***Realization Before Communion

        At Mass today when the bread and wine were consecrated to become the body and blood of the Lord, I realized that the Lord gave up his own body for our salvation and poured out his own blood for our redemption. This shows how truly precious we are to him! Therefore, we must not neglect ourselves spiritually anymore.  

***Our Only True Joy

        At Mass this morning, I felt that Christ was my only true joy. Sure, there are many things that do make me feel happy at times in this world, but that kind of happiness is never deep or permanent and is often just self-gratification, while the joy of Christ liberates your soul and permanently renews your spirit. All pleasures and delights of the world simply pale in comparison. That Christ is our only true joy is no exaggeration. 

*****Union Leads to Perfection

        To be perfect, we must be like Jesus. To be like him, we must seek to attain union with him first. And the perfect moment to do that is right after you receive the Holy Eucharist, which is a direct invitation from the Lord to ask you to be one with him in spirit.

***Goal of Receiving Holy Eucharist

        We receive the Holy Eucharist at Mass to be nourished by the Lord to become spiritually strong. But specifically, it is more important and a higher goal to receive the Lord so that you may attain union with him.

***Quality Prayer Needed

        The Lord needs our prayers to convert the world. For Catholics, the Holy Rosary and the Chaplet of Divine Mercy are powerful weapons. Of course, we can always pray in our own words too. The more people we have praying, the more we can be of help to the Lord. If there are not enough prayer warriors, we who pray can always increase our fervor. There is no limit to how earnestly we can say our prayers. Meaning every word we pray from our hearts is a lot more helpful than having a much greater number of people praying without zeal. So pray boldly, humbly, and with your heart on fire.   

***God a Joy to Deal With*

        I am a human being and as one who have lived long enough, I know that we beings love to be clever, to devise ingenious ways of attracting others or making things attractive, and plot and scheme to achieve our goals. Now, I look at the Lord. He is so refreshing because he is absolutely straight forward, completely transparent, always genuine, tells it like it is, and his "Yes" means "Yes" and his "No" means "No." He is a joy to deal with. That's why I love and trust in my Lord.

**Praying for Recourse to Mary

        Mary's favorite prayer is the one she instructed St. Catherine Labouré to inscribe on the Miraculous Medal: O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee. (I know it's her favorite prayer after hearing the amazing conversion story on this video.) I thought for those who do not know the Holy Mother yet, we could pray "O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for those who do not have recourse to thee yet."

**We Are Miracle Workers!

        God works all kinds of miracles. Many such miracles happen because of our prayer. So we are in that sense miracle workers too. We don't create miracles ourselves, but we can make God do it for our sake. In Matthew 17:21, Jesus said to his disciples, "Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." Yes, have faith and become miracle workers.     

**God Grants Joys

        I have blogged that quite a number of years ago, some goats killed a tall tree whose leaves turned yellow beautifully in the fall on my property and I felt pretty bad about that. This morning as I was walking around the house praying, I looked out the window and saw a young tree with the same beautiful yellow leaves in the distance. Of course, that's a volunteer, for I have never planted anything out there. And it was a happy sight! I really felt that it was the Lord giving me something to make me happy. It's not a huge thing, but knowing that he rewards me like this is gratifying.

**Most Satisfying Knowledge

        When you are one with the Lord, you experience freedom, peace, and joy. But today I realize that just knowing that you are one with him is most satisfying. It may not be as "glamorous" as freedom and joy, but equally satisfying nevertheless.

**Wake Up to Reality*

        If you can see clearly that every single one of us will soon end up in heaven or in hell, you will change your entire outlook on life. For you will wonder why you still pile up perishable things on earth, why you waste so much time trying to humiliate someone you don't like, why you do not forgive anyone, why you still worry about things of this life so much, why you live such a self-centered life, etc. This should help you see that you need to focus upon God and the not-too-distant future and not upon how you are going to have your way the next day. Wake up and live a life worthy of being allowed into heaven. God is waiting.

**A Christian's Super Vision

        Knowing Christ well is like being given a pair of eyes with super vision. You see the world clearly as the Lord sees it. Both righteousness and evil markedly stand out. You see the the fakery and foolery of the world and the hollowness of people's ways. It can be depressing. Then you turn to the Lord and see all his glory, holiness, and mercy, and you are totally uplifted.

***God the Miracle Worker

        The birth of a new baby is a miracle. It's the Lord God creating a new life that never existed before. Then I thought of how the Lord can transform any one of us into a new creature. This is equally amazing. For one could have been a most wretched sinner and now he is a holy saint. It's all his doing and we should be excited about the Lord's amazing power and grace. 

***Cause of Division

        The Lord God can surely cause division among us. You can say you trust in God and people laugh at you. Then to justify your own action, you say I leave it up to God. Christians even quote Holy Scripture to attack other Christians. This is the cause: we still listen to ourselves and not to the Lord. It comes down to our lack of humility. Shame on us.

**What to Do with What You'll Leave Behind

        We all have possessions in life that mean something or a lot to us, and we think about how they should be taken care of after we leave this world. You certainly wouldn't like to see them disposed of as trash. This is a legitimate concern. Then it seems rather ridiculous to be concerned about that if you are not even sure that you're going to heaven. A natural disaster can happen and wipe out everything you have and there's nothing you can do about it. Once you are gone, people might do anything to what you had and there's nothing you can do about it either. So my advice is to make sure that you are heaven bound first, and then take care of what you'll be leaving behind and let it go. If our intent is to follow Christ all the way, we just don't look back, period.

***Getting Along with Others

        So many people can't get along with others for all kinds of reasons, not knowing or ignoring the fact that Christ can completely change us to make us get along with anyone. Nothing is impossible for God if we let him. The bottom line, if we can get along with Christ the Lord, we'll be able to get along with everyone else and have peace in this world!

The Miraculous Medal

         I wear the Miraculous Medal and it is truly a miraculous medal.  Originally, it was called the Medal of the Immaculate Conception, also know as the Medal of Our Lady of Good Graces, for the wearer receives many graces from God through Mary.

**Sacrilegious Communion!

        Working for the Devil and receiving the Holy Eucharist—how sacrilegious can you get! 

**Sharp Contrast for Us

        In today's first reading from Romans 6, Paul couldn't have made the contrast starker: For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. We have "working for the Devil" vs. "receiving a great gift from God" and "death" vs. "eternal life."

***Deep Faith in God

        We may feel that we are not doing much for God and still fulfilling what he wants us to achieve. As long as we obey him always, our fruit may not be known to us. Just like prayer, if we pray from our heart, the Lord will accomplish what we pray for, even though we may not see the result at all or not yet. Only in the true God is blind faith a beautiful thing.

**How God Answers Our Prayers

        Since God loves us so much, you can be sure that he will answer our prayers in such a way that would benefit us spiritually the most. But we need to be patient, for only he knows the proper time for us to receive our answers. He'll never abandon us even if we abandon him. So keep your faith always. 

**Cause of Depression

         A sinner who does not know Christ can never be truly happy in this life, for his sins remain with him.

**Sinners Beware!

        We are not even holy and feel hurt when others offend us. Now, our Lord is totally holy and blameless, imagine how much he would feel hurt when we offend him! 

**Faith Essential

        Faith is essential to believing in God. Without faith, I can force myself to believe in God as hard as I can and I won't hear from him. God is always open to us. So if we have faith and open ourselves up to him, he easily enters to reveal himself to us and we can even attain full union with him. This is why faith is so precious.

*Jesus the Truth

        I prayed the Glorious Mysteries of the Holy Rosary this morning. The first three mysteries are Resurrection, Ascension, and Descent of the Holy Spirit. If you show me videos of these events, I might question their authenticity, but they were in fact all eyewitnessed by the disciples and in the case of Resurrection and Descent of the Holy Spirit, by a multitude of people. So I believe that they are all true. Besides, if one of them were not, then everything about Jesus cannot be true. Anyway, the best convincing evidence comes down to one's own experience with the Lord. Once you know him, you know that he is the Truth.

***Taking Care of Your Conscience*

        Daily examination of conscience is a good practice to perform before we go to bed so that we may not commit the same sins again tomorrow. The Lord showed me a superior way that offers a permanent solution—that is, you surrender yourself to him more and more daily until you attain union with him. Once there, he will totally take care of your conscience and everything else. It's focusing on his power and not on your own weakness that always works out best for us!

**Sign of End Times

         After Jesus had been detained and sentenced to death, no one came forward openly to defend him. After the crucifixion, standing by the cross were only John, Jesus' mother and her sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. Of course, after Jesus rose from the dead, things completely turned around for his followers. Today Christ is being persecuted worldwide, even by his own people, and relatively few come forward to defend him, and we already knew that he had risen from the dead. So our situation is even worse than that of the people of Jesus' days.

***Readying Ourselves for Judgment***

        In Luke 21, Jesus said to his disciples, "Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man." Christians are facing tribulations right now. What we'll all face next is the Lord himself, and this will be our most important encounter with anyone of our entire existence. So we must truly be vigilant and pray that we'll have the strength needed for that moment. The great smart move is to submit ourselves to Christ totally to become one with him now, then we'll have all the strength we need for anything. 

***Doing God's Will a Delight

        From today's Psalm 40, we read "To do your will, O my God, is my delight." Doing God's will does become a delight once you have fallen in love with the Lord. When you are in love, you naturally would want to do everything to please your beloved. Since God is our most holy and loving Father, falling in love with him becomes pure gratifying joy. To get started, all you need to do is open wide to him to let him draw you all the way to his heart.

***Warning to Our Generation

         A serious, urgent message we need to hear, especially our youth.

***What Are You Doing in Life?

        Today is the Feast of St. Luke. The Gospel acclamation, John 15.16: I chose you from the world, to go and bear fruit that will last, says the Lord. To bear fruit for the Lord is what we should be doing. Otherwise, we waste our whole lifetime. Of course, you may not see it that way if you do not believe in Christ yet. Then let me ask you what you are doing. Are you only trying to keep yourself happy while you are in this world or just drifting on, not knowing where you are headed? Either way, you are being myopic and foolish, for you neglect your more precious possession, your soul.

****Praying Without Limit*

        I have posted about this before. To reject God, it's easy. You reject him and it's bye-bye forever. On the other hand, to love God, you can love him as much as you want, for there is no upper limit to that. And this is exciting! Now, prayer is the same way. You can say a prayer without paying any attention to it and it'd be worse than having not prayed at all. Or you can say it, meaning every single word with all your heart and focusing 100% on the Lord. And here too there's no upper limit to how sincere and devout you can be. This is also exciting, for you definitely would experience your closeness to the Lord and know that he hears you. An absolutely rewarding experience!

*****Where We Must Never Go!**********

        The lava flow that's continuing in its 4th week on La Palma is a terrifying sight. The suffering in hell is even more terrifying, for unlike the lava flow it continues on forever. So for the sake of your soul, aim for heaven. God wants to save all of us from going to hell and we'd better listen to him. I just can't emphasize that enough! I just can't emphasize that enough! I just can't emphasize that enough!

***That Uncomfortable Feeling

         The name Jesus is holy, for he is God. Yet there are many who, even though they may not use his name in vain, do not wish to hear it said. Obviously, the name, unlike any other subject, bothers them. Hearing it makes them feel uncomfortable. This is a clear sign that they need him as they try to avoid him. They should know that their reaction is a grace and that we were all created that way so that we may know that he is exactly the one we need in our lives.

*****Christ Our Greatest Gift

        Today's Communion experience. I know that receiving this bread from heaven can and will change me forever. The Lord is now all mine; he's all I need forever.

***How We Are Set Free

        Jesus said to those who believed in him, "If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31-32) Since Jesus is the truth, knowing him does set us free. So how are we set free? We are set free when we become free of ourselves so that we no longer lord it over ourselves and we let Jesus truly be our Lord. A very cool move.

**Jesus Speaking as Lord

       In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 10, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus to ask him to grant that in his glory they might sit one at his right and the other at his left. Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?" They said to him, "We can." Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink, you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right or at my left is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared." To me, the fact that Jesus knew exactly the answer to what James and John asked shows that he is indeed the Lord God. 
         He also said to all the Apostles, "You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." Here he revealed to us how to be great in heaven and that he was their perfect selfless example.

**A Church Divided

        In Luke 11:17, Jesus said, "Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste and house will fall against house." Today, our Church, Christ's body, is completely divided. We have bishops against bishops, cardinals against cardinals, priests against priests, creating great confusion for the laity. If the Church had been united and remained strong, evil wouldn't have been able to infiltrate her. This is the critical time for all Catholics to choose sides, for our souls are at stake. This I know, if we stick with Christ and the original teachings of the Church, our souls will be secure.

*****How Great God's Love Is!

        God's love for us is infinite. Our Holy Mother who prays for us unceasingly loves us as her own children. It's not possible for us who are finite beings to feel or imagine how truly great God's loves is. One thing I know, if you can feel it, you'd want to surrender yourself to the Lord completely on the spot.

***Christ Truly My Lord

        Attended Sunday Mass this morning. There were so much on my heart I'd like to share with Christ and so much I'd like to receive from his heart. I felt great joy in him and also great sorrow for him. I desired to be one with him more than ever. He truly is my Lord.

*2023 Synod Prophesied

        An interesting message. If true, then the illumination of conscience probably won't take place until after the Synod ends. 

***Our Top Priority

        Christ is supposed to be our Lord and the most important and influential person in our lives, yet we Catholics hardly mention him outside our church or at any nonspiritual gatherings. This is not the way it should be. Protestants are used to giving testimonies, so it's easier for them to bring up Christ. Many prominent Catholics do talk about Christ with zeal, but not surprisingly many of them were converts from Protestantism. Anyway, a Christian needs to submit himself to Christ to the point he feel compelled by the Holy Spirit to do what Christ has instructed his apostles to do: "Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature." So we must testify for the Lord.

***Our Body Is Not Ours

         You know you are getting old when you find it hard to get up from the floor and your joints start to hurt after doing your normal work a little too much. You get out of breath easily and walk slower in order not to fall. You notice the wrinkles on your hands and the pronounced blue veins around your ankles. Your bruises turns purple and it takes a longer time to recover from any physical injury. I am experiencing all these things and the Lord made me see that we were given our physical body for living on this physical earth only. When our short life ends, we just drop our body and it'll be gone from us forever. What we need to attach ourselves to and preserve is our soul, which lasts for all eternity. This is a great realization that liberates the spirit.

**God Makes All the Difference

        Here is one of the many videos showing the awesome and terrible power of the volcanic eruption at La Palma, one of the Canary Islands, which has intensified since it began three weeks ago. If I were an atheist, I would probably say that the whole thing is Mother Nature at work. Since I believe in God, the eruption scenes make me want to abandon myself to him more than ever. For without God, I would absolutely be helpless, but with him I'd be secure forever.

****Time to Go All Out

        We are in end times. Most people have abandoned God, including many of his own children who belonged to his Church. We who still hold onto the faith are the remnant. The Lord now depends upon us more than ever. It is because of our prayers that he's giving all more time. We are truly in a position to help him save the World! This is the perfect time for us to go all out for God. 

Mankind Stuck in a Rut

        Matthew 22.14: "Many are invited, but few are chosen." Today God is calling us through numerous messengers, but few pay serious attention to them. So it's "All are being called, but few will listen." Spiritually, mankind has not at all progressed.

*Looking for God

        You may not be aware that we are all looking for God. Then along the way, we run into something that makes us feel good and we hold onto it and it becomes our god. Some of these gods are money, power, fame, music, art, material possessions, worldly pleasures. Then there are some who have found the God of Christ to be their true God. They are the only ones who know they have found the right God and are now set for all eternity.

***Preempting the Lord

        This video again gives us messages coming from Mary, our Queen and Mother. There is nothing new, again pleading with us to believe in her Son, our Lord. God, out of love, always warns us in advance, never forces us to go against our will. Once more, I'd like to point out that in all the numerous messages coming to us, the Lord has never asked us to start a war, to go kill our enemies, or to apply force to get anything done. Instead he has always asked us to convert ourselves first. In Jonah 3, the Lord send Jonah to Nineveh to warn the people in the city that forty days more and Nineveh should be destroyed. People believed God, proclaimed a fast, and all put on sackcloth. When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he changed his mind about destroying the city. So the Lord only wants us to do what he asks of us; if we obey, he will take care of our problem. It is true that if we all convert, we'll have peace and make the Lord reconsider chastising us. Yes, we can preempt the Lord.

***Apostasy Before Apocalypse?

        The video may shock some of you, but I do believe what this priest has proclaimed. The fact that Pachamama was worshipped in the Vatican is revolting to me.

***Joy Comes from Knowing God***

        John 10:27 is today's Gospel acclamation: "My sheep hear my voice, says the Lord; I know them, and they follow me." For us, following the Lord always precedes knowing him well. We may be serving the Lord in many ways while we still do not know him that well yet. This is laudable, but may not be so rewarding. It is knowing the Lord that brings joy to following him! Surrender yourself to the Lord a little more each day to attain full union with him and you'll experience the greatest joy in following him.