Abandonment Test

        If you have abandoned yourself completely to God, you'll be able to say to him, "Do whatever you want with me, Lord" with ease and in peace. It's the "Thy will be done" test.

Burden of Sorrow

        In union with Christ, the burden of sorrow you feel can be great, but that further solidifies the union. And the sweet consolation you receive from the Lord always makes it worthwhile. 

Time Lost

        Our days of living on earth is numbered. Each day we live without God is a day lost forever!

Greatest Sign and Miracle

        In today's Gospel reading from Luke 11, Jesus considered his generation to be an evil one because it sought a sign. He pointed out that he himself was a sign to his generation. Jesus is indeed the greatest sign to all of us, the only sign we need to see. To those who chase after miracles, you only need to look at Jesus to see that he is also the greatest and only miracle we need to see. If he is not good enough for you, no other sign or miracle will be.

Christianity Unique

        There are religions which believe that they alone hold the truth and do not tolerate anyone who does not accept their faith. And there are religions which never so claim and leaves everyone alone. Christianity is the only religion which claims that it holds the authentic truth and gives everyone the freedom to choose to believe in it or not. This makes it possible for all its followers to develop a meaningful faith.  

Most Powerful Love

        Let the perfect love of God make you pure, beautiful, fearless, and perfect.

Deep Peace in Christ

        It's good to be back home to resume attending daily Mass again. Today's Communion experience: the Lord made me see that if I am truly in him, I would always have peace unperturbable by any sorrow.   

Gain Christ and Everything

        If you have no God in your life, you are essentially a lost soul having no idea where you are heading. But if you belong to Christ, you know exactly where you are going, inheriting everything he has.

Great Pity

        What a pity that so many of us treasure the many things of the passing world, the safety of our temporary stay on earth, and our own physical health, but neglect completely the state of our eternal soul!

Saving Faith

        In today's Gospel reading from Luke 17, ten lepers asked Jesus to have pity on them. Jesus told them to go show themselves to the priests and they were cleansed on the way. Only one returned to Jesus, fell at his feet and thanked him. Jesus said to him, "Stand up and go; your faith has saved you." None of us is perfect, but it's good to know that as long as we believe, our faith can save us.

How to Stand God

        Today's entrance antiphon at Mass from Psalm 130: If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But with you is found forgiveness, O God of Israel. If God pronounces us to be guilty, we are doomed. Since God is forgiving, we can repent our sins unceasingly to remain in a state of grace always. 

Complete Trust in God

        Trusting in God completely is abandoning ourselves to God. By so doing, we fulfill "Thy will be done" as the Lord had taught us to pray.

Desire for God

        Since God first loved and loves us, he is our most precious jewel to be worshipped and praised. Let's not forget that we must also desire him with all our soul. It's this desire and longing for him that he treasures, for his love desires union with us.

2016 Presidential Prayer

        With this year's presidential election day just about a month away, please join me in saying this short and concise prayer sent to me from a friend.

        

Merciful Jesus, 

with firm faith relying solely on You, 

we entreat You to raise up a suitable candidate 

for the office of the president of the United States of America. 

O Jesus, we surrender this to You. 

"Thy Will Be Done!"

      Amen.       

God Essential to Us

        The following thoughts clearly entered my mind. (1) Everything we enjoy in this world except the Lord God is temporary. (2) We cannot exist in any way without God. (3) Only Christ, our God, can fundamentally change our inner self and we absolutely need to be transformed.

Unique Teaching

        It is unique in Christianity that God directly teaches us in our hearts in addition to through others.

Forever With God

        Habakkuk 2.4, from Reading 1 of Oct. Mass: the just one who is righteous because of faith shall live. When God says we shall live, it means we shall live with him and forever. This is exactly what Jesus has come and promised. When God settles something, it's settled forever. 

Dream Living?

        Those of the world who dream only about achieving success in the world are living in a dream world, and their dreams will evaporate in time into nothing.

Appreciate God

        To look for a husband or wife or a friend, there are virtually millions of candidates out there for you to choose from. But to choose a Savior, there is only one candidate, Christ.  

Unappreciative Hearts

        God's most profound message of salvation is to be understood by the simplest of all hearts, yet we make it so far-fetched as to be irrelevant, not realizing that we are all prodigal sons and daughters who need to wake up and return to the Father.

Fulfilled by Christ

        Today's Communion experience. How good it is to have Christ the Lord complete my joy so that I lack nothing!

Why Love God?

        Reason enough for us to love God with all our heart: he has created us out of love.

Perfect Departure Time

        Communion experience. It was the perfect time to go to Jesus right after receiving him in the Holy Eucharist.

Why Make God Wait?

        I heard from a priest who served in South Korea that only about 20% of Catholics there attended Sunday Mass regularly. Then one year when they thought North Korea was ready to launch an attack on the South any minute, he heard 500+ confessions (I wasn't sure if that happened in one day or not). I am thinking that if you got there late, you might not reach your turn to confess if the attack did materialize. 

On Hurting God

        We can easily hurt our family members or friends who are close to us if we do not treat them kindly. Imagine how we hurt God, the closest one to us of all, when we sin against him!

*God Indispensable

        We need God to make us holy, but this need is unaffected by how holy we become, for we need him for our existence and salvation. We absolutely need God, period!

Keep Communicating to God

        Sometimes because we are mentally occupied by various tasks or lack solitude, we do not hear God speak to us in our heart. Consider this to be a perfect time to pause and speak to him as often as you can. All the Lord needs is a quick word, glance, or thought from you. 

Coming Clean

       Today's thought. When so many of us just do what we want to do, ignoring God's will completely, it's time for us to come clean with the Lord about our duplicity.

         Again, for the next three weeks or so, I shall not be able to attend daily Mass nor blog daily. To read new postings, please check back After October 5. God bless you all abundantly.

Who's the Complicated One?

        Actually, God is simple and straight and we are the complicated ones. He has laid out the simple and straightforward plan for us to go to him in heaven, yet we make it labyrinthine because we do not listen nor obey. What a sad bunch we are! 

Ready for Leave

        Communion experience. Since Jesus and I were already in each other, I was ready to go to him body and soul, leaving everything behind.

Miracle on the Altar

        Today at Sunday morning Mass, I realized that every time I attend Mass, the most wonderful miracle takes place on the altar when the consecrated bread and wine transform into the body and blood of Christ. I do not witness the change, but Jesus blesses those who do not see and still believe (John 20.29).

Empty Love

        Love for God not translated into loving action is no true love, for we are judged by the fruit we produce.

*To Be a Fool

        In the parable of the rich fool, the rich man planned to store up all his grain and other goods and then rest, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said to him,"You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?" To live as if you are going to live forever in this world is to be the greatest of all fools. It doesn't matter if someone calls you a fool, but don't ever let God do it, for he is always right.

Perfect Loving Father

        Today's Gospel reading from Luke 15 included the Parable of the Lost (Prodigal) Son. For me and many others, this is the most beautiful and moving parable of Jesus, for it portrays the love of God for all of us so clearly as only someone who truly knows God intimately or is God himself can. Read and meditate upon the story to find out what a perfect loving Father we have and rejoice!

We Are VIPs

        You hear "God loves us" said so often that it helps to see that it's really saying that "We are loved by one no less than God" so that we are important, valuable, and precious to one no less than God.

Flood Control by Us

        The love of God flows like a flood and our heart is the floodgate. The trouble with most of us is that we do not open wide that gate to let God's love flood us. 

Fighting Satan

        Satan is an expert fisherman who tosses out bait to lure and snare human souls. If you take the bait, he will haul you in and you are in for a struggle. The loss of inner peace indicates that you have trespassed against the Lord. The proper action to take when you first sense the temptation is to nip it in the bud by running away to God immediately ~ never fight a temptation head-on. Once you are back in God, Satan no longer sees you. Remain in God always and Satan ceases to exist.

Making Jesus Our Foundation

        In today's Gospel reading from Luke 6, Jesus talked about the two foundations. He said to the crowds, "Someone who comes to me, listens to my words, and acts on them is like a person building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when the flood came, the river burst against that house but could not shake it because it had been well built. But the one who listens and does not act is like a person who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, it collapsed at once and was completely destroyed." The lesson is clearly that we cannot have "all listen and no action"; we must do what the Lord commands to build a strong, firm foundation. 

How to Remain Cool

      Immerse yourself completely in the soothing, calming, healing love of Christ. 

*Reality Check on Life

        The people of the world either do not know God, or believe in him falsely, or know about the true God (the God of Abraham and the God who is Christ). Among those who know about him, many get to know him personally. It's fair to say that those who claim that they know him are at various stages of rebellion against God, for few become totally obedient. As long as one is not in complete union with God yet, he is, strictly speaking, still a rebel. Dare we say that life is all about whether we submit to God or not?   

*Why Do We Make It Hard?

        God has already loved us. So if we let him love us, we and God become one. It's all so very simple. 

We Are No Judge

        In today's Gospel reading from Luke 6, Jesus taught his disciples to notice and remove the wooden beam in their own eye first before attempting to remove the splinter in their brother's eye. Of course, the lesson here is that we are not to judge others. We are not even to judge sinners, yet there are many who still question or blame God, who is all holy, for various things. Sinners must realize their own state and their need for salvation or they are doomed.

Most Rewarding Experience

        Our transformation by God into a new creature in union with him has to be the most refreshing, joyful, and rewarding experience we can ever have in this life, for it is all brought about by God.

The Jesus Effect

        Why are so many Christians happy and eager to tell others about Jesus? I may feel happy after finding a good job or winning a free vacation, but there is no urge for me to tell others about it. My conclusion is that Christ has actually changed many of his followers into more loving and selfless persons. 

*Demanding Love

        Jesus' greatest commandment for us is to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind. Why? It's because he loves us so much that his joy will not be complete unless we love him with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind. Obviously, if God doesn't love us so much, he wouldn't mind how much we love him either.

Simple, Straight, and Clear

        Communion thoughts. Today is the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Communion verse was based upon Isaiah 7.14 and Matthew 1.21: Behold, the Virgin will bear a son who will save his people from their sins. I have a simple mind and see clearly that I am a sinner in need of salvation, and Jesus is exactly whom I need. There's nothing more to elaborate.

Natural Consequence

        The more you let Jesus increase in you, the more you decrease and your love for God increases.

*Tell God Everything

        When I woke up in the middle of the night early this morning, I shared my most immediate intimate thoughts with Jesus ~ I just poured my heart out. And I was greatly comforted. We all feel good when we find someone who's willing to listen to us. The wealthy pay big money to unload themselves before psychiatrists. Here we have the greatest psychiatrist and healer in the whole universe, who knows everything about us and can even take away our sins, what more can we ask? Tell God everything as often as possible and you'll enjoy inner peace. It's a most wonderful feeling to know that you have nothing to hide from the Lord.  

Remain in the Light

        It's easier to sin in darkness than in broad daylight because darkness falsely leads you to believe that God does not see you. When you close your eyes to get ready to fall sleep, impure thoughts easily surface in darkness. And in sleep, you can get nightmares. In both cases, waking up to light restores your senses and assures you that everything is all right. Remain in the light of Christ always and you'll remain clear-headed and vanquish all fears.

*Gift From Heaven

        Communion experience. The Holy Eucharist is a gift from heaven, the Lord himself. When it entered me, I was directly linked to heaven. I must do my utmost to keep the Lord dwelling happily in me.