Body

        In today's reading 2 from 1 Corinthians 6, Paul advised them to avoid immorality. He writes, "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you...? Therefore glorify God in your body." We may enjoy any wholesome pleasure of the world, but we must not indulge in or become enslaved by it.

**Most Beautiful Response*

        Today's psalm response from Psalm 40: Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will.

***God Is Good***

         Today is a happy day for me. Twenty-nine days ago on a Monday, I woke up with a knee pain, making it difficult for me to walk. So I stayed home and rested. Five days later, I started coughing a little. That's how my COVID started a year and a half ago. So I tested myself the next day and the result was positive, although there's no fever this time. That meant isolating myself again. After I finished my medication, the test turned negative. I didn't go back to attending daily Mass as my coughing hadn't quite gone away, though my knee happily no longer hurt. Then last Wednesday, I woke up and noticed that my right eye vision was all blurry. I saw an ophthalmologist the next day and she found that the blood pressure in the eye was dangerously high that any time a blood vessel could burst and cause permanent damage to the vision. (I believe that this was COVID-caused as I learned that this had also happened to a friend of my younger son.) So the doctor prescribed three new eye drops in addition to the one I'd already been using. I'll have the pressure checked again next Tuesday and believe that I'll be all right again. Today I felt good enough to attend Sunday Mass. Imagine the joy of receiving the Eucharist again! I'll be forever grateful to the Lord.  

Another Good Sign

**********MOST SERIOUS MESSAGE TO ALL CATHOLICS**********

      On January 4, I posted the video "A SERMON FOR ALL CATHOLICS" preached by a Fr. Gavin Bitzer based upon a sermon give by St. Leonard of Port Maurice (1676-1751). It truly made me see a number of things critically important for us to know. The stated facts that many souls went to hell might very well be true, for Jesus did say "Many are called, but few are chosen" and "How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few." But we also know that we can absolutely work out our salvation with fear and trembling as St. Paul advises in Philippians 2. It is Satan who wants us to believe that we are good enough as we are to get into heaven so that we might lose our fear of God and as a result our souls too. DON'T FALL FOR THAT!
           The best and sure way to get into heaven is to attain union with God through the Holy Eucharist. But since not everyone chooses that avenue, I'll mention the requirements I learned from this sermon. We must realize that any good deed we perform cannot cancel any sin we've committed. A sin is a sin and the only way to remove it is to repent or confess it in the case of a mortal sin. Just one mortal sin unconfessed can keep us out of heaven even if we were the nicest persons in the whole world! Any time we knowingly disobey the teachings of Christ or the Church, we commit a mortal sin. Common examples are skipping attending an obligated Mass for no good reason, not forgiving someone, using birth control pills, making an insincere confession, and worse yet, receiving the Eucharist in a state of mortal sin. We disobey because it's either easy to do so or too hard to obey and/or everyone is doing it. I see people showing up for Mass only on Easter and Christmas days, hoping to appease God—that won't work. Some ex-Catholics offer free services to a church instead of coming back to the Church—that won't work either. We can do thousands of good deeds, but if there's still one mortal sin on the book, the door to heaven is closed to us! 
       The other thing is prayer. If we don't pray, I don't see how we can possibly get into heaven. By praying, I don't mean reciting some prayers perfunctorily. Praying to God is sharing what's in your very heart openly with him. You may even cry out to him. Of course, with the Lord God, we must be totally sincere and honest, yes meaning yes and no meaning no, for we cannot fool him one iota. Last, know that salvation is between you and God. At judgment time, you alone will answer to him. Now is the time to realize that he loves you and would never want to lose you. So cast aside your pride, wise up and submit yourself to him, and you'll be happy for all eternity! Otherwise, you'll end up being one of the biggest losers that ever existed.