To Change the World

          The day before yesterday, I received a couple of thoughts from the Lord after I went to bed. I thought of getting up to jot them down on paper lest I forget, but I was too tired and fell asleep. The next morning I couldn't quite recall what they were. Today, as if to compensate for their loss, the Lord gave me a burst of almost 20 thoughts in quick succession. I'll try to blog them all this morning. 

        First, if we want to change the world, we must start by changing ourselves first. This is basic.

Biggest Fools

        God is the Lord. He created us and everything else. He keeps us breathing and supplies what we need for living while we are still alive. We can do whatever we want, but that will not change the fact that we shall ultimately be judged by him since all are in his hands. Therefore, atheists are the biggest fools (dumbest gamblers too).   

Destiny Warning

        If you let God control your destiny, you'll always end up where he is. Should you decide to control your own destiny, you may end up where you do not want to go. That is, he who follows God will be with him, but he who follows himself risks losing his way. 

*Look Beyond

        Just realize that September has begun. How time flies! We are heading into fall toward the end of the year. It seems that time marches on relentlessly and we are speedily heading toward eternal union with God or eternal separation from him, nonstop. I am not trying to cause apprehension in anyone; I am only stating reality. In fact, some of us would be pleased to know that they are getting closer to be united with the Lord in person, their beloved Father. In anything, looking far beyond always pays off. In this case, our eternal destiny is at stake.

*Beautiful Realization

        Today's Gospel reading came from Luke 5. Jesus got into Simon (Peter) the fisherman's boat and started teaching the crowds on shore. After he stopped speaking, he asked Simon to put into deep water and lower the nets. Simon and his partners had worked hard all night and caught nothing, but nevertheless, he obeyed. And they caught such a great number of fish that their nets were tearing. The catch filled both his boat and his partners' to the point they were in danger of sinking. Astonishment seized them all. Simon fell at the knees of Jesus and said, "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." What a beautiful response! If only we would all come to this realization. Of course, we now know that through repentance of our sins, we are reconciled to God.

Foolish Self-Serving

        In today's first reading from 1 Corinthians 3, Paul writes that the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God. It came to me this morning that we do not always distinguish God's will from our will. We naturally choose to follow the world's way and do what we feel comfortable doing, not giving any thought to whether it's God's will or not. Self-serving comes first and we become foolish in the eyes of God. Only intimate union with God can make us more aware of God's will.

*How to Be Chosen

        Today's Response from Psalm 33 at Mass: Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own. Does God choose his own people? Yes. Can you get him to choose you? Yes too. All you need to do is to ask him to choose you. 

Most Wonderful Day

        This would be the a most wonderful day on earth if every earthling turns to God, acknowledges his or her sins, repents of them, and asks for God's forgiveness. Can this happen? Maybe.     

*Faith Has to Be Meaningful

        Faith to be meaningful must be voluntary. If God in some way forces us to believe in him, we really do not have faith on our own. I don't believe anyone would want to follow a tyrannical god. Our God, the God of Christ, who is love, proclaims the good news of salvation and waits for us to respond ~ this is all fair and square. 

The Spirit Difference

        Unclean demons and spirits possess a person by taking control and subduing the subject. They must be cast out of the possessed as Jesus did in his days on earth. On the other hand, the Holy Spirit of God enters us only with our permission and leaves us when we reject him. He fully respects our free will and never tries to gain control of us. He only inspires, uplifts, and purifies us, empowering us to live a holy life in freedom.  

Stubborn Hearts

        In today's Gospel reading from Luke 4, Jesus taught on the sabbath in the synagogue at Capernaum. A man with the spirit of an unclean demon cried out in a loud voice, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are – the Holy One of God!" What's interesting is that unclean spirits know who Jesus is and obey him, but many of us human beings do not. Shouldn't the Incarnation of Jesus and the examples of Paul and other great saints be sufficient evidence for us to believe?

Union Experience

        In today's first reading at Mass from 1 Corinthians 2, the following which Paul wrote resonates with me: We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand the things freely given us by God. And we speak about them not with words taught by human wisdom, but with words taught by the Spirit, describing spiritual realities in spiritual terms.

The Christ Difference

        They are many people who do not know Jesus. They are basically good people who won't harm anyone. When life becomes a mystery to them, finding no clear answers they are resigned to that fact. What's missing is hope and joy. Christ makes all the difference. With him, living becomes uplifting and is filled with hope. What a joy to know and have a loving Savior! There is so much to look forward to, for the best is still to come. Yes, it's upbeat all the way. Alleluia!  

Wise and Merciful God

        Each one of us is a unique being with strengths and weaknesses known to God. When we sincerely wish to serve God, he always makes use of our strengths to the point that our weaknesses practically become nonexistent. He is such a wise and merciful Lord.

**Secret to Life

        As Jesus said, narrow is the gate that leads to life. Do you know that if you open wide your heart to God, that gate opens wide too?

Asking for an Overhaul

        I attended Vigil Mass today. My Communion experience. I wanted God to take away not just all my sins, but also everything that shouldn't be in my heart I didn't know about. In other words, I asked for a thorough overhauling.

Submitting to God Is...

submitting to Pure Love. Why should you hesitate?

God Came First

        Sometimes we wonder why God is the Father and has a Son, and there's also the Holy Spirit. Why not just one God? We think only human beings have fathers, sons, and other family relationships. We forget that God exists before we were created! Whatever God has revealed to us, we must accept. To compare God using ourselves an the example is ludicrous.  

Contentment

        Communion experience. I felt so happy, being content in Christ my Lord.

How to Be Happy in the World:

        Belong to God and not be of the world.        

*Sign You and God Are One

        When God becomes real to you more than anything else you see, hear, and touch, you know you and God are in each other as one.

*Shaping Your Future

        As I age, the Lord draws me closer and closer to him. I see this as his mercy at work and am most grateful for that. Growing old and not letting God change you a bit is wasting precious time on earth. Before you go to him, you want to be in as holy a position as possible to make your meeting with him your greatest joy before entering heaven. This way you have a future you can look forward to.

**Two Joys of Union

        (1) Being aware that God knows exactly what your heart harbors.      
        (2) Seeing clearly what God's will is.      
        These are great joys because they reflect your intimacy with God who keeps you in union with him.

You Are Loved!

        No matter who you are, you feel good if someone, whether inside or outside your family, tells you that he or she loves you. Jesus has come and revealed to us that God loves us. Now, even if no one else has ever said "I love you" to you, you should be elated and start loving yourself and others. For how can you not love anyone whom God loves?

Appreciating God

        Communion experience. God alone is worthy to be worshipped, adored, and praised. He is our most beloved, the treasure of all treasures and the pearl of all pearls. With him, life is joyfully worth living. Without him, it'd be better if we were never born. 

Pure Love

        Pure love is unconditional, selfless love. That's what our love for God and for others for God's sake is. All other so-called "love" for everything else is, strictly speaking, not love. Pure love can only originate from God, for he alone is love.

Deeper Into Christ

        When you first find and accept Christ, you feel great joy. Then as you get to know him more intimately, you increasingly feel his sorrow and as a result, enter even deeper into him to seek consolation. You now feel even more of his sorrow, but the underlying joy sustains you, for no sorrow can overcome that. 

Dwelling in Jesus

        Communion thoughts. I know that Jesus and I dwell in each other, but I prefer to see that I dwell in him, an infinite space filled with love that gives me total freedom, yet keeping me safe. So, in him alone, I am safe and free.

Communion Consolation

        Communion experience. Today is the Feast of St. Bartholomew, Apostle. He was also named Nathanael, in whom Jesus recognized to have no duplicity. Since I do not see the Lord, again, it was a great consolation to taste the Lord in Holy Communion.

Longing for Christ

       Christ is as intimate to me as I am to myself. In fact, he knows and understands me more than I myself. Since I do not see him, I long to hear his sweet voice speaking to my heart. Then he assures me that even if I don't hear it, he always hears me. I love my Lord.

Life-Transforming Sacrament

        Communion experience. The Holy Eucharist is the Lord. It is sweet, fragrant, and tonic to the soul. This is the Blessed Sacrament God has given us to be united to him as one.

*Be Ready for God

        Let your heart and mind be a blank ready for God to imprint whatever words, thoughts, pictures, or impressions he wishes upon them for your edification and joy.

What Turns God Off

        Beginning yesterday, we heard Jesus' denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees read from Matthew 23 at Mass. The Lord starts out with the strong words "Woe to you" in many of his accusations. What offended him most was their hypocrisy ~ phoniness in modern day language. Since God already sees everything in our hearts, thinking that he wouldn't know what we are hiding directly insults his omniscience. A hypocritical person cannot possibly experience true peace in his heart. And God loves an honest, sincere, soul with no duplicity.   

*God Does Love Us

        Suffering in this life is caused by our sins. The fact that we can get to heaven shows that God loves us.

*I Live on Forever Too!

        What is infinity? Is the universe infinite? These questions bugged me ever since I was a little boy. The concept was impossible for my finite mind to comprehend, until I found God. Of course, God cannot have a beginning, an end, or is limited in his power someway. With an infinite God, an infinite universe is totally logical and possible. And I thought of my own soul which God had created at some point and now it lives on forever like him. In this sense, I have also become infinite. Then realizing that I shall live on forever with my God in heaven becomes absolutely overwhelming, making me grateful for his mercy. How can you not possibly rejoice when you have such a caring Father?

Either We or God

        In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 23, the last two verses, 11 & 12, struck me the most: "The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted." Obviously, the ego has no place before God. The choice is between serving ourselves and serving God. The battle goes on continuously until we give in to God totally. This is fully consistent with what Jesus had said earlier in the Gospels: "Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will safe it." It would do us good to remember these sayings of the Lord.

Seeking Unlimited Freedom

        I cannot be happy living on any planet of finite size. Would you be happy to live on a sphere, say just 10 feet in diameter? Well, our earth is, of course, a lot bigger, but it's still limited in size. I want to live in the Lord because his space is infinite. Only in him can I experience unlimited freedom.

Protecting the Soul

        Give God your soul, which was created by him in the first place, then you will overcome all evil, keeping the soul safe, throughout you whole life on earth. 

Recipe for Peace, Freedom, and Joy

        In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 22 at Mass, Jesus gave us the greatest and first commandment and the second like it. They read:
        You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
        You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
        If we obey these commandments, we shall have heaven on earth.

On Knowing Jesus

        Knowing about Jesus is not the same as knowing him. You can know all about him but still do not know him. An example I have in mind is a tour guide I met in the Holy Land. He knew every story in the Bible, but he was not a Christian. Normally, you get to know Jesus after learning something about him. Once you know the Lord intimately, you have him and no longer care about knowing about him.

Ways of Surrendering to God

        (1) Let the majesty, beauty, and pure love of God overwhelm you.

        (2) Be completely open to God to receive whatever he wants to give you.

        (3) Abandon yourself to God.
        They all lead to union with God.

Compelling Jesus

        Communion experience. Jesus' love, his humility, his glory, his invitation to us, his messages, his promises, his desire to be one with us... are all most compelling. Surrendering to him is basically letting him overwhelm us with his perfection, holiness, and beauty. 

God's Invitation

       In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 22.1-14, Jesus told the parable of the wedding feast to teach what the Kingdom of heaven is like. A king gave a wedding feast for his son. He dispatched his servants to summon the invited guests to the feast, but they refused to come. A second time he sent other servants to invited them to the banquet that had been sumptuously prepared. Some ignored the invitation and went away. The rest laid hold of the servants, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged and sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then the king sent his servants into the streets to invite to the feast whomever they could find, bad and good alike, and the hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to meet the guests, he saw a man not dressed in a wedding garment. He ordered his attendants to bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside.

        This is a poignant story which revealed the following to me:       

       (1) Jesus said at the end of telling the parable, "Many are called, but few are chosen." This has been true to this very day.

        (2) God's invitation is to everyone.

        (3) We must take his invitation seriously or suffer serious consequences.

Safeguarding the Soul

        When our health deteriorates, there is only so much we can do. Eventually, we lose the battle and die. But losing the body one day is normal and expected. It's the soul that we must protect and never lose. This is where Christ comes in. Accept, believe in, and follow him faithfully is the only safeguard we need. There is no other assuring way. 

Love Still Imperfect

        Sometimes we genuinely want to help others. When they do not quite listen to us or have misunderstood our intentions, we feel unappreciated and get annoyed. This is because our love is still not perfect ~ we are still concerned about our own feelings. Pure love thinks 100% of the person you wish to love with only God present within you.

Compellingly God

        Look at Jesus. Let's say that he is not God. Let's even ignore the fact that he performed so many miracles and rose from the dead himself. Then we see a man who was meek and humble, willingly let others lead him to crucifixion, and still prayed from the cross that God the Father would forgive those who took part in putting him to death. Not another human being would have behaved like that or the subject would have been considered to be the strangest or weirdest person that had ever lived. On top of all this, Jesus admitted that he is God ~ that makes him delusional as well. You decide.

Dealing With God

        In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 20.1-16, Jesus told his disciples what the Kingdom of heaven was like via a parable. A landowner went out to hire laborers for his vineyard throughout the day. They all agreed to work for the usual daily wage. When it was evening, the owner had the laborers summoned to give them their pay, beginning with the last and ending with the first. At the end when the first saw that everyone got the same usual wage, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, "These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the day's burden and the heat." He said to one of them in reply, "My friend, I am not cheating you. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what is yours and go. What if I wish to give this last one the same as you? Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous?"

        There are a number of things we can learn from this parable. 

        (1) God is generous to all.

        (2) He is entitled to do whatever he wishes.

        (3) We should be happy that he rewards us for our labor.

      (4) How others are rewarded is not our business. (In heaven, would you still grumble that someone up there had an easier life than you on earth?)

        (5) Being envious of others shows that we are not satisfied with God.

        (6) We are not in a position to question the Lord.

        (7) Be grateful to God for his mercy to all.

*Better Way to Go*

        It is much better to live a life as holy as possible with God's help and be assured of entering heaven speedily after death than living it your own way most of the time and hoping that a lot of Masses and prayers will be offered for you after you die. To be sure, Masses and prayers can only help those in purgatory. If you don't make heaven, there is nothing anyone can do about it! Think ahead, be smart, and choose the better way now.

All Things Affect God

        Everything I experience, you name it, makes me think of God, as I see that he knows all things that happen and they affect him. This is my happy state.

Apocalypse Is Near!

        TFP Student Action, defending moral values on campus, is a project of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property. I received an email from John Ritchie, its director, this morning. It informs me that yesterday, on the holy Feast of Our Lady's Assumption, a satanic Black Mass took place at 7:00 pm in Oklahoma City. Let me lift from his email report on the public prayer rally held against the Black Mass some details below.    

At 5:30 PM, TFP Student Action volunteers helped organize a large prayer rally of reparation right in front of the Civic Center, the public venue where the Black Mass was perpetrated against Our Lord. In addition to the unspeakably offensive Black Mass, the satanic group allegedly attacked the Virgin Mary too, pouring filthy substances on her statue before smashing it to pieces. On this dark day for America, however, throngs of faithful from across the country arrived to console Our Lord and the Blessed Mother. In fact, Catholics rolled in from Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia. We were blessed and honored to be able to stand up for Holy Mother Church, the true Mass, and the Holy Eucharist – praying the rosary, holding signs and displaying banners outside the Civic Center.          You see, evil has never been so brazen. God has never been so reviled in a public, city-run venue, with the complicity of city officials who refused to cancel the black mass.  Never has the spiritual battle between good and evil been so apparent and so vivid. That's why you and I must continue to watch and pray. May God reward you a hundredfold and truly transform America into one nation under God.            You can see the rally against this black mass on this short video: