**The World Deafens Us

       The Lord God is ready to speak to us at any time, but we need to open wide our hearts to hear his gentle voice. Unfortunately, we are so used to hearing the constant extraneous ungodly noises that we don't seek solitude anymore. Thus, we never get to know God and perish in the end. What a great pity!

***Amazing Consistency

        I have always believed that the Shroud of Turin is the burial cloth of Jesus, but there are always skeptics who doubt its authenticity despite the many amazing findings by experts in various fields. There have been over a hundred Eucharistic miracles involving a bleeding host and those that had been tested for blood type all showed that Jesus has AB blood. Now, the blood on the Shroud tested also showed that it's of AB type. This is surprising or not surprising, depending on your faith. 

**Spiritual Myopia?

        People always ask old seniors about their secrets to longevity, yet very few openly ask about how to have life everlasting! Anyhow, we should be interested in life everlasting a lot more than living a few more years in this life.

*****Moment to Die For*****

        Communion experience. The Lord God descended from heaven just to enter me to be with me! This is a moment to die for! In fact, after I received him, I was ready to go to him! 

***Best Move for Our Hearts***

        At each Mass, we lift up our hearts to the Lord. It struck me that it'd be better to give our hearts to the Lord once and for all, then we'll surely be with him always. 

**Tragic Unawareness*

        In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 6, Jesus asked his disciples to store up treasures in heaven, for where one's treasure is, there also will his heart be. We waste a lot time storing up treasures on earth, for we seek immediate gratification and fail to look beyond this brief life—what a tragic myopic view! The awareness of God's presence can easily cure that. Again, union with God is the answer.

***A Sin We Continue to Commit*

         We are commanded by the Lord God to love him with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our soul, and with all our strength, but we always fall short despite our best intentions. Fortunately, the Lord always takes our intention into account each time.

****Through Confusing Times (Urgent Advice)****

        Times are most confusing nowadays. We have good people portrayed to be evil, and vice versa. False prophets are galore. Divisions break up both the Church and the nation. All the more we need to focus upon the Lord God alone, making him our rock, our fortress, our refuge, and our shield. For Catholics there's not a better time to strengthen your union with God through the Holy Eucharist so as to be ready for whatever comes.

****Exceeding All Expectations****

        What kind of God would you like to have? Suppose you didn't know God and were asked this question, how would you answer? I don't think it'll be easy to come up with a perfect ideal answer that would satisfy everyone. Now that I've known Christ well, I must say that the God of Christ has exceeded all my expectations, for he's our Father who has created us in his image and knows all about us—the state we're in and what would be best for us. Most amazingly, he is love! I don't believe we could have expected all this, had he not revealed it to us. Anyway, seek to know Christ to possess the most amazing true God. 

*R.I.P. Now

        Communion experience. Again, receiving the Lord is the time to submit myself totally to him, settling my eternal future. It's achieving R.I.P. before death.

**Day of the LORD

        What is "the day of the LORD" to you? I believe it refers to the Day of Judgment. Today I see that each day is given by the LORD for us to live for him, so each day is a day of the Lord.

***So Much to Rejoice About

        Today's Psalm 97 response: Rejoice in the Lord, you just! Before Mass even began, I rejoiced that God had created us so that we could have eternal life and had made me enjoy knowing him personally so much. During Mass, I rejoiced that God loved all of us equally. In the Gospel reading from Matthew 6, Jesus taught his disciples the Lord's Prayer and I rejoiced that the Lord was addressed as "Our Father."

***We're Marvelously Made!

        God has created many marvelous talents, such as great orators, genius musicians, ingenious scientists, top athletes, etc. Then each of us is marvelously made too, with or without any special talent. I am thinking that the fact that we can sense the existence of God, hunger and search for him, and finally find him in Christ and become fulfilled is something truly marvelous too. In fact, this gift is infinitely more precious than any talent we can possibly receive from him.

**Riddle of Life Solved**

        Life starts out as a riddle: We don't how we got here, why we are here, and where we'll be going. Is there any meaning to it? Then once you know Christ, everything becomes clear, for he is God and our creator! You can say that life is now complete. It's a happy ending beyond expectations. I can hardly wait to return to my Father in heaven.

***Wise Living***

        In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 6, Jesus taught his disciples to perform all righteous deeds, such as almsgiving, praying, and fasting, in secret for only the Father to see. In other words, we are to live for the Lord alone and not for other people. It's choosing to receive your reward from God and from the world. To experience peace, ego must not play a part. 

*****Invite the Lord Now!

         In John 14:23, Jesus said to Judas, not the Iscariot, "Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him." How simple it is to have the Lord come to dwell with us! 

***The One to Know***

         We came from the Lord God. The more we know (understand) him, the more we know (understand) ourselves. We were indeed created in his image. Self-understanding leads to freedom and we come to appreciate him even more. We should really seek to know the Lord God (our Father) more than anyone else, for he alone loves us with the greatest possible love, understand us perfectly, and wants to lead us to heaven.

***Necessary Realization***

        Christ is our Lord, our God, and our creator all right.. We must also realize that he is the one we need to rely upon for both our existence and our eternal happiness.