**Vastly Different Outcomes**

        Today I see that we can all link ourselves to God, our creator. Not linked to him, we are basically lost and become the loneliest souls in the whole universe. Link to him perfectly and we will enjoy his holy presence in heaven forever one day. Can the difference between these two outcomes be any greater? I don't think so!

**Our Proper Response to Christ*

        Christ's foremost desire is to save us from sin so that we may have eternal life, and to prove it he died on the cross fin our place. It is totally logical and fitting that our foremost desire should be to thank him for his love by following his every will for us so that he may be pleased. After all, he is our God and creator!

**God Fulfills Us

        Today's Gospel acclamation from Mark 8: Jesus healed a blind man and he was able to see everything distinctly. Communion antiphon from Psalm 78: They ate and had their fill, and what they craved the Lord gave them .... These verses describe my present feeling: Jesus has made me see the truth clearly and fulfilled all my desires. Psalm 23:1 also speaks for me perfectly: The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I lack.

***The Most Beautiful Face.***

         It is the Lord! Here is a good portrayal of the Holy Face based upon the image on the Holy Shroud of Turin.

*****Amazing Fact***

        Communion time thoughts. With Christ fully accessible to us, it's so easy to become holy and heaven bound! 😇😇😇

**Worry, Anxiety, and Concern

       Jesus always teaches us not to worry about anything. Worry is a sign of lack of trust in God. In truth, worrying always worsens the situation we're in and harms our health. Anxiety is not as bad, but it still shows your lack of self-control and total trust in God. Concern is totally proper, for we need to be concerned about the safety of our souls and whether we love God enough or not always. 

***Perfect Blessing**

        Communion experience. What a blessing to have the Perfect One make you perfect!

*****Our Greatest Sign*****

        In today's Gospel reading from Mark 8, the Pharisees came to Jesus to seek from him a sign from heaven to test him. Today we also want to see signs before believing. If we don't see Jesus Christ as our greatest possible sign, then we are blind indeed! We only need to be impressed by him alone to be saved, for he is the one who can bring about our greatest spiritual transformation!

*****Serious Warning***

        Jesus is waiting for you to acknowledge that he is your Savior. If you haven't ruled out never going to believe in him, then please for your own sake don't wait until your last moment of your life to repent and ask him to save you, for you may not get that moment. Don't ever take chances when your soul is at stake!

****Most Smart Move

         Latch onto Christ and let everything else go.

***Those I Pity the Most**

        I feel sorry for those who have fallen victim to evildoers, but I feel even sorrier for the evildoers or anyone who rejects Christ.

***God Compensates All Who Endure for His Sake*

        In today's Gospel reading from Luke 6, Jesus stood on the plain and said to a great crowd, "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 I see that enduring for God's sake is a great blessing, for he will compensate you to make you really happy! Never forget that we who follow Christ faithfully will enjoy eternal life in heaven! 

****Letting God's Love Transform Us!****

        God is love. So believe in God and let his love fill your every fiber and cell and cleanse your soul so that you may become holy like him. This is possible because he has made us in his image in the first place.

*****Know Where We Are Heading

        Today's entrance antiphon from Psalm 95: O come, let us worship God and bow low before the God who made us, for he is the Lord our God. Yes, the Lord has made us. From the first reading from Genesis 3, we learned that Adam and Eve ate from the tree which God had forbidden them to do, and they were duly punished and banished from the garden from Eden. As children of Adam and Eve, we inherited this original sin.  Apparently, our Lord and God still loves all of us so much that he wishes us to return to him in heaven. So we are now all proceeding along this path. What we need to do is to follow Christ faithfully and our return will assuredly be successful.

***God Simplifies Us***

        On our own, we are pretty complicated individuals with various beliefs, outlooks, and feelings. That's why you find helping people not always easy, for they think and see things differently. I appreciate knowing Christ and love him immensely because he simplifies us by making us honest and genuine. Like him, we become straight forward without duplicity with yes meaning yes and no meaning no. Of course, the Lord himself is always trustworthy, understands us fully, listens to us patiently, and has all the wisdom to guide us. Having changed ourselves, we now find him to be the most delightful and easiest person to get along with!

***How the Lord Transforms Us***

        The Lord God can save us from sin and give us eternal like. How does he transform us in the first place? There are multiple aspects of him any of which has the power to transform us. These are his love, his holiness, his humility, his perfection, his omnipotence, his beauty, etc. Today at Communion time, I experienced great joy and realized that his joy also belongs to this list. 

**Pity the Perfectionist*

         There are people who want everything to work out perfectly. When that doesn't happen, they can get very upset. I was somewhat like that, way back when I was a spoiled kid. I had a friend once who always put everything he didn't need anymore back into it's original box and you could see all the boxes stored neatly in one place. By the way, he also kept a giant snake in a wired cage under his bed in the bedroom, and he was a married man! You figure that out. And there are car lovers out there who make sure that there is not a single scratch or dent on their cars. I pity such "perfectionists," should they only see and care about all the imperfections except their own. This in itself is a big imperfection that could easily lead to their downfall.

****Faith = Power****

        In today's Gospel reading from Mark 7, a Greek woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit came and fell at Jesus' feet to beg him to drive the demon out of her. He said to her, "Let the children be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs." She replied, "Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children's scraps." Then he said to her, "For saying this, you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter."
        We see that the Lord can drive a demon out of anyone unseen, as long as we have faith in him. Now, our world has been pretty much taken over by the ever spirits. If enough of us would persist in praying for the deliverance of the entire world from them, it will surely happen. Never, never underestimate the power of the Lord and our own faith! Hope in him always and we are indestructible!