***Our Foremost Concern

      Trusting in God with all our heart to precede all other concerns.        

*Home Sweet Home to God

       Communion experience. We all know that home sweet home feeling, especially after you've been away for some time. Once you know the Lord intimately, you'll know that your true home is where he is and that you'll have the greatest home sweet home feeling when you return to him. This time you'll get a most warm and joyful welcome too, from the Lord himself. After I received Jesus this morning, I was filled with sweet joy and felt that I was almost home.  

*Christ's Assurance

        Today is All Souls Day. In the Gospel reading from John 6, Jesus said, "This is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day." For those who follow Christ faithfully, it's good is to know that their salvation and resurrection are assured, as the Lord can only speak the truth.

Fear of God

        The fear of God can be good or bad. It is bad if you know that you have sinned and you try to hide from God, while your sins remain. It is good if you know that you have sinned, but are aware that God knows all your sins and decide to confess them to get them removed by him. Turn your bad fear into good fear and you'll be filled with joy.

God Giving Himself Up for Me

        Communion experience. When the bread and wine were transformed into the body and blood of The Lord during consecration, he was giving himself up for me once again. And I praise and thank him for that.

***God's Amazing Power

        If you find something unique in the world that you can greatly treasure, you'll want to keep it for yourself entirely for your own enjoyment. Christ is the only object that is different. After you find him to be your greatest treasure and satisfaction of your life, you'll want to share him with everyone else, for the joy is that great! It just shows that he has the profound power to free you and transform you into a selfless being – this is how amazing our God is! Pity the one who does not know him to have such life-changing power. 

***Features of Christ

        The Lord is thorough with us – he wants to save our souls for all eternity! He never gives up on us and will always remain faithful to us, for he loves us. All we need to do to let him be my Lord and everything is accomplished for him and for us! Don't you see?       

**Guide to Living as Christians

       Today's Gospel reading from Matthew 5 was Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, giving us the Beatitudes. The 6th, 7th, and 8th Beatitudes also made up the Communion antiphon. Here they are.

          Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.

          Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

          Blesses are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, 

          for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.

        Just these three declarations of blessedness alone show how we are to live and what our rewards will be. We must be solely concerned about living for the sake of God and not about whether we go against the world or not.

*The Best Is Yet to Come

        1 John 3.2 from Reading 2: We are God's children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. My thought was that for the Christian, it just gets better and better with the very best coming at the very end.

Rest From the Lord

        On this All Saints day, the Gospel acclamation came from Matthew 11.28: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest, says the Lord. I know all about this rest. It is not physical and goes beyond temporary mental relief – it is enjoying permanent spiritual peace, knowing that the Lord has settled your eternal destiny. How can you not rest in joy when the Lord has now removed your most urgent concern about your existence?

Renewal Time

        Communion experience. God renews me each time I receive him in the Holy Eucharist.

Only Way to Deal With God

        How do you deal with God, the God of Christ? You either submit yourself to him or you don't. If you think clearly, you'll see clearly that submitting yourself to him is the logical choice. You try it and experience peace, freedom, and joy, confirming that you've made the right choice. (Should you choose not to submit yourself to God, your will never receive any such positive confirmation.) 

*What We Know and Must Do

       In today's Gospel reading from Luke 13, someone asked Jesus, "Lord, will only a few people be saved?" Jesus did not answer the question directly, but made it clear that the gate through which we must enter to be saved is narrow and that many would not be strong enough to enter through it. He said that the evildoers would one day find the door locked and hear the Lord say to them, "I do not know you. Depart from me." When they found themselves cast out of the kingdom of God, there would be wailing and grinding of teeth. 

        We do not know who will or will not be saved for sure, but this much we know: Hell exists and will not be empty. Therefore, know God as intimately as possible now to avoid being cast out later. It's such a serious matter that we must absolutely pay serious attention.

***Possessing the Kingdom of God

        This is today's Gospel reading from Luke 13: Jesus said, "What is the kingdom of God like? To what can I compare it? It is like a mustard seed that a man took and planted in the garden. When it was fully grown, it became a large bush and the birds of the sky dwelt in its branches." Again he said, "To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch of dough was leavened." 

       This tells me that the kingdom of God is to let God completely fill us so that we bear fruit to the max. This is to be in union with him. When we let God do whatever he wishes with us, we are free! And the kingdom of God now belongs to us.

Most Treasurable Moment

        Communion experience. Receiving my Lord in the Holy Eucharist is the most treasurable moment of my day, for it's the moment he heals my soul again.

***Wise Advice!

        Do not let your trials and tribulations bother you, for they will all pass. But be on guard for the safety of your soul, for it lives on forever. 

Power of God's Holiness

        Because God is holy, he can make all of us, you and me, holy too!

To Be Like God

        Today's Response to reading from Psalm 1: Behave like God as his very dear children. This is a lovely verse. If we obey God in every way, then we become his dear children and become like him. To get there, seek union with God.

**How to Know God

        Since God is greater than us, for he is our creator, we are incapable of proving that he exists; only he can prove to us that he is real by revealing himself to us. This is exactly what happens when we surrender and open ourselves up to him. As a corollary, I can say that our eternal destiny is also totally dependent upon how each of us responds to his love and mercy. In the final analysis, it's always between you and God. (Read Mother Teresa's "Do It Anyway" poem.)

The Never-Quit Spirit

        Many prominent world leaders and figures attribute their success to never quitting on what they wish to accomplish. This dominant spirit is laudable, for it does increase anyone's chances of success. My thought is that if you never quit believing in Christ with all your heart, you will be 100%-sure rewarded with eternal life, for the Lord is 100% trustworthy. 

Rules of Life

        When I was very young, my grandfather already started telling me some of the rules of life he had learned which he thought would benefit me too in my life. As I grew up, I began to learn many more rules from my own life experiences. Later, after I came to know Christ, I had to discard or modify many of them. I now see one rule that a Christian must follow, that is, no matter what I contemplate doing, it must be according to God's will. Naturally, I am excluding the usual routine chores; I am talking about the more unusual ideas that pop into my mind. It is easy to brush God aside and follow your own intention. Therefore, the rule is to make sure that whatever we attempt to do, we are prompted by the Holy Spirit. The sign that we are following God's will is that we'll have inner peace.

Being One With God

        Communion experience. I already have the Lord, so I am back to my creator, the only Creator of the universe and all other things. With him, I am at the center of all creation.

To Be Assured of Salvation

        In today's Gospel reading from Luke 13, Jesus tells the need to repent and to bear fruit to be assured of salvation. So, essentially we have three requirements to fulfill: accepting Christ as our Lord and Savior, repent, and bear fruit. Actually, if we fulfill the first requirement faithfully, the other two will automatically be fulfilled too. But there are Christians who slack off and think that their sins are OK, thus putting off repentance, and easily fall into living a more self-centered life, no longer bearing any fruit for the Lord. Their salvation is now no longer assured. It comes down to following the Lord closely to remain vigilant. 

**Knowing Yourself

        Communion experience. I was shaken, not our of fear, but because I was awed by the fact that the Almighty One should love and care for me so much. Who am I? Now I know.

Who God Is

        There are many answers besides being our creator, Lord and Savior. Today I see that he is the one to whom we can confidentially submit ourselves for completely healing in every way to make us whole.         

To Be With God or Not?

        In today's Gospel reading from Luke 12, Jesus announced that he had come to establish not peace, but rather division, on earth. But Jesus is the prince of peace, so any division could only be caused by whether we accept and believe in him or not, as we all exercise our free will. The truth remains the same, and it is because he is the truth that this division matters gravely to both him and us. (Know that the devil aims to get us divided among ourselves.) 

Christ the Savior We Need

        Do you know that without our Lord and Savior, our souls are heading for eternal death? But his love and mercy can change our course to put us on the straight path to heaven when we accept and believe in him.

To Be Prepared Our Duty

        In today's Gospel reading from Luke 12, Jesus said to his disciples: "Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come." Even if we know when the Lord will come, we still should be prepared. To be prepared is to be holy. Consider it to be your duty. Just know that he will come. When he will come is not the real issue here.

*Christ Becoming More Beautiful

        Christ is already perfect and most beautiful. If he is becoming more and more beautiful to you, that's because you are opening up your heart more and more to him.       

*The Happiest Person on Earth

        God has so made us that we'll never be completely satisfied until we possess all of him – this I know and can assure you. Therefore, to know Christ fully is to be the happiest person on earth!

Joy of Christ's Coming Again

        Christians look forward to the Second Coming of Christ. As time goes by, their joy intensifies, for they know that the waiting is getting shorter.

Feeling Good About Knowing God

        Resumed attending daily Mass this morning. I felt so good about knowing and obeying Christ. The entrance antiphon from Psalm 17 perfectly stated what I wanted to say to the Lord: To you I call; for you will surely heed me. O God; turn your ear to me; hear my words. Guard me as the apple of your eye; in the shadow of your wings protect me.

What Is Death to You?

        We all face death one day. Some of us may buy our own burial plot and/or plan our funeral in advance, but more of us don't think about it until we have to, for it is not a pleasant thought. If you don't know God or have only a weak faith, you are basically heading into the unknown and I imagine you'll definitely experience anxiety and fear in going through possibly the greatest uncertainty of your life. On the other hand, those who have come to know the Lord intimately as in union would look forward to meeting their most beloved face to face with great joy, for to them death is merely a portal through which you enter paradise.

God Most Essential to Us

        He is the only one without whom we cannot possibly exist, let alone live.

*Living Your Age

        I am at the age my body tells me that I can no longer grower stronger with muscles sagging, skins wrinkling, and any bruises showing up easily. I can no longer recover from any physical injury as fast as when I was young. I get out of breath easily doing any physical work and trip over things while walking if I don't pay extra attention. By all these signs the Lord shows me clearly that I am living my last days on earth. Not living our age is not realizing that when we are 20, we have likely sixty more years to live and when we are 50, perhaps 30 more years. The big foolish mistake we make is that we plan and live as if we shall last forever. Then when the time comes and we have nothing to show that we have done anything for the sake of God, we'll have wasted our entire lifetime. (I was not able to attend Mass this morning, so I just looked up the Gospel reading from Luke 12 for today. Interestingly, Jesus told the crowd the parable of the rich fool, in which 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?" Jesus commented, "Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasure for himself but is not rich in what matters to God.")

No Lonely Christians

        A Christian who knows Jesus intimately or is in union with him is never lonely, while those in the world who have a lot of friends are deep down much lonelier, for their relationships with others are often superficial or transitory, carried on at the mind level, touching the heart at best, but never the soul. 

***Secret of Knowing God

        To know if God is true or not, all you need to do is to trust in him with all your heart and you will know! Obviously, you'll never know him if you do not believe in him. It may not be obvious to you that the more you open yourself up to him, the more he will reveal himself to you, until you and he become one. Now he becomes more real to you than yourself! Now you know him because you know him, not because you've seen some kind of proof. The only way to know God is to allow him to reveal himself to you, to your heart. This is the God to be experienced personally.

*Perfect Prayer

        The Lord's Prayer (the shorter original version without the Doxology) Jesus taught us is as perfect as a prayer can be – you cannot add or replace a line to make it better. It defines perfectly how we should relate ourselves to God.

*He's the One

        Communion experience. Before receiving the Lord in the Holy Eucharist, I knew that receiving him thus would give me eternal life (John 6:53-54). And I knew that Christ was the one I want to be with for all eternity. 

Why Jesus Came

        Today's Gospel acclamation, Mark 10:45: The Son of Man came to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Now you know precisely why Jesus came to us on earth! You have to be mindless to not see that he loves us. 

**Greatest Enjoyment of My Life

        At Sunday Mass this morning, I felt and knew that knowing Jesus had been the unique greatest enjoyment of my life, for it had secured my existence with my most beloved for all eternity! How could I possibly have felt otherwise?  

***Our Highest Calling***

      To be a saint for God known to him alone, with no intention of having the Church canonize you in public whatsoever. Yes, live to hide yourself completely in God! 

Faith in God Matters

        In today's Gospel reading from Luke 12, Jesus said to his disciples: "I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before others the Son of Man will acknowledge before the angels of God. But whoever denies me before others will be denied before the angels of God." He said this because he is the Lord and how you respond to him will make all the difference. He also said, "When they take you before synagogues and before rulers and authorities, do not worry about how or what your defense will be or about what you are to say. For the Holy Spirit will teach you at that moment what you should say." Of course, it will work like this only if you truly put your trust in him and not worry about things. Faith in God always works wonders.

How God feels About us

        I have not yet gotten back to the routine of attending daily Mass, but here's part of yesterday's Gospel reading from Luke 12 which I think we should absolutely know: Many people were crowding together. Jesus began to speak, first to his disciples, "There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the darkness will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed on the housetops. I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body but after that can do no more. I shall show you whom to fear. Be afraid of the one who after killing has the power to cast into Gehenna; yes, I tell you, be afraid of that one. Are not five sparrows sold for two small coins? Yet not one of them has escaped the notice of God. Even the hairs of your head have all been counted. Do not be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows." God knows everything about us because we are most important to him. We should be afraid of him only if we hide ourselves from him. Otherwise, there is nothing to fear, for he loves us.

**Most Beautiful Feeling

        In general, people naturally are very much connected with the world they live in, but it is such a beautiful feeling to be able to tune out all the noises and any tumult around you and commune instantly with your Lord ad God who dwells within you at any moment!

*Why Is Jesus So Beautiful?

        He is holy and he is love.      

Do Not Forget That . . .

the earth is not our permanent home – we are all just passing through.

*How Humility Begins

        True humility begins with acknowledging to God that you are a sinner and need salvation with his help. There is no other way.

*Concern Devoid of Vanity

        Do not be concerned about leaving any legacy or making a mark on the world; be only concerned about storing up your treasures in heaven. 

Easy to Forget

        We usually realize that we need God when we are in a big jam, forgetting that we are dependent upon him every single moment. Wake up – God must be #1 in our life in every way!