***More Basic than Patience

         Three days ago, I blogged about patience being a sign of holiness. I now see that to be perfectly patient, we mustn't have any ego. I see clearly that it's my ego that has caused me to become impatient every time in my past. So humility is even more basic than patience. Be totally humble and you are holy.

***What God Desires the Most from Us***

         In today's Gospel reading from John 17, Jesus prayed to the Father that all those whom he had given him might be one as he and the Father were one. To be one is the closest possible relationship we can have with each other. To be one with God is to be in union with him. When we are all in union with him, our oneness becomes extra special. This union with God is not just another relationship; it is the ultimate relationship we can have with God, one that exalts us to the highest level of our existence. We Catholics should rejoice that we have the Holy Eucharist, the Most Blessed Sacrament, given to us by Christ himself at the Last Supper. The Lord knows human nature fully, so the idea of providing us the consecrated bread and wine to consume at Mass is ingenious. Without this physical union, spiritual union remains an abstract concept. The Eucharist seals the deal here. In union with God, we become his and he ours, and we are no longer of the world. It is the intimate relationship most desired by our Lord. All Catholics should make seeking union with God through the Holy Eucharist their top goal. (Again, I recommend reading the book He and I by Gabrielle Bossis, a spiritual classic which has become increasingly hard to find.)

**Only Relationship We Need to Keep

        In today's Gospel reading from Acts 20, Paul gave his farewell speech at Miletus to the presbyters of the Church of Ephesus. When he had finished speaking, he knelt down and prayed with them all. They were all weeping loudly as they threw their arms around Paul and kissed him, for they were deeply distressed that he had said that they would never see his face again. All our relationships with others on earth will end one day, but our relationship with the Lord God will last forever. When we get to heaven, we'll again be united with all others there as one in the Father, this time forever.

***Our Biggest Enemy***

         When we abandon ourselves to God, we no longer care about ourselves, and we become completely free. It just shows that we are our own biggest enemy in wanting to be set free.

**Faith to Be Ever Present

        Communion time message: If we receive the Lord and expect that he'll transform us for the better, we need to believe in it. With him, things do not happen without faith.

***Loving God Is Exciting**

        For Christ the Lord, we can never love him enough. The exciting part of loving him is that we can always love him still more, knowing that we can never match his love for us. It really comes down to letting him love us, for it's by letting him love us that our love for him grows. While life with the Lord is most exciting. life without him becomes utterly boring.  

***Advocating Union with God

        If life is to be meaning and fruitful, we need to be connected with God in some way. I believe the best relationship we can have with the Lord is to remain in union with him thru the Holy Eucharist. It is direct, super strong, and most satisfying, and O, also life-changing. 

**Living for Christ**

        Once you start living for Jesus, you know you no longer belong to the world. You feel as if you are just going thru the motion of doing all the necessary things in this world, while your heart and mind are on the Lord always. It feels somewhat surreal, but you know that you are free!

***Hard to Get into Heaven, Then . . .

         To get into heaven, we have to get all our sins removed first. Since many of us rather "enjoy" remaining in sin, they will not be able to enter heaven. But there is a powerful way to make getting into heaven super easy, and that is accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Repent our sins to him and he'll take them away to make us heaven bound. Furthermore, he can even take away our tendency to sin! So even though going to hell is easy, going to heaven can be super easy/

***Easy to Go to Hell (a Serious Warning!)***

        Suppose you have committed a serious sin and try to forget it. That is, you may feel bad about it, but you never really feel sorry about it, and let's say you are not even a Christian. Do you think you should be allowed to enter heaven? I don't think so. For if anyone carrying a serious sin can enter, where would you draw the line? So you could be a person that's nice to others most of the time and lives a fairly peaceful life, but with that unrepented serious sin still on your soul, you may be shocked to find that after you die, the door to heaven is closed for you. 

***Total Fulfillment

        Communion experience. The Lord totally fulfilled me as I happily received him as he had asked. My joy was complete, ready fof his Coming! 

****Smart Way of Becoming Holy****

        St. Thérèse of Lisieux is known as the Little Flower. Her Little Way teaches us to become saints by doing every little thing with love for God. This is a smart way. You see, to build a whole brick house seems to be a lot of hard work, but if you just focus on laying one small brick at a time, eventually you'll have your house. We can also try living every second for God. Be holy every second (which shouldn't be hard) and eventually you will have lived an entire holy life. Start practicing the Little Way now.

****Christ, the Decisive Factor***

         We are completely dependent upon him for our existence. He knows all about us. Everyone will have to be judged by him in the end. We are free to say what we want, but he'll have the final word. Love and glorify him and we are saved; reject him and we get ourselves condemned. He is critically important to us, for he loves me to death. We must decide and not forget him!

***Today's Special Joy

         It's realizing that I have a heavenly Father who loves me, a holy Mother who cares for me, and the myriad saints and angels who all root for me.

*****Great Realization!

        If you realize that the Lord God can indeed change you, you look forward to have him make you holy and beautiful. This in itself is a huge change that greatly pleases the Lord! 

**Patience, a Sign of Holiness*

         It's easy to get impatient when things don't turn out the way you expect, but does that help any? Actually, that can make things worse. When you are upset, you become less clear-headed and is likely to become rash, act untimely or inappropriately, and end up makings things worse. Besides, all that negative emotion can ruin your health. It's so much better to believe that God allows all things to happen for your good. If you can accept them all with patience for love of him, you are on your way to sainthood! The wise always focus on the unseen eternity, while the foolish are bothered by many little thing that happen at any moment. The gap between the two is clear, but only the wise see it.    

****Yearning for Christ****

        If you yearn strongly for the Lord, it shows that you are in love with him, you are in union with him, and/or you are filled with the Holy Spirit.

***Key to Effective Preaching***

        All messages that preach about Christ address the intellect, affecting the mind only. So they are usually weak and unmemorable. Only messages that preach Jesus as our Lord and God speak directly to the heart and has the power to convert the listeners. What comes from the mind affects the mind only, and what comes from the heart affects the heart. This is why Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel is so popular today, drawing many to Christ!