In today's Gospel reading from John 10, Jesus said to the crowd, "If anyone hears my words and does not observe them, I do not condemn him, for I did not come to condemn the world but to save the world. Whoever rejects me and does not accept my words has something to judge him: the word that I spoke, it will condemn him on the last day . . ." The Lord didn't come to condemn us but to save us. If we get condemned, it's by our own choice. He is our Savior! If he makes us feel uncomfortable, that's because we need him! So it'd be a huge wrong and total injustice to treat him as if he were our enemy.
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
**Total Fulfillment*
To surrender yourself to God is to open yourself up to him so that he and you may become one, as in union. The more you surrender yourself, the more goodies you receive from the Lord. Once you attain union with him, you are always filled to the brim. To me this is total fulfillment.
**Are We Jesus' Sheep?
In today's Gospel reading from John 10, Jesus said to the Jews, "My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish." We may consider ourselves Christians, but if we don't always do the Lord's will, or don't think about or pray to him much, we can hardly be considered his sheep. And eternal life is no longer assured for us either.
**A Great Reminder to All**
Each of us is a unique being created by God the Father in his own image and is greatly loved by him. So let us rejoice and never judge another fellow being again. To thank the Father, let his love reign in our hearts. We'll now have heaven on earth! Amen.
***God's Love Most Overwhelming!***
Again on this day of praying the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary, we see how Christ carried out his greatest act of love by dying in our place on the cross. The sufferings he underwent were unbearable even to think about. But what really amazes me today is how the Lord so willingly went thru the whole thing in following the will of God the Father. God's love now even overshadows his action.
***Jesus the Only One
I am sure many of us have heard that Jesus died for us to redeem us from sin so that we might have eternal life. Do you ever realize that no one else could have achieved this? It just had to be Jesus, for he is God, our creator, and the only one who has the power to forgive sins.
**Self-Denial Leads to Freedom
Matthew 16:24: Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." So self-denial comes first. To achieve that, accept Jesus totally. Then you'll want to please him alone and not to satisfy yourself anymore. With yourself out of the way, you are now free.
**Foolish, Myopic Living
People in good health work and play hard; they don't think about God for the time being. This is foolish, myopic living, for you don't know how long your good health will last. The wise would put their faith in the everlasting Lord.
Monday, April 22, 2024
**Christ Governs Our Happiness*
If Christ cannot make you happy, you'll never be happy. If you are totally content with Christ, you'll always be happy.
***Joy of Surrender***
Communion experience. There is great joy in surrendering ourselves to God, because in so doing we allow the Lord to deliver us from ourselves.
**Superior Vantage Point
I arrived at Mass early at Mt. St. Joseph, so I remained in my car and started praying. Since the parking lot is at the top of the mount, you get a full view of the trees on the slope in front of you. Then I saw a small bird landing right on the tip of one of those tall, skinny, cone-shaped conifers. I thought it must have a superior view of all the things around. I immediately saw that when we have Christ, we have a superior understanding of all the things around.
***A Most Painful Dream***
Before I tell you about the dream, I need to provide some background information. I have been a photographer all my life. I basically transfigure ordinary subjects to make them look extraordinary. The images truly reflect me. I might have mentioned the rest of this story sometime ago on this blog already. Anyway, more than 30 years ago, I was traveling in Europe photographing. After about two weeks, I was ready to come home. Then shockingly, all my cameras and shot films got stolen at the railroad station in Zurich, Switzerland. I felt as if my right arm had been severed, as all the images were most personal to me. The pain was so great that I couldn't function for a couple of days. I even thought I'd quit photography. The dream came to me at about 3 a.m. this morning. It was still all dark outside. In it, I felt that old pain again, even worse, for it's like all my photographs are now gone! I actually cried out to the Lord. After almost 40 years, how could that pain still come to haunt me? I asked the Lord about it, and I sensed that he's just giving me a small taste of the pain of losing him which would be so much more intense and worse. I got the point.
Sunday, April 21, 2024
**The Lord Ever Present
If you believe that the all-knowing God is ever present, you might as well live as if he is ever present visibly and physically with you. Being aware that he is always watching and watching over you can certainly help us lead a holier life,
***Sign You're Truly Humble
You see yourself as the most wretched sinner before the Lord, so you do not judge (look down on) anyone.
Saturday, April 20, 2024
***Messages from Heaven
This is a very interesting video from LifeSiteNews. It's an interview with Sr. Amapola, a nun with the Mission of Divine Mercy in Texas. She has allegedly received messages from Heaven for years. These four things stood out in my mind after watching the video: (1) The Lord God made it very clear to her that he was God, the only God. (2) The coming Illumination of Conscience was affirmed. (3) So many of today's priests are asleep. (4) God miraculously guided Sr. Amapola to the exact spot where he wanted a chapel built. All in all, God is all-knowing, yet most personal. He is awesome!
***Good News for the Doomed World***
We were all born sinners and need God to save us. The whole world is basically evil with everyone living a more or less self-centered life. That everyone is at about the same spiritual level can fool us into believing that we're all OK. The reality is that without Christ, we are headed toward hell. The reality is also that with Christ, our journey instantly turns into a heaven-bound one. This dramatically shocking good news is what the world needs to wake up to.
**Measuring Ourselves
It's best to measure ourselves against God's holiness and not against the world's godlessness. How much less evil we are than the world doesn't tell us if we are holy enough, whereas knowing how much we fall short of God's glory gives us a good assessment of our spiritual state. Since our goal is to become like God, he's the one we look upon as our model.
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