***Heavy Burden in Dark Days

        The world is in darkness. This country is in darkness. I've never felt this burden this heavy on my heart. If I were someone who doesn't know Christ, I probably wouldn't feel it so intensely. Despite the repeated warnings God has been giving us through Mary our Holy Mother and other saints and mystics since the mid 19th century to this day about how we need to turn to him and repent or face chastisements (and some of the prophecies had already been fulfilled), we humans just tragically do not pay any attention and keep on sinning. The darkness began accelerating in the 1960s. We started seeing sexual liberation, divorce becoming common, unmarried couples living together, indecent fashions, immoral movies, legalization of abortion, increase in violent crimes, support of same-sex marriage, Satanic worship, etc. After more than half a century later, thanks to the complacency of the weak, lukewarm Church and people in general, the immoral ways have become acceptable to most of the world. It's in the last four years that the people of this country finally woke up to realize that evil had already infiltrated every segment of this nation except for those who live mostly outside of the big cities, work hard for a living, and are still honest, patriotic, and God-fearing. Although they still form the majority, the money and power are unfortunately not in their hands. The evil ones in control are the various governmental departments (with the exception of the military), courts at all levels, the majority of the news media, the academia, the entertainment industry, and the giant tech companies. The United States, known to be a staunch enemy of Communism, now appears to be on the way to becoming communistic! (This was warned by Mary too.) The burden is heavy on many of us. But don't despair, for God and truth are on our side. There is never a better time for us to choose sides.

*Completely Secure in Jesus

         Today is the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, Apostle. In the Gospel reading from Matthew 16, the heavenly Father revealed to Peter that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus said to Peter, "So I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Of course, Jesus holds all the keys to the Kingdom of heaven. When we abandon ourselves completely in him, we'll be completely secure in him on earth and in heaven!

****Be Prepared for Temptation and More***

        I'd like to talk about temptation again. God often leads those who love him into temptation to test them so that their faith might grow even stronger. The Lord had already revealed to us that the day of his coming would be like a thief at night (Revelation 16, 1 Thessalonians 5) and we must watch and be prepared. Let me tell you that when the Lord decides to test us, these tests also come suddenly when  we  least expect them. The severe ones can totally crush our spiritual life but for the grace of God. So be prepared is the best defense you can built for yourself. The spiritual battle we face is a fight to death for eternal life in God. If you don't take this seriously, continue to live on as usual, and do not know where you are going, but think that everything is going to be OK, then you are following exactly what Satan wishes you to do! Wake up now to avoid being shocked for all eternity! (I'd like to include this important tip. During any temptation, Satan loves to confuse you by making you think that it might be God's will for you to give in, as you do not know his reason yet. But it's crucial to know that if you do God's will, you'll always have inner peace. As long as you still experience turmoil in your heart, you are not out of Satan's grip yet.)

***The Purpose for Which God Has Creatd Us*****

        Today I see that the Lord God has put us on this earth to discover the purpose for which he has created us. I now know the Lord well enough to know what that purpose is. Most people of the world don't know or don't want to know the Lord. They just let him coexist. This is absolutely tragic. I know the following: (1) God is love. (2) We were created by God in his image. (3) God the Son came to earth to save us from sin. These three facts alone are enough for me to see that the Lord had created us so that he would have someone to love as much as he loved himself! This is an eye-opening, mind-blowing, most uplifting revelation! It's all about love. God is love; God created us out of love; and he died for our sins out of love. We only need to accept his love to make this universe perfect! For the love of God, let's make it into a two-way love!

***The Way to Transform Oneself***

         Sermons or homilies that focus exclusively upon Christ the Lord are usually powerful and most effective, while those that focus upon ourselves are usually weak and instantly forgettable. For example, if I tell someone not to worry about anything without mentioning the Lord, that'd be a complete waste of time. My suspicion is that in the latter case, the speaker himself doesn't really know the Lord well enough yet. You see, if you know the Lord intimately, you'd want to talk about only him to others. He's really the only one who can fundamentally transform us. And people need to know this! To rely upon ourselves to change ourselves just won't work. My advice—no matter who you are, surrender yourself to the Lord to attain union with him first, then you'll receive the power you need directly from the Lord to get yourself transformed. After that you won't need to listen to another sermon or homily again, for you already dwell in the Lord!

Feeding the Soul Before the Body

        Today's Gospel acclamation, Matthew 4:4b, was quoted by Jesus from Moses' second long address of Deuteronomy: "One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God." We eat bread in order to sustain ourselves physically. To sustain our spiritual life, we need be fed by every word that comes from God. The spiritual life is so much more important than the physical one. What good is it to have a healthy body but a sick soul? It is a clean, healthy soul that will enable you to live forever.

**Why People Reject Christ

         They cannot prove that he never existed. They cannot prove that he is false in any way. They cannot prove that he is not God. So their only reason has to be that they are afraid to face him as they wish to remain being their own god. They are a bunch of cowardly fools.

***To Be Rewarded Now or Later*

        God rewards all of us. Do you want him to reward you in this life or in the next? I wouldn't want to be rewarded in this life at all, but would prefer to be recompensed in my next life only. If you get all your reward in this life, there'll be nothing left for you in the after life. This fact that God will reward you in the next life implies that you'll have eternal life. The greatest reward for us is actually Christ the Lord himself. Become one with him and you receive the greatest reward both in this life and the next. Let go of all other rewards. Leave any reward that comes from the world in the world. Once you have Christ, eternal life and all heavenly rewards follow. The future with our God can truly be unbelievable!

**The World, God's Eyesore

        A couple of church friends just passed away. They both had served the Church well. One had suffered poor health for years. The other passed away rather quickly after an unexpected health issue was uncovered. May they rest in the Lord's peace now. Meanwhile, I had just witnessed some new births, not human, but still amazing. My older son lives next to me. He and I and one neighbor together own a bunch of alpacas to roam our adjoining lots to keep the weeds down. One alpaca gave birth to a baby just a few weeks ago after a gestation period of 11 months. Yesterday and the day before, two more baby alpacas were born. Births are always amazing to watch. Today is quite a beautiful day, but the world remains ugly in sin. The righteous are fighting the evil ones. With one group marching toward heaven and the other toward hell, a lot of people are caught in the midst still not knowing which way to go. Not a happy or pretty sight. Life should not continue like this. The world will need to turn to God, repent, do penance, and pray, pray, pray, if it ever wants to look good to God and save itself.

****Luckiest Person in the World!

           I've blogged over 11,000 times since the blog took off in 2010. It has to be the Lord's doing, for it would've been impossible for me say so much about the Lord on my own. This month, you could say that I have fallen behind my quota as I have so far received less messages than usual. Zero, yesterday. I realized that should the Lord want me to stop blogging, he would simply stop depositing any messages in my heart. All the more I saw that the blog was all his doing. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. What is important is that we obey the Lord always, doing whatever he wishes us to do for his sake and at the same time not being attached to what we happen to be doing. Using my blog as an example, if the Lord wants me to quit blogging, then so be it. It's what God wants you to do, never what you want to do for yourself. Then you become the luckiest person when you and God happen to always want to do exactly the same thing. 

**Lessons Learned in Suffering

        Twelve days ago, I blogged about my fall. I'd learned these lessons. (1) Being human, no matter how careful we are, we still end up making all kinds of mistakes. So it makes sense for us to abandon ourselves in God now, not until we becomes totally helpless. (2) In suffering myself, I realized how horrifically Christ had suffered for my sake, and this united me to him even more. (3) I also realized that God had made us so that we all need a Mother who can look after us, and the Lord had given us his own mother to us to be that ideal Mom before he died on the cross. I am proud to be a mama's boy when my mama is so holy, beautiful, and perfect. I started calling on her a lot and felt greatly consoled. She's now with me always as she is always with her divine Son.

**To Be Heartless and Foolish

        I read today's Gospel reading from Luke 9 and saw exactly what Jesus said which I quoted in my last post. But before he said that, he said to his disciples: "The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised." The Lord was letting us know that he's going to do all the work necessary for us to receive eternal life. This was a huge price for him to pay. He has sown fully so that that we may reap fully. If you can prove that he is false in any way and believe that you have no sin and don't need salvation, then dismiss him by all means. If not and you still ignore him, then you have absolutely no heart and are being extremely foolish and are to be pitied. 

**Sad Rejection of Truth*

          In today's first reading from Deuteronomy 30, the Lord made it clear through Moses to the people that if they choose to love him, walk in his ways, and obey his commandments, he would bless them and they would have life. But if they turn away, do not listen, adore and serve other gods, they would perish. It amounts to choosing life or death. It couldn't be any clearer. In Matthew 16 (and Luke 9), Jesus said to all, "Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever losers his life for my sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?" It's so sad that the people of the world to this day continue to turn a deaf ear to the truth! They just reject anything that they think would inconvenience them. How self-centered can you be!

**Living for God in Secret

        If money is the root of all evil, then ego is the biggest cause of our unhappiness. In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 6, Jesus said to his disciples: "Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father." In other words, we are to live for God alone in secret and never for ourselves. The is the secret of shedding our ego and attaining inner peace. 

***Responsible for Our Own Destiny

        To get back in God's good graces, you only need to recite verses 3-6ab of today's Psalm 51: Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness; in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense. Thoroughly wash me from my guilt and of my sin cleanse me. For I acknowledge my offense, and my sin is before me always. Against you only have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight. It takes less than half a minute to say the above from your heart to the Lord and you restore your relationship with God and change your eternal destiny! Getting back to God can be so easy. If it's hard, you are the one making it so!

***Tragic State of Our World***

        Today is Ash Wednesday. The first reading from Joel 2 begins as follows: Even now, says the LORD, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God. This is exactly what the world needs to hear, do, and feel, or face even greater chastisements. We need to weep and mourn for our own sins. We need to feel the pain in our hearts for having turned our back on the Lord? Why are we not getting it? Why are we so thick-headed? God has been most patient, but we are relentless in pushing him to the limit. The cup has already been running over. If we don't return to God, we'll be heading straight for our own extermination, and we'll have no one to blame but ourselves.  

**Garabandal Messages and Prophecies*

'        I am sharing this rather long video here, but it's worth watching to learn through the Holy Mother what the Lord God wishes us to do to save ourselves. The warnings are serious. We must pay attention or perish. Nothing new here, but we need to hear the messages again and again as our hearts have been so hardened. There are two more good videos about Garabandal I posted on June 20 and July 2 last year. You may want to look at them too if you haven't seen them  yet.

**If You Are Truly Smart

         Without God's guidance, we'd live in the unknown, not knowing how we got here and where we're going. With Christ the Lord, what's going to happen next may not be immediately clear, but where we are going we always know. We are no longer lost—this is the big difference. We must stop playing hide-and-seek with the Lord, for he knows everything and we will surely lose any game we play against him. Besides, beating God at hide-and-seek would mean that we remain lost forever. If you are truly smart, you would simply turn to the Lord and say "Here I am, Lord. I am ready to serve you." 

True Wisdom

          Let the Lord fill you with his wisdom, then you'll be wise in all things. 

**Man's Ongoing Rebellion Against God

         In today's reading I from Genesis 4, Adam had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, their first son. Later she bore Abel, another son. In the course of time both Cain and Abel brought an offering to the LORD. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not. Cain greatly resented and was crestfallen. So the Lord said to Cain: "Why are you so resentful and crestfallen. If you do well, you can hold up your head; but it not, sin is a demon lurking at the the door: his urge is toward you, yet your can be his master." This is exactly what today's evildoers need to hear from the Lord! Evil was present then is still here today. I've never seen this many resentful and crestfallen people in this country alone. None of them have been seen walking or talking with their head held up high—they are already in cahoots with the Devil and serving him! One day, this spiritual warfare will be over and we who are with Christ will enjoy universal peace triumphantly with him forever. (By the way, Cain did kill his brother Abel later.) 

*Living a Meaningful Life or Not

          In today's second reading from 1 Corinthians 10, Paul advises, "Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God." This may sound cliché or boring to some, or even repel others, but the alternative is to do everything for you own glory, which can lead to eternal death. I can testify to you that doing everything for the glory of God has not only given me the purpose of life, but also made my life exciting and most rewarding. To think that following Christ is boring is one of the biggest misconceptions of our time. Without Christ, you are merely going though the empty motion of living a life without purpose, direction, and true meaning.

***The Joy of Salvation

              Today's reading from Psalm 32 has this verse as the response: I turn to you, Lord, in time of trouble, and you fill me with the joy of salvation. It seems that after we have heard about our salvation so many times for so long, we no longer feel this joy. If we appreciate and think about our salvation, it should keep us excited our whole time on earth! The Lord is waiting for us in heaven. The only reason I don't want to leave this world yet is because there is still work for me to do in serving him. Eternal happiness can wait; it's not something that will ever pass away. Think about it and you feel sorry for those who are lost, but happy for yourself and all others who are in the Lord. The end is going to be bitter sweet, but that will pass too. After that, it'll be everlasting bliss! Now you should definitely feel the joy of salvation. 

***Letting God Work Effectively

         You wish to attain union with God, to really get to know him, or to abandon yourself entirely to him. So you are determined and try hard to achieve it, but that's not going about it the right way. The effective, effortless way is to relax, go passive, and open yourself up to God. Then he sees you and will come quickly to fulfill your desire. Picture the Lord at the top of a high steep mountain and you want to reach him. You can try climbing the mountain, struggling all the way, or just let him see that you'd like go to him and wait for him to send down a speedy tram to carry you to him in no time. As I'd said before, the password for logging into God was "passive." To let God work effectively in you life, just yield yourself to him completely.

*Shielded from Evil

           Today's Communion experience. I received the Holy Eucharist, the body and blood, the soul and divinity, of the Lord. I knew that where he dwells, there cannot be evil. I knew that I was shielded from all evil and that no evil thought could possibly germinate in my heart. Praised be my Lord!

***Only Info You Need to Know About Yourself

           We are all citizens of different countries. We may belong to the upper or lower echelons of society. Our families may be rich or poor, educated or illiterate. Lately, many people are taking DNA ancestry tests to get an ethnicity estimate. Does it really matter that you are 25% Irish, 4% Korean, 1% Ghana, etc.? To me, you only need to know that you belong to Christ and to the family of your heavenly Father. Forget everything else about you, for they no longer matter.

**Our Sin Affects All (Be a Saint!)

        When we sin, we directly or indirectly cause others to sin too and our sin becomes more serious than we think. So we need to be concerned about not only our own, but also all souls. All the more we need to be blameless before God. You can't regard sinning to be your own business, for it offends God and the whole heaven knows about it. Then, keep sinning and you not only draw others away from God, you get yourself condemned in the end as well. God wants to save you and the whole world, so let him turn you into a saint. It'll be so easy for him to accomplish that, once you give him the full green light.

**Not Quite Successfully Transformed

         Christ can completely transform us, making us anew, yet it's often hard to tell Christians from non-Christians. So many Christians hold onto their old ways, following the tradition or the custom of the world. All their empty gestures may appear OK, but not truly genuine. Christ wouldn't have acted like that. Of course, you can say that God's ways and thoughts are way higher than ours, but to let the Lord transform us is to make us think and act more like him. And this is not obvious, when you look at how these Christians live and act. So we are not perfect yet, showing that we have not surrendered ourselves completely to God yet. This is the fundamental challenge all Christians face and must meet if we are to be successfully transformed.

**Folly of Much Ado About Nothing

        Much Ado About Nothing is the title of a comedy by Shakespeare. It describes so well what most people are doing nowadays. They lead their lives and do their things divorced from God altogether. They are busy and occupied, but unknowingly drifting away from God further and further. It there ever will be an awakening, it will most likely come as a shock, still infinitely better than receiving ultimately the worst shock without an awakening.   

**How to Remain Undefiled

        In today's Gospel reading from Mark 7, Jesus said to his disciples, "What comes out of the man, that is what defiles him. From within the man, from his heart, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile." If you agree to what the Lord had said here, then give your heart to him so that you may remain clean from now on.

***To Be with Christ***

        When I am physically suffering, I realize that I am just tasting a tiny, tiny bit of what Jesus experienced when he went through the Passion. Nevertheless, this realization unites me more to the Lord and is a good thing. To go further, if we truly want to be with Christ at all times, we need to experience what he is experiencing at all times.

*****Abandonment-to-God Time

          Yesterday I blogged that I fell while walking. I felt OK at the time, but started to feel the pain afterwards. My left shoulder already had a tendon injury that had never completely healed, so I had been relying on my right arm most of the time. Now, after this fall, the left shoulder has gotten a lot worse; I could hardly lift the arm up high. My left chest is hurting too from the impact of the fall. I had a worse fall some years back. It was the right chest that got impacted badly; it took a month for the pain to go away. I expect it'll be at least a month this time, as I am now older. At a time like this, I must reprioritize my activities. I'll probably stop walking for a while and not do anything that requires the use of both arms. It is the time to pray even more, perhaps get in touch with some friends and relatives to tell them about Christ. When you realize that what you can do is limited, you can see that it is the perfect time to abandon yourself in God! This happens again when you are dying and see that abandoning yourself to God is the only sensible thing left for you to do. But why wait until such moments? Experience the freedom of letting go in God right now. We may suffer physically, but we are free to enjoy even more freedom spiritually!

***Be Aware of Body and Soul

        Let's be absolutely clear that each of us inhabits a perishable physical body on earth and possesses an unperishable soul that lives on forever. Often when our body is giving in to death, we see that as the end of our life and forget that we still have an everlasting soul that's about to begin living a new life, the real life! Realizing this can help us live a much happier and fruitful life. Otherwise, you are just a lost soul, not knowing where you are going. Know Christ the Lord and Savior to let him put your soul on the path to heaven while you still have your physical body.

**God Not Finished with Us

        Another good message from Fr. Corapi to share. 

**No Nonsense Teaching

        It is so refreshing to hear a concise, clear, to-the-point message than some long-winded, confusing, convoluted teaching.

*A Lesson Learned (& First Things First)

         I walk daily from the house to the street and back three times, just enough time to pray five decades of the Rosary. I walk briskly to help the heart. This morning as I was walking and looking sideways for something, I unexpectedly stepped on the edge of the asphalt road, tripped, fell forward and hit the pavement. The impact knocked the frame of my glasses out of shape. I was all right after sitting and resting on the ground for a couple of minutes. I have been falling yearly these past few years. I know that a fall can be detrimental to old folks like me. I am blessed that the Lord has given me strong bones. The lesson learned: no matter how much precaution we take, accidents can still happen. We must not only be careful, we must be extra, extra careful. Here I am only concerned about our physical wellbeing. What about our soul which is infinitely more important than the body? Good thing is that you only need to believe in the Lord and he will take care of our soul completely forever! Do this first before trying not to fall.

**False Teaching by Bishops

         This is a short video on false teaching within the Church posted by Fr. Corapi  today. End times are here. 
      

*****Biggest Sin of This Nation

        Fr. John Corapi has started speaking out again. I have always thought that before asking God to bless this nation, it is appropriate that we repent of the sin of having legalized abortion first. Now listen to Fr. Corapi's clear pro-life message. (Note: The 48 million figure Fr. Corapi quoted for the number of abortions since Roe vs. Wade was on the low side. The number of know abortions hit 60 million in 2017.)

***Unwavering Faith***

        Faith in the God of Christ should be unconditional and unwavering. This sounds good and is right and beautiful. It calls for believing in the Lord under all circumstances, irrespective of whatever happens to you. You may have to live through complete darkness your whole life, but you are fully aware that you'll be with your God for all eternity, knowing that he will never forsake you.

***Be like a Child

         In search of God, the educated ones would read books, research online, or even traveling abroad to find gurus. Sadly, finding nothing concrete, they end up believing that all religions are the same or everybody goes to heaven anyway or that there is neither heaven nor hell, etc. I see myself as a kindergarten kid before the Lord. I just believe what Jesus said to me that if we believe in him, we'll have eternal life. I now feel free, enjoy deep peace, and receive great joy. God has become my dearest father and soulmate. To God we are his little children, but sadly our pride has made us believe that we can find our way around without him.

*Love of Money

        In order to be able to love God fully and freely, we must detach ourselves from the world. Since money is known to be the root of all evil and loved by almost everyone, if we can detach ourselves from money, we are pretty much there. If you hear that someone just made a lot of money quite easily and want to find out how he did it, you still love money too much. You need to know how good it is to attach yourself to God alone before you can detach yourself to money and all the other things. Depending on how willingly you are to let God change you, the process can take a certain period of time or remain incomplete your whole life. It again comes down to "our way or God's way." 

*Be Prepared for the Worst

        This is always good advice. Here, I have in mind preparing ourselves for meeting the Lord in particular. I must apologize to the Lord for sounding as if meeting him is not a good thing. Certainly, for the unrepentant sinners, it will be terrible, but for those who already belong to him, it will be absolutely glorious. We'll meet the Lord after we die or when he comes again, whichever comes first. When you are ready for Christ, you are  ready for eternity! Amen.

***Great Question to Ask Yourself

        If you love to eat and I place a delicious dish in front of you, but also told you that it you eat the food, you'll get a stomach ache or even suffer food poisoning, you probably won't even touch the food. This is being sensible. Then I think of the many men who are obsessed with sex. In our culture this is a huge problem, giving rise to infidelity, pornography, and sex trafficking. In this case, even knowing that illicit sex could spread sexual diseases and cause pregnancies that can lead to abortion of the infant, these men still go ahead just to get some pleasure for their flesh. Probably the one thing that can stop them is knowing that committing such a sin can land them in hell. So we need to consider the consequences seriously before we give in to temptation. Always ask yourself "Do I want to offend the Lord my God and jeopardize my soul?"

*Odd Christians*

         They love to tell others about their family members or friends who are doctors, lawyers, professors, or prestigious in any way, yet they don't tell others or are even ashamed of telling them that they believe in Christ who is supposedly the most important and prestigious person of their life. Why do Christians often relegate the Lord to the periphery or even oblivion?

**We Need Christ to Anchor Us*

         We all live in different environments. Some people live in countries so poor that their main concern is to be able to make a living. And there are rich people in affluent countries whose main occupation is to seek material comfort and worldly pleasures. For those who do not believe in God, they don't care about government oppression so long as they are not affected, while those who believe in God under the circumstances may completely change their outlook on life and rearrange their priorities. We all live in our own world and react differently to different things. How to always know the right thing we should do? I say that we need to firmly believe in Christ and get to know him intimately so that we'll know his ways, his thoughts, and his will. Then we'll just follow him, no matter how circumstances change, where we are, and what we face. We'll feel good, knowing that we are with Christ always.  

**Again, Do Not Judge

        In today's Gospel reading from Mark 6, Jesus got rejected at Nazareth, his native place. When the sabbath came the Lord began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished. And they took offense at him. They came to judging the Lord quickly as the people of today do. To me, no matter how bad someone is, you should always give that person another chance. Jesus does not condemn anyone who is still living because there is alway a chance that person might repent and turn to him. In any case, leave the judging to God, as our judgment of anyone does not affect his in the slightest besides making us look bad.

*****Where to Find Freedom (Power of Infinite Love)*****

        God's love and mercy for us is infinite, and we can let him love us as much as we allow him to. When we open ourselves up completely to him to let his love fill us to the brim, we are set free in our infinite Lord! The love of God now unites us to him as one. In short, when we let God love us as much as he wishes, we are set free.

****Get Disciplined the Smart Way

        In today's reading 1 from Hebrews 12, Paul writes that the Lord disciplines those he loves and that he disciplines us as a father because he treats us as his children. We are not perfect children, so we should welcome discipline when we misbehave. But I do see a way of preempting any harsh discipline. Here's how. You surrender yourself to the Lord, aiming at attaining union with him. Now you let him teach, shape, and mold you to his heart's content to perfect you, while you experience only sweet and tender love! A case of no pain and lots of gain.

*Overcoming Fear of Death

         If you still fear death, you haven't been liberated from the world and yourself yet. The only way to overcome that fear is to attach yourself entirely to God, as in union with him. When you know that you belong to God alone and is totally under his care, you lose all fears, not just the fear of death. 

*Getting Down off Our Pedestal

        Today is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord. The Psalm reading comes from Psalm 24. Here's verse 8: Who is this king of glory? The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle. Then Jesus, the king of glory, came, humble and meek, not strong and mighty as people had expected nor fighting the kind of battle they had envisioned. For his ways and thoughts are higher than theirs as the heavens are higher than the earth (Isaiah 55:9). We are the ones who do not get it. To the ones who got it, they were overwhelmed, for the Lord was more amazing than they could possibly have imagined! We need to be open-minded, objective, and never look down on anyone different from us. Whatever we do to the littles ones, the meek and humble, the weak, the poor ... we do it to the King of Glory.

***In These Dark Days

        We are going through dark times. In this country, we are losing our freedom of speech, religious freedom, our right to life, right to vote, and democracy. It's never been like this since the founding of the republic. This is the result of man falling away from God and ignoring all his warnings that we need to repent and return to him or be chastised. Even the Church did not take these warnings given to us through the Holy Mother, other saints, and various seers seriously. Since my soul is already safe and secure in my God, I no longer fear the death of my body. Psalm 23:4 comes to my mind: Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for the LORD is with me. But I pity those who are lost and not repenting. It seems that they are just asking to be punished—how tragic! And I do share the Lord's great sorrow over their self-centeredness, ingratitude, and hardened hearts. How difficult it is to be childlike indeed!