Being With Jesus

        Communion experience. Great joy. I focused upon Christ alone, shutting out my past and not looking ahead either, knowing that as long as I am with him every moment, I do not have to worry about a thing. He remains trustworthy forever. 

*God's Promise!

         Today's Communion antiphon, Matthew 19.29: Everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life, says the Lord. Here is Jesus' promise. If you realize that sometimes your own family is even more important than yourself, why not give up yourself first? Then everything else will follow. The Lord has placed eternal life completely within our reach!

*Great Journey With Jesus

        In today's Gospel reading from John 1, Jesus called Nathanael. Philip first found Nathanael and told him, "We have found the one about whom Moses wrote in the law, and also the prophets, Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth." But Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" Nevertheless, he went with Philip to see Jesus. Jesus said to him, "Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree." Nathanael was bowled over and answered, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel." Jesus said to him, "Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this." 

        We can all see great things if we follow the Lord faithfully. This is precisely what makes seeking union with God so exciting. The great thing here is seeing that God can actually transform us, and experiencing it is what makes our discipleship exciting. Never a dull moment, that's for sure!  

**Secret of Possessing God*

        If you try to hold onto God, let go of him to let him take hold of you. In life, you should always get out of the way so that God may be free to do what he wants with you!

**Sober Thought and Advice

        Last night I did not fall asleep right away. As I stayed awake in darkness, I suddenly saw that human souls are continuously departing from this world. With the world population over 7 billion, I have no idea how many souls are leaving every minute or second, but the number should be high enough that the movement would appear to be continuous. Of course, in no time we'll be joining that line ourselves. My thought is that we should definitely plan well now so that when we cross over to the other side and face the Lord, we will be directed to proceed toward heaven.

***Completing Union With God

        Today's Communion antiphon, John 6.51: I am the living bread that came down from heaven, says the Lord. Whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world. Again, at the Last Supper, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his disciples said, "Take and eat; this is my body." I underlined "is" for emphasis, for nowhere in scriptures did Jesus ever use the word "symbolizes" in place of "is." Those who do not believe that the consecrated bread and wine are truly the body and blood of the Lord miss something really big. To me, just as I am assured that my sins are forgiven after receiving the sacrament of confession, I am assured that my union with the Lord is complete after I receive him in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. 

Perfect Communion Prayer

        Communion thoughts. Before Jesus breathed his last on the cross, he cried out in a loud voice, "Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit!" This makes a perfect prayer for us to say during reception of the Holy Communion, for it expresses our willingness to entrust ourselves to the Lord. 

Living Without Anxieties

        I've advocated living for God alone and not caring about what people think of you. This is abandoning yourself in God. In that case, you ask the Lord for favors and are no longer concerned about when and how he is going to answer you. Thus, you banish all anxieties. 

Our Last Words

        Have you ever thought about what your last words will be before you die? Some like to reveal their personal wishes and others, to confess their personal secrets, to others. It dawned on me today that I really should reserve my last words for Christ, whom I was soon to meet. I know what I shall say already, but that's going to remain personal. 

*Beware of False Prophets

        In today's Gospel reading from John 1, John the Baptist testifies that Jesus is the Son of God. He has personally come and revealed to us all we need to know to be saved. He also foretold that false prophets would arise after him. Therefore, if any self-proclaimed prophet today add or subtract something to, or change what the Holy Church holds Jesus to be, dismiss him or her instantly. First of all, you can be sure that anyone who claims that Jesus is not divine serves the evil one.    

*God Praised

        God the Father is great, for he is holy. God the Son is great, for he is meek and humble. God the Holy Spirit is great, for he is gentle and patient. The Triune God is great, for he is Agape.

**The Beautiful Soul*

        We all have a soul. When I look at the portrait of someone or the person directly for the first time, I can to a small extent sense what kind of person I am looking at. Of course, the more I get to know the person, the more I become sure about him or her. Nevertheless, I shall never know what's truly in his or her heart. But, the Lord, being our creator, knows everything about us – he sees the heart inside and out and even our soul, which is dearer to us than the heart. Even though I cannot read anyone as the Lord, I can picture a person with a pure heart and a spotless soul, constituting a most beautiful sight for the Lord to behold. And we know that any of us can be that soul, if only we'd let God do whatever he pleases with us.     

**Either for or Against Christ

        Today's first reading at Mass came from 1 John 2. The apostle writes: "Who is the liar? Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Whoever denies the Father and the Son, this is the antichrist." Many of us still have not fully accepted the Father and the Son. According to St. John, they are still not out of the antichrist camp yet. Let's realize that with God, it must be all or nothing. We either belong or not belong to him. On the day of judgment, we'll be either chosen as sheep or rejected as goats.    

**Supernatural Communication*

        It is through the senses that we experience pleasure, revulsion, or other feelings; but when the Lord bypasses our senses and reaches directly for or touches our heart and soul, it is the greatest consolation and most satisfying feeling this side of heaven.

**Best New Year's Resolution

        Happy 2018 to all! If you have not made any resolutions yet, how about resolving to go all out to love the Lord our God? Give him what he deserves, for he has already given us his only Son to us! Give God all you've got and all of yourself, and you'll live the most satisfying and rewarding life. I tell you, this is how God has made us. Give in, listen to him and follow him, and he is all yours. Make union with God your goal this year.

Are You a Child of God?

        In today's second reading from Galatians, Paul writes, "As proof that you are sons [and daughters], God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba, Father!" Therefore, if you can cry from your heart, not just saying, "Father!" it is proof that the Spirit of Christ dwells within your heart and that you are a child of God.

Simple, Encompassing Prayer

        Today is Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is fitting to start the new year with this celebration to commemorate the Mother of Christ and our Mother. At Mass, we always pray to God to have mercy on us. It struck me today that this is such a simple, beautiful and powerful prayer if we say it with all our heart. It means we acknowledge that we are sinners and need God's help, that we trust in him, and that we are totally dependent upon him. It is truly an all-encompassing prayer. 

Self-Realization

        It is God who has made me see the truth. I thank him and rejoice in him.

*Year-End Insight

        Today's Mass celebrated the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. We heard the Presentation of the Child Jesus in the temple from Luke 2. There was a prophetess named Anna who never left the temple, but worshiped night and day with fasting and prayer. I realized that the ultimate point of prayer is to let the Lord make us perfect. You see, we sin against God, and to restore order and harmony we must become obedient children so that God's will may prevail. It is in constant obedient prayer to the Father that we learn and are transformed.

Year-End Realization

        As the year ends, the Lord God leads me to reflect on myself or the human race as a whole. I realize that God can be absolutely trusted or counted on, otherwise he cannot possibly be God, and it is us who are the weak, failing to bring ourselves to believe in him. The peoples of the world welcome and celebrate New Year, hoping that things will get better and that they will be happier, but they do not realize that nothing like that will happen if they do not first believe in God and become his obedient children.

Fulfilled by God

        Communion experience. God came to me to fulfill me. What I received from the Lord were the three Cs: consolation, contentment, and completion.

No. 1 Priority

        God is to be enjoyed to the fullest. Therefore, our No. 1 priority of life should be making our relationship with God as perfect as possible. Then everything else just wouldn't matter much anymore.

**Correcting Our Focus*

        Good to be home and resume attending daily Mass again. The thoughts I felt in my heart today were nothing new, but worth re-expressing. Once more, the Lord made me see that focusing upon how we can get to know and love him more is not the productive way, as it's much like concentrating upon ourselves to figure out how we can lift ourselves off the ground. The right, quick and efficient way is to focus upon the Lord exclusively to let him draw us to him. We must always let God take the center stage and he'll do all the lifting for us. 

Key to Seeing God

        Only the humble will see God. If we voluntarily humble ourselves before God, he will exalt us high. If we do not humble ourselves before God, we will be humbled by him and crushed forever in the end.  

How Much Are You With God?

        We can go to Mass every Sunday out of habit and not feel anything. Robotic Catholic might be a fitting name. Then there are those who hang on to God because they feel miserable about life. Truly blessed are those in union with God, who no longer struggle on their own, just living a triumphant life in the Lord. [Since I'll on the road with my son for the next three or four days, I won't able to attend daily Mass nor blog. I should be back on Dec. 30, if not sooner.]    

*Beautiful Prayer for Us

        Today is Feast of St. Stephen, first martyr. Response at Mass from Psalm 31: Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit. As Stephen was being stoned, he called out, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Before Jesus breathed his last on the cross, he cried out in a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." This should be a prayer for us too. Whether we face martyrdom of not, it shows our trust in the Lord and readiness to go to him.

*Great Question

        What profit is there to be the most famous and admired, the wealthiest, the most honored, or the most talented or intelligent person in the whole world when your name is not even written in heaven? 

**God Our Consolation

        There are things in our hearts that no other human beings can possibly understand or are impossible for us to express precisely to them, yet the Lord knows them all perfectly without our saying a single word. Therefore, I appreciate him immensely and treasure my intimacy with him. He is our greatest consolation!

Sorrow on Christmas Day

        Merry Christmas to all of you! Should it be a joyful day? Of course. Yet at the same time, I felt great sorrow. As usual on Christmas day, the church was filled to overflowing as on Easter day. The adjacent space normally partitioned off had to be opened up to accommodate the extra crowd. And people chatted and chuckled so much before Mass began that the priest had to tell all to quiet down. I am not here to judge anyone, but I am sure that many were there just for Christmas. You probably have heard about cafeteria Catholics who only pick and choose the teachings of the Church they can accept. These Christmas and Easter Catholics are known as submarine Catholics who surface just twice a year. Can God be pleased with them? I doubt it. My sorrow came from feeling his sorrow.

***Letting God Do It

        If you want to search your heart to see what's in there, do not do it by yourself, for you are not capable of understanding yourself thoroughly. Instead, go before the Lord, open your heart up, and ask him to search it. And he will help you see what he sees and what shouldn't be there. Then ask him to cleanse and heal you heart. This conforms to the smart practice of always entrusting God to do the hard work for you. This is how you get to live a life carefree in the Lord. We struggle so hard on our own to do so many things, forgetting that God can accomplish what we want to achieve for us. Good example, to attain union with God, a lot of people dismiss it for being too hard. But ask the Lord to do the work to prepare you and it becomes totally attainable. Just remember that we are weak and God is super strong and eager to help. 

Deep Joy in Christ

        Communion experience. I experience deep joy in the Lord. This is a joy that wells up from within the innermost of the heart and touches the soul, making you aware that the Lord indeed dwells in your heart. It seems that he keeps me alive just so I might taste this joy.

Finding or Not Finding God

        I often like to depict a spiritual situation with a picture. In life, you will come to a Y intersection sooner or later. One road will take you to God, the Truth, while the other one will lead you to explore on your own. Since God is not there, you will invariably hit a dead end. I know, because it's either finding God or becoming lost.

**How to Possess All of God

        If you want all of God for yourself, give all of yourself to him. Make your humble move first.

*A Bright Spot in Old Age

        What can get better and better as we age? Certainly not our physical condition, as the joints get stiffer and even getting out of bed in the morning becomes a challenge. Likewise our mental condition, as we forget things more easily. I used to be able to learn playing a piano piece in a few weeks, now I practice for months or longer and still keep hitting the wrong keys. Poorer eyesight doesn't help. But there is a bright spot and it's our spiritual condition which can improve as long as we are alive! By remaining close to Christ, we can become more acute and wiser spiritually, and grow holier with no limit whatsoever. This is definitely something we should not overlook, but to rejoice about.  

**God Is Calling You*

        Today's Communion antiphon, Revelation 20.3: Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me. You can easily picture this scene. The knocking may be faint to you right now, but if you stop and listen carefully, you will hear his voice and you know it. Whether you will open the door to let him enter is another matter. The Lord is insistent because he wants to save you. He is gentle because he want your faith to be genuine. He is ever so polite and patient that I almost feel sorry for him, but I think I ought to feel a lot more sorry for those who do not wish to hear his voice or hear but do not open the door to let him in. Anyway, reading this verse makes me respect and love my God even more. Ignoring his voice is ignoring your own eternal future.

God Removes All Fears

       If you don't know God, experiencing fear is common. This is generated by not knowing what is happening or might happen. For example, people fear abandoning themselves to God. In the Gospels, we read that people saw Jesus perform some mighty, wondrous deed, were amazed, and started to fear. Now, if you know Jesus well, you have a different story. Know that God loves you dearly, you are at ease with him. And you are no longer concerned about Satan, since God now protects you. In conclusion, knowing God removes all fears.

What God Is to Me

        Communion experience. God is my life, my soul, and my existence. I don't mean them literally. My life because he is as dear to me as my life; my soul because he is as close to me as my soul; and my existence because I owe my whole existence to him. God is also my most beloved. This I mean literally.

*Christmas Present for the Lord

        Give your heart to God as your Christmas present for him. The heart still remains within you; giving it to him simply permits him to transform it to his heart's content. We and God become one when our hearts become one. It's a sheer win-win joy! 

**God to Be Praised!*

        We petition and thank God, but often neglect to praise him. While petitioning and thanksgiving center upon what we'd like to receive and what we have received, respectively, from God, praising is centered upon God alone, most likely most popular in heaven. In the Charismatic Renewal Movement of the Church, praising God has been the first order of business, and wondrous things happen as a result. Of course, the vocabulary for praising God is rather limited and this explains why your hear God being praised in tongues. You see, speaking in tongues is not something mysterious, but simply the natural outflow from us with an intense desire to praise God. Praise the Lord as often as you can to receive great blessings from him. 

*Rallying Cry*

        Today's entrance antiphon from Psalm 24: O gates, lift high your heads; grow higher, ancient doors. Let him enter, the king of glory! As 2017 is coming to a close, we are also getting closer to Jesus' 2nd Coming. Here is my rallying cry to all who can hear: Let the God of Christ enter! Open your heart! If you shut him out, you will be shut out by him. Would you rather end up to be all alone than go over to his side to join him to be taken care by him forever? . . . . .  

**The One to Live For

        We all need something to live for. When there is nothing to live for, people experience despair, and contemplate suicide. My former piano teacher live for music and other artists I know for their art. Many parents who do not do well live to make sure that their children will have a brighter future. For me, living for Christ is absolutely the best, for he is the eternal loving God. He fills my life with hope and will grant me the brightest possible future I could ever wish for. 

Love Is Sufficient

        Is God a mystery? There is so much we do not know about God, but at the same time we can attain union with him and feel that we have known him for all eternity. In fact, once I realized that he is all love, there was no more need for me to know more about him. Love alone is sufficient.

***Union With God for All!*

        Union with God is loving God with all you've got, the giving of yourself to God. It is an unspoken, simple but profound, most intimate relationship with the Lord. You open yourself 100% to him and he communes with you freely. It is imitating how God the Father and God the Son are in each other. Above all, it is what God desires from us. Union is achieved by submitting yourself completely to God. When that happens, he takes over and accomplishes all that's impossible for you to accomplish. It's letting God be God. We struggle hard only because we have not let God reign over our private little kingdom. Union is for you and me, for everyone! Why do you not consider it? Is it because you don't think you are good enough? Then let God make you good enough! Is it because you don't think he can make it happen to you? Then you don't believe that nothing is impossible with God! You don't need to be a mystic or saint first; it is in union that they become mystics and saints. Short of union, you remain struggling through your life, which strictly speaking, is rebelling against God.

**Beware of Slipping*

        Life and death seems to be such a pair of opposites, yet they are seamlessly connected, for we can slip from life into death in an instant. I got this feeling when I felt dizzy once after neglecting to take my medication for a short time. Another time I fell, suffered a concussion, and momentarily lost my consciousness. So is heaven and hell a pair of opposites. Here exists a chasm between the two that's impossible to cross, but slipping from our present state into either one of them can happen in an instantly too. Therefore, beware of this to be sure that we do not end up where we do not want to go.

Faith and Truth

        God is our truth and this remains true forever whether we believe in it or not. If we are not connected with God, we are simply lost. If we have faith in God, then we are saved, as Christ had demonstrated to those who believed in him. Faith connects us to the truth, making all the difference to us.    

Journey of Love.

        We get to know God through the following possible stages. Of course, many never reach stage 6, but are still saved. (1) We feel the emptiness of life. (2) We seek God. (3) We check out Christ and find that there are sufficient reasons for us to believe in him. (4) That little bit of early faith makes us take the plunge, accepting him as our Savior. (5) You wish to know him even more and press on. (One common mistake is that some erroneously believe that once you have accepted Christ, you are saved forever. Then they slack off and put their salvation in jeopardy again.) (6) Another critical point is reached: should you surrender to Christ completely? If you do, the Lord starts taking charge of your life completely. As he continues to transform you into a new creature, you become less attached to the world and experience more and more peace and freedom. (7) You feel God's presence, his power and love, and start to fall deeply in love with God. (8) Finally, you desire union with him and attain it, aided greatly by the Holy Eucharist. All in all, it's an exciting journey. It is exciting because you are directly involved.

Love Banishes Fear

        Christians are not only to rejoice in Christ always, but they are to become fearless. We need to fear God only if we are not with him. Once you belong to him, he banishes all your fears, for now you are with the Lord who is in charge of all things that exist, their sole creator. He gives and he takes away. He creates and he destroys. But he is always love.

God Is Not a Crutch

        People accuse Christians of believing in God because they look for some kind of a crutch for support. I had never felt that way. If I were ill and desperately need some medicine for healing, I might try anything I can get my hands on – this would be looking for some kind of a crutch. When I sought God, starting out I didn't even want to believe in him. I gave in only after I discovered how truly beautiful he was. So it was God drawing me, not me looking for a crutch.

**God Wants Us Back Always

        Relative to God our Lord, we are lowly, unholy, frail, and useless on our own, yet he loves us and is eager to raise us to his level. No matter how immense that gap is between him and us, if we love him back and it is gone. We are the prodigal sons and daughters, and as long as we return to the Father, we are welcomed back into his family. Through the Holy Eucharist, we can even attain union with the Holy One! If you are not with God at all, the gap between you and him is infinite. But just remember that he can make that gap disappear anytime you so wish.    

*Restoring Our Beauty

        We are beautiful only if we are beautiful to God. In reality, we are always beautiful to God, our creator and Father; it is sin that make us look filthy and ugly. So just ask him to take away our sins and we'll be beautiful for good and to ourselves too.