***Best Feeling in the World***

        Communion experience today. You feel it after receiving Christ in the Holy Eucharist and abandoning yourself to him, the one-two punch. You know that this is how the Lord has made you. It's the best you can ever feel on earth!  

*****Our True God and Savior*****

        To believe that there is a God is not enough, you ned to know who that God is first. And that won't be good enough either, for you must also believe in and follow your God. Now, Christ is our Lord and God, our only door to freedom and salvation. To know him thoroughly, just remain open to him. To follow him effortlessly, just surrender yourself to him. I am telling you all this with absolute assurance. If you don't believe me,  I challenge you to follow these instructions to see if I am wrong.

***Being Trustworthy to the Lord

         In Luke 16, Jesus said to his disciples, "The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones." So let's be trustworthy in every little thing we do for the Lord, then we'll be faithful and holy! 

**Clear-Cut Obligation*

         We are either for Christ or not. If we are, then we must do everything for his glory. This is so clear-cut and logical. To deny this, you'll have to prove that Christ is either all false or never existed, which no one so far has been able to do.

***To Follow Christ Thoroughly***

         We are to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind. Then we should also repent to God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind. Being halfhearted or lukewarm just won't do us any good. The fact is that we should be absolutely thorough in everything we do for the sake of the Lord if we ever hope to go straight to heaven after we die. (Purgatory is no fun place.)

**Settling in Christ

         Communion experience. Christ will have all the answers to all my questions, so I just trust and rest in him now.

***Never Say "Go to Hell"***

         The big news yesterday was the assassination of Charlie Kirk when he was speaking at Utah Valley University. As you know, Charlie was a patriot and an unapologetic advocate for his Christian faith, his values, and his country. He's now viewed as a martyr. I have no doubt that he is with the Lord now, so pray for his family. They are still looking for the assassin. Here are my thoughts. I know it'd be easy to wish ill of the perpetrator. Then in today's Gospel reading from Luke 6, Jesus made it clear to his disciples that they were going to love their enemies and not to judge others. In fact, in the last verse, Jesus said, "The measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you." Let's also look at it this way. God wishes to save all of us from sin so that we may have eternal life. Essentially, he cares about the soul of each of us. If you love someone but don't care about their salvation, you have no real love there. Therefore, a Christian should never say "Go to hell" to anyone. Jesus wants us to pray for all evildoers, never hate them, for to hate is to judge. 

***Unsurpassable Experience*

         Communion experience. There can no other experience on earth that's sweeter and more rewarding!

***God Our Father Easy to Please***

         Our heavenly Father has so many good things (eternal life, just to mention one) he wants to give us that if we gladly accept them all, that would greatly please him, for this is being obedient to him! In turn, we'll experience great joy too, for the Father always shares his joy with those children who obey him. A win-win situation.

**We Must Not Complain*

         In today's Gospel reading from Luke 6, Jesus gave the Sermon on the Plain to his disciples and a large number of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon. He said, "Blessed are you who are poor, for the Kingdom of God is yours. Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man." Now, we may not be poor, hungry, weeping, or persecuted by others on account of Christ, but if we were, we must not complain, knowing that we'll be greatly blessed by God.

**Painful, yet Rewarding*

         Today is the day for praying the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary. As you know, the five mysteries are (1) Agony in the Garden, (2) The Scourging, (3) Crowning with Thorns, (4) Carrying of the Cross, and (5) Crucifixion. Praying these mysteries is most difficult, for meditating upon the Passion of Christ is just too painful. Yet, praying them is at the same time most rewarding, for it makes you truly want to follow the Lord.

***Must for Getting to Know God***

         To get to know God intimately, you must enter your innermost from time to time to let him reveal to you the state of your soul plus how you can purify it further. Go deep and listen with all your heart, no words needed. For me, the best time for practicing this is after a weekday morning Mass. Usually, the attendance is smaller and people empty the church quickly. (Not thinking about God at all is squandering away all your precious time on earth.)

***Follow Christ Only*

         Our No. 1 calling is to be like Christ, and our No. 1 mission is to save souls, for it's Christ's No. 1 mission.

***Another Holy Rule***

        Pity, not hate, the evildoers. So pray for them.

*****Numbing of the Conscience***

         When Russia invaded Ukraine, I saw a case of a world leader invading another country not because his own country was being invaded or the other country was a great evil which needed to be wiped out. Instead I saw the action to be more a power trip. This has so far caused hundreds of thousands of military and civilian deaths, and both sides are still not eager to seek peace. For the sake of not losing face? (This reminds me of how King Herod went ahead and ordered the beheading of John the Baptist.) What has happened to our God-given conscience? We have a generation that goes against anything that's good for all in the name of personal freedom. This is how far we've fallen way from God. 

*****Belief in Jesus Matters!*****

        Today is the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. So Happy Birthday, Holy Mother! The Gospel reading from Matthew 1 tells us that the birth of Jesus fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means "God is with us."
           Now, those who believe in and follow Jesus and those do not believe in nor follow him are on two separate paths leading to opposite ends. The difference cannot possibly be greater, as one leads to eternal life and the other to an existence infinitely worse than nonexistence! 

**Facilitating Our Departure**

         When we leave this world, it'll be a oneway trip, for we won't ever come back to live on earth again. It'll be bye-bye to everything you have forever! You'll also leave your loved ones behind, but you may see some or all of them again, depending upon God's will. Knowing this reality, it'd be wise to get youself detached from everything right now to make your departure smooth and easy. Jesus said in Luke 9, "No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God." Of course, if you don't care about entering the kingdom of God, then by all means cling to the world as much as you want before your departure.

**Feeling Free

         Communion experience. My life is complete and I am ready to move on—the Lord can truly set us free.