Resting in God

        Communion experience. I was in complete harmony with my beloved Lord and my heart felt a great stillness. St. Augustine's saying came to my mind again: "Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee."

*Secret of Spiritual Growth

        The speakers you hear in church, on TV, at conferences, during retreats, and contemporary writers on spirituality advise, encourage, or inspire you to grow holier, to love God more, but none exactly tells you how to do it. Good intention, but ineffective messaging. The secret is to let God do the work for you. This means that you open up to God to let him in first. Then you ask him directly to transform you. In short, the formula for success: Surrender to God, attain union with him, and all you desire is yours. 

Fidel Castro's Death

        The Cuban leader passed away recently and Cuban Americans continue to celebrate his death. It is understandable that they are happy that the one who had oppressed them is now gone. But we also need to realize that God hates only the sin, never the sinner. If we acknowledge that God is the judge of all, we must also mourn the death of anyone sinful whoever he might be. After all, praying for the salvation of all souls, living or deceased, is the duty of all Christians.

Pure Love

        When we say we love someone or something in the world, that love is not selfless, as it always involves our receiving some form of gratification. Whereas the love of God for us is pure because it is unconditional ~ the Lord just wants to help and save us. Our love for God can be pure too, for when we truly love him, we happily let him do whatever he wants with us. 

Soul in Safety

        Communion experience on this Feast of St. Andrew, Apostle. When you are in Christ, you soul is absolutely safe and you can let everything else go.

Obedience Benefits

        When we obey God always, he takes care of all our foibles and tendencies to sin, preparing us for our journey back to him. Great joy for all!

Going to Extremes

        God goes to extremes in loving us.  So, as his children, we must also go to extremes in obeying him. "Like Father, like son," right? With God, it should be all or nothing. Otherwise, life loses its meaning.

Tug-of-War Life

        Life is a game of tug-of-war between you and God with you trying to tug away from him constantly. Once you realize that you cannot win and stop struggling, war ceases and peace prevails. Wise advice: Always let God win. 

Secret of Freedom

        Willingly give yourself and all you have for the sake of God and you soul will be burden free, ready to soar to God.

Letting-Go Time

        Communion experience. What a perfect time to hand myself and everything else over to God!

Same Union, Different Roles

        We are all different beings, each living in his own unique life situation. When we all become one with God, we shall all experience the intimacy of God, but continue to lead our lives differently. Each of us is called to serve God in a unique role. Let us trust in the same Lord and let him shape and lead each of us the way he knows best. All in God and all for God.

To Be Childlike Again

        In today's Gospel reading from Luke 10, Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit that the Father had hidden things from the wise and the learned and had revealed them to the childlike. I still remember that more than once as a child, I felt carefree and happy because I realized that the adult members of my family were taking care of everything for me. We would feel carefree and happy too if we know that God is taking care of us. To reach this realization, you must start trusting in God first. Then the more you experience the wonders of God, the more you become carefree. When you become completely childlike in your trust, he will have revealed all you need to know to you.

The Spirit of God

        In today's first reading from Isaiah 11, the Spirit of the LORD is referred to as a Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, a Spirit of counsel and of strength, a Spirit of knowledge and of fear of the LORD. When you are in union with God, his Spirit imparts wisdom and reveals himself to you, guides and strengthens you, and speaks to your heart continuously. I concur with Prophet Isaiah completely.

Reason for Living

        It is God who has made it possible for me to exist. Therefore, I must live for him alone.

Keeping God Happy

        Keep your heart pure, clean, and filled with God's love, then Jesus would be happily sitting on the throne in your heart.

*Tethered to Christ

        As believers in Christ, it's still so easy to get distracted by or be attracted to what we immediately experience in our environment. Ideally, no matter where we are, what we see, when it is, we should be aware that the Lord is in us, at our center, experiencing everything with us. To be tethered to the Lord thus is to always enjoy his company, be free from all evil, and see things through his eyes. It is to be with him with all our mind, with all your heart, and with all your soul, creating the best moment of our life at any time.

Pleasures of the World

        Many people enjoy pleasures of the world, but many pleasures are illicit or immoral. Even if they are kosher, you risk being enslaved by them. Once enslaved by a pleasure, enjoying it becomes a sin. Also, too much of a pleasure often turn it into a displeasure. The joys of God are the opposite, for they are always uplifting and refreshing. Once in heaven, you will want to remain there for ever; and that's just fine, for heaven does happen to last forever.         

*Abortion Horrendous

       You see above the football stadium at the University of Michigan, my alma mater. It is the largest such stadium of all the colleges in the US, with a seating capacity of 107,601. 

         Based upon the number of abortions reported to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US, it is projected that the total number of known abortions from 1970 through 2016 will exceed 46 millions. (Abortion was legalized in this country in January, 1973.) So if you replace all the football fans in the Michigan stadium with an equal number of aborted babies, you'll need at least 460 stadiums, that's right, 460, to accommodate all of them! ~ truly mind-blowing. Anyone who knows the love of God can see that abortion is a horrendous evil. May God have mercy on us all.

*Our Clear Role

        It is God's role to crush evil. Our role in helping God is to obey him. If we are disobedient, we are on evil's side. It's all simple and clear. Therefore, let the Lord make you holy.

*Setting Heart Ablaze

        No one other than Christ can send the Holy spirit to fire up your heart. With a cold heart, God can become instantly forgettable. Therefore, go to him directly with an open heart and ask him to set it ablaze and you'll be transformed. The perfect time to do the asking is when you receive him in the Holy Eucharist at Mass. 

**True Freedom

       Communion experience. True freedom is attained by entering Christ completely and becoming free from yourself.    

Source of Power

        To grow spiritually, go to Christ direct, the source of all power. Spreading any messages not focused upon him is necessarily weak, amounting to beating around the bush. To get results, head for the source.    

Eternity Matters

        I don't believe human beings can truly be happy if what they seek is not eternal. Suppose you are given a thousand or even a million years to live happily, but knowing that those years will end ~ would you be completely satisfied? I don't think so. That's why I believe that we can find true happiness only in the Lord God whose kingdom lasts for ever. 

*Dying Without Regret

        God is always calling us, but we do not pay him enough attention until we are much older and begin to realize our own frailties, limitations, and mortality. How many of us die happily with nothing more to confess and without any regret? Wouldn't it be nice to believe and follow God the moment you first hear him calling, get to know him most intimately, and look forward joyfully to meeting him at the end of your life?

Living or Dying Again

        When Jesus said "You will have life," he meant we should have life in heaven for all eternity. In today's first reading from Revelation 20 at morning Mass, eternal punishment for the dead was referred to as the second death. So if we live right this time, we die only once and shall live again. But if we do not get it right this time, we live only once and shall die again.  

Joy of Life

        Communion experience at Thanksgiving Day Mass. I received sweet joy from Christ, the joy of my life.

Sole Beneficiaries

        Since God does not lack anything, in any dealing with him, we are the sole beneficiaries.

Becoming Christlike

        We attain perfection by imitating Christ. God has created us in his image and is most happy if we become like him. Seeking union with him is the excellent way to reach that goal, for there cannot be oneness if we differ with Christ

God's Greatness

        God underwent the greatest sacrifice on the cross as demanded by his greatest love for us. 

*Fast Track to God

        How do you get to know God intimately to be effectively transformed by him? Or, going one step beyond, how do you attain union with God? It does not work if you just read an author or listen to a speaker who tells you how to do it without involving your own heart. To succeed, start with your heart and go straight to God, bypassing all that's in-between. Seek him directly from your heart and he will guide you directly. This is the fast track.

Who Can Satisfy Us?

        Only God can completely satisfy us by quenching our thirst and filling the void in our life. Not even the greatest saints can do that. If you feel satisfied without God, your have set your standard too low.

Enjoy God Too

        As God's creatures, we praise him, bless him, adore him, glorify him, and thank him. Let's not forget that we are to enjoy him too, for he gives us heavenly joy.

*Most Effective Praying (Earning God's Trust)

        Pouring everything straight out from your heart to God your Father. If you trust in him completely, he will trust in you completely!

*Keeping Motives Pure

        I've been praying for someone who can be considered an enemy to me. What motivates me to pray for him? Perhaps his conversion or change of heart would stop him from giving me more trouble? Perhaps I am afraid of him? Perhaps I want the Lord to teach and crush him? The answer could be yes to any of these questions. Then I can pray for him because I feel sorry for him and want him to be saved for the glory of God. And the Lord shows me that this is the only motive that pleases him.

Being Thankful

        It's the day before Thanksgiving. I am so many things to be thankful for because of God, my loving creator and Father. Of course, I thank him first of all for his unconditional love and mercy. And I thank him for being my shining hope always. I thank him for sustaining my life not only physically, but most of all spiritually. I thank him especially for taking away all my sins, making me feel refreshingly clean, a feeling only he can give. I also want to thank him for helping me transcend the sufferings of life. I must not forget his important call for me to let all know that he desires intimate union with all of us through the Holy Eucharist. I owe all I am and have to the Lord. 😊 

Overwhelmed

        Communion experience. The infinite God is beyond my comprehension in every aspect. He is infinite in knowledge, wisdom, and creativity as well as in mercy, love, and understanding. I can spend eternity exploring his ways and learning from him. God is absolutely exciting to know!

Being Unworldly With God

        I remain with (in) Jesus because first, he is my God and Savior, and second, I greatly enjoy and want to preserve his peace in my heart, the peace no amount of money can possibly buy in this world.  

What Life Is About

        Life is not about all the things we can see, hear, or touch, but about knowing good from evil and ultimately about believing in God or not. (I am specifically referring to the God of Christ here.) 

Giving All to God

        Of course, we should love God with all our heart, all our soul, all our strength, and all our mind. By giving our all to God, we are saved and become free. This is correct in theory and putting it into practice is completely possible. As always, we only need to remain passive and open, revealing our desire from the heart, and the Lord will take over from here. Now, after giving our all to him, all things become possible for us.

*Vain Union

        The physical union with Christ in the Holy Eucharist will be in vain if there is no union of the wills and hearts between you and the Lord.

What You Believe

        You can believe if God exists or not. You can believe if Christ is your Savior or not. You can believe if heaven and hell are real or not. You can even believe if there is life after death or not. This I know: what you believe now shall shape your eternity. 

Head and Heart

        When we think thoughts, we automatically know that the brain in our head is working and when we feel emotions, we feel it in our heart. I marvel at how God has made us thus. Of the two, the heart occupies a more central spot, for it is the heart that communes with God. Giving the heart to God is the ultimate giving of oneself. Our first priority, more than to keep the heart healthy, is to keep it pure and undefiled for the glory of God. 

*Food of Immortality

        After Communion, I heard the priest in prayer referring to the Holy Eucharist as the food of immortality. In John 6, Jesus referred to himself as the living bread that came down from heaven and that whoever eats it will live forever. In the old days, kings and emperors searched for the fountain of youth or tried to come up with the formula for making the elixir of life to prolong living in this world. Here we have Christ himself for us to partake so that we might live forever! How can we be so foolish as not to appreciate such a gift? 

God's Deep Joy

        Communion experience. I felt great joy and realized that with Christ, even our great sorrows are always lined with joy, hope, and sweetness.

Uniting Power of God

        Yesterday I posted about how we can belong to the greatest family of God. Today on this Solemnity of Christ the King, again I am deeply impressed that through Christ, we can all become one with each other, with God, and with all the saints and angels in heaven. We will surely feel at home in heaven! Let us rejoice unceasingly.

Under Rule of Love

        If God chooses to rule us with fear (which is impossible, of course), clearly, he won't gain any true believers. The truth is that the Lord "rules" us with the greatest possible love. Now, all believers have genuine faith and become true believers, and nonbelievers by their own choice separate themselves from the rest. This is a most logical reality that makes perfect sense.

Saving Power of Christ

        Today is Solemnity of Christ the King. The Gospel reading from Luke 23 tells us that Jesus and two criminals were crucified, with one on his right and the other on his left. One criminal hanging there reviled Jesus, but the other rebuked him, saying, "Have you no fear of God? We have been condemned justly, but this man has done nothing criminal." Then he turned to Jesus and said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And Jesus replied to him, "Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise." Here Jesus struck me as one with infinite mercy and saving power. All the sinner did was to beg for his mercy and he was saved. Jesus is our Savior par excellence!

First and Final Joys

        At the beginning, I experienced joy when I first received Jesus as my Lord and Savior. This joy stemmed from believing that I had been washed clean of sin and was now heaven bound, so it' was centered on me. Now finally, my joy is centered on God, for I experienced great joy in him alone.

Securing God's Dwelling

        Communion experience. Each time I receive Christ, he firms up the foundation he has built in my heart, making his dwelling in me more secure.

On Finding God

        There are many truths, but only one that's absolutely and forever true ~ this is the God of Holy Trinity as revealed to us through Jesus the Christ. I am stating what I have come to know with no intention of getting anyone to agree with me. I have no proof in my head, only knowledge deposited in my heart by God. All I can say is "I know." No one can find God for anyone else, for one must search with his heart on his own.