The One Who Won't Go Away

        God was here when we came into the world and will be around when we depart from it. Because of his great love for us, he watches over us the whole time. You can leave him alone, but he'll never desert you. We are used to feeling sorry for ourselves; shouldn't we at least feel some sorrow for God our Father who patiently waits and longs for our return to his bosom?

A Kudo to Pope Francis

        With so many religious leaders nowadays chanting death to whom they consider to be enemies or executing anyone who doesn't accept their faith, it was most refreshing to have heard the Holy Father speaking the truth to the Congress and at the UN with humility and love. I am proud of being Catholic.

Living Up to High Standards

        Some people will wear only name-brand clothes; drive expansive, luxurious cars; associate themselves only with others in their class or higher . . . they try to live up to what they regard as high standards. It's a pity that they do not know that only living up to what God expects of them is truly living up to high standards. 

True Security

        Infinity, eternity . . . these words are meaningful only if we associated them with God. Now, he loves us with an infinite love, and hears us and becomes our Father for all eternity after we surrender ourselves to him ~ it strikes us that this is true security.

Banishing Fear

        We experience fear only because we are concerned about ourselves. And we become fearless when we live for God alone.

Lack of Humility

        Pope Francis the Holy Father is visiting America right now. Instead of listening to him, there are always those who want to hear only what they wish to hear ~ where is humility? How can one follow Christ and not listening to his vicar?

Not to Forget

        If you are a disciple of Christ the Lord, know that you have been chosen by the Father. Rejoice!

Pure, Clean Feeling

        Communion experience. The best pure, clean feeling is when your soul is pure and clean. For this I am most grateful to God.

Good Selfcenteredness

        If we are to see our own fault first before criticizing our brother or sister, then also we are to get our own souls healed before helping those with broken souls. In other words, God wants us to concentrate upon our own holiness first. Selfcenteredness is bad only if we do not aim to glorify God.

Jesus Simplifies Life

        On our own, we make life complicated because we tend to hold onto things. Once we embrace, hold onto, listen to, obey and follow, want to please, and live and die for him alone, life is delightfully simplified. For this I am most grateful.

Jesus Changes Life

        Communion experience. Life is basically bitter and Jesus has made it sweet.

Instant Intimacy

        In today's Gospel reading from Luke 8, Jesus said, "My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it." Here's the secret of being brought instantly close to God.

Easy but Risky Living

        Randomly pick someone you see, chances are if that person is in fairly good health, making financial gains would be foremost on his mind, with death the last thing he would think about. There's nothing easier than living a myopic, self-centered life. I say myopic because the person doesn't look beyond this life or at God. The occasional thought of God may turn out to be his saving grace.

Government Hypocrisy

        We legalize abortion in this country, terminating the lives of millions and millions of children over decades, yet our government accuse many other countries of violation of human rights. It's almost laughable. Back to Jesus calling anyone who notices the splinter in his brother's eye, but does not perceive the wooden beam in his own eye a hypocrite (Matthew 7, Luke 6).

Warped Justice

        Anyone who prays outside an abortion clinic risks being arrested if he or she walks one step too close to the building. Here we have Planned Parenthood selling aborted baby parts for maximum profit and our government remains silent as if nothing wrong has been done. Where is justice?

Essential Christian Belief

        We must believe in the power of Christ to change us inside out. That is saying that each of us has absolutely the potential of being transformed into a holy saint fit to be adopted by the Father to be his son or daughter. If you don't believe that you can be changed, your close the door in God's face.

The Savior We Need

        On NPR this morning I heard the singer Steven Clark being interviewed. His song "Lonely Roller" must be very well known to his fans. Steven admitted that what he expressed in his song were his true feelings. He was honest in saying that he was attracted to the dark side and suffered from that. Singing it out openly must be therapeutic for him. I can't help thinking that many who are mired in sin choose to remain in sin because they still derive pleasure from it, despite the loss of inner peace. I want to openly declare that Jesus is exactly the one we need to deliver us from all evil and into the loving arms of our Father.

Sweet Sorrow

        Once you live for Jesus, every sorrow becomes sweet because it's in sorrow that you are brought closer to him.

Great Consolation

        During prayer before Mass began, the Lord let me see that he's capable of squaring away everything and ironing out every problem in my interior life.

Surrender to Freedom

        We enslave ourselves any time we do not follow God. Therefore, we become free when we surrender ourselves to God. It's because we are no longer in the way and have become one with God.

One Big Family

        At Mass this morning, I felt extra close to the Holy Mother. I know that she watches over me and prays for me, to make sure I would follow her Son faithfully. What I love being a Catholic is the sense of belonging. I have God, my Father; Mary my mother; Jesus my Lord and my God, but also my brother; and all the saints as my intimate friends, among whom is St Therese, to me my sister and spiritual guide. We are all one big family, including all the faithful who are still living, bonded as one in the Holy Spirit.

One Thing Never to Lose

        Chile just got hit by a powerful 8.3-magnitude earthquake. One man I watched on TV says that he has lost everything. Here in California, hundreds and hundreds of families have lost their homes to wildfires. I feel great sorrow for all the victims. Then I thought of the one thing we must never lose and can't afford to lose, and that's our soul.

Living in God

        Living in God does not make your life more peaceful; it only makes you peaceful in your heart. Life remains the same, but you have changed. You see life as what the Lord wants you to go through for your good, and your wish and goal is to follow and obey him knowing that he is with you always and will lead you to eternal happiness. This is how you receive strength and remain at peace.     

Reaching God From Within

        If you long to reach God, let Jesus into your heart to lift you up to him.            

Not Leaving God Alone

        God is not only real and existent, he is alive and active! Therefore, relate to him, link up with him, and best of all, become one with him.

On Loving God

        Today's Gospel reading from Luke 7 tells that a woman came to Jesus weeping and began to bathe his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and anointed them with the ointment she had brought in a alabaster flask. Because she showed her great love, Jesus forgave her sins. The way she expressed her love might seem excessive or over the top to some, but if you truly worship the Lord, you can never show enough love. It's OK to be crazy about showing your love for the Lord, even if it makes you look like a fanatic, a slave, or a fool, for loving God is a great honor and privilege.

Fear of Death Dissolved

        We all die, and we avoid thinking about it when death is not yet on our horizon. But when death is imminent, it could strike fear in anyone who is unprepared for it. On the other hand, if you are already in union with God, you are sure of the Lord's existence in you as much as you are of your own and you've been longing for him all along. As a result, you see death as your triumphant return to your loving Father. Union with God has dissolved all fear of death.              

*Imperfection Accepted

        Communion experience. Jesus revealed to me that he accepts our imperfections as long as our intention remains pure, for as humans we are naturally imperfect.

On Doing God's Will

        Some Christians tend to go ahead do what they want to do, reasoning that if it goes against the will of God, they will know when they do not succeed. The more faithful Christians will remain patient and not rush into action, for they have learned that not awaiting God to direct them always results in wasting more time and energy in the end.

Disobedient Catholics

        As Pope Francis is coming to visit the United States, people start talking about the many American Catholics who buck the teachings of the Church on contraception, woman priesthood, etc. Catholics who believe that they are right and the Church wrong in its teachings are playing god, for the Holy Spirit will never initiate in us any action that tends to fracture the Church. Disobedience is most displeasing to God.

Only One Good Reason

        There is only one "good" reason for rejecting Christ, which is that you can prove that he is not truly God.

Spiritual Progress

        I have prayed to Jesus to heal my badly sprained left wrist, but nothing miraculous seems to have happened after two months. Years back, I would have felt disappointed, wondering why something so easy for the Lord he wouldn't perform. Today, not only am I more certain than ever that he heard me, but I feel completely at peace. So I have grown spiritually, and I am very happy about that. 

Living for God Alone

        Learn from Matthew 6.1-8. We are to do all the things for the Father for him alone, never for our own ego or others to know. A blessed life is one that's lived secretly in God for God. Our best treasures are those stored up in heaven, invisible to all but God. What's meaningful to him is what matters, not  what others know or think about us. Live without ego for the Father for a short time now and you'll end up living forever in heaven! 

Dealing With Sin and Sinners

        God hates the sin but loves the sinner. We must also make this distinction. Unfortunately, we tackle sin by judging and punishing the sinner. If we see as God sees, we would try to remove the cause of sin first. All this brings us back to that we should become holy. And seeking union with God is the perfect solution.

Attaining Life's Goal

        Communion experience. It is abandonment time. I welcome the Lord entering me and rejoice in letting myself go in him. You do not know freedom until you reach this union. The goal of life is now attained.

Salvation Requisite

       To be saved, we must humble ourselves and submit ourselves to God. This is absolutely requisite, no matter how inadequate our attempt might be. So why are we so hesitant or reluctant to make the commitment?

Truth or Baloney

        Today is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The entrance antiphon, Galatians 6.14, reads: We Should glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom is our salvation, life and resurrection, through whom we are save and delivered. In the second reading from Philippians 2, Paul writes:  At the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. In the Gospel reading from John 3, Jesus says, "No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life" and John says: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. We must decide if Paul, Jesus, and John are speaking the truth or a bunch of baloney.

Dancing for Joy

        Communion experience. I felt so much joy that I felt like getting up to dance. Of course, I couldn't very well do that at Mass (although it did happen at charismatic Masses), so I just let my heart dance.

Make Life Beautiful

        I can testify that when you believe in everything Jesus says, life truly becomes beautiful.

Talking About the Heart

        I've been mentioning the heart these last two days, so I started to think about the heart. We all have a physical heart that beats throughout our life. But when God looks at the heart, he is really looking into our innermost conscience. For lack of a better word and the fact that a beating heart keeps us alive and is affected by our emotions, we use the word "heart" to mean that innermost part of us. This is the "heart" that wields our free will, stores good and/or bad thoughts, rejects or accepts God, yearns for God, and hears and sees him. Perhaps "soul" might be a better word.

Start With the Heart

        In today's Gospel reading from Luke 6, Jesus said to his disciples, "A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks." Therefore, if you wish to be full of goodness, ask God to fix your heart.

Through the Heart

        God is someone you can get to know most intimately without being seen or aurally heard. That's because he knows your heart.

Most Secure Feeling

        A lost soul does not know where he came from nor where he is going. In today's Gospel acclamation, John 14.23, Jesus said, "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." Hence, anyone who loves Christ not only understands his existence and knows his destiny, but also are aware that God the Father backs him up all the way in all things while he is living on earth, providing the most secure feeling.

*Best Empty Feeling

        This is appearing before the Lord as an empty vessel, wipe open with zero resistance and no attachment to the world, eager to let him fill you with his pure self. This has to be the most free feeling you can possibly experience on earth.       

Hollow Advice

        I heard again this morning on a TV show the advice "Reach for the stars" given to encourage someone to realize the American Dream. I couldn't help feeling that next to the advice "Reach for God" it sounded rather hollow.

*Clensing the Heart

        The secret of getting rid of what should not be in your heart is to ask God to reveal it to you. If your intention is sincere, the Lord will remove it for you as well ~ that's killing two birds with one stone.  Never try to do it on your own. We are to rejoice in the fact that God knows our heart so well!

Love Melts Heart

        Communion experience. I let God completely melt my heart with his love.

Using the Heart

        Let God cleanse and purify your heart. Then live, learn, study, understand, hear, see, and love with your heart. Only the heart can get to know God.

Inner Peace from Christ

        Today is 9/11. Fourteen years ago today, it was a most horrific day for this country. Ever since, the world hasn't been the same. Our world is now chaotic and completely out of order. What man needs is inner peace, for there can be no external peace without inner peace. And Christ can provide just that if only you desire it from him. If you don't believe me and have inner peace, I have nothing to say. Otherwise, you need to take me seriously.

Jesus Forever Relevant

        In today's first reading from 1 Timothy 1, Paul admits that he was once a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an arrogant man. In the Gospel reading from Luke 6, Jesus called anyone who notices the splinter in his brother's eye, but does not perceive the wooden beam in his own, hypocrite. Today's world is still full of people fitting Paul's and Jesus' description. Just watch those in the news as well as the commentators ~ you can easily spot them. Jesus' message is as relevant today as it was then.