***Joy in a Class of Its Own

        Among all the joys we might experience, the joy of knowing Christ the Lord and Savior is the only joy that is permanent, deep-rooted, and penetrates the soul and liberates the spirit, bar none.   

**Modern-Day Tragedy

         I realize that most people work in mega-cities and face traffic congestion, crowds, commotions . . . on top of job stress. After work they just want to unwind, relax or rest. Life continues on like this and as a result, they just don't get in touch with God anymore. This is tragic—ignoring the soul and not realizing that we need to commune with God to live a meaningful life and gain eternal life. 

*****What You Should Know

          It is that we all have recourse to the Almighty God. We can call on him at any time about anything from our hearts and he hears us and will respond to us! He can do so much for us and specializes in getting us to heaven—so if you don't even look his way, you can't be very smart. Let me testify to you that if you have a lot of pride, you won't ever see God; but if you can submit yourself to him humbly, he'll come to you, set you free, and make you see the truth! 

****Only Thing We Need to Do

        Obedience is all God asks of us. Certainly, we can ask for what we want or need, but praying that God's will be done is most proper and fitting. If you don't know what exactly to pray for, you can always leave things up to God. If we all obey him at all times, there will be peace in this world and no more chastisements coming our way. Obedience to God restores our relationship to God and gets us to heaven. There's not a better way!

***Road to Peace

        Inner peace is experienced when our conscience is clear. Our conscience is clear only if we obey God. So if we rebel against God, we lose our peace. This is how he has made us. It's simple to understand, but difficult to follow, as we are not obedient to God.

**Our All-Knowing God

        I just finished reading Chapter VIII of Garabandal, Message of Hope, entitled "For All to See." It tells the many "wonders" of Garabandal. I was most impressed that God did allow Mary reveal the "secrets" of many through the visionaries during their ecstasies. We all remember many things, but we also forget some of them over time. Here's the Lord, showing that everything about any of us is fresh in his mind; it doesn't matter when it happened. When a doubter wished to see a specific sign so that he might believe, one of the visionaries would went over to him, fulfilling his wish, while still in ecstasy. Knowing that God knows all about us always is reason enough for us to believe in him.

****Calming the Wind for Us

        In today's Gospel reading from Mark 6, Jesus made his disciples get into the boat to precede him to the other side toward Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd that had been with him. Afterwards he went off to the mountain to pray. When it was evening, the boat was far out on the sea and he was alone on shore. He saw that they were tossed about while rowing, for the wind was against them. About the fourth watch of the night, he went toward them walking on the sea. When they saw him, they thought it was a ghost and were terrified. At once he spoke with them, "Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid!" He got into their boat and the wind died down. Let us remember this saying always, for the Lord sees exactly what each of us is going through at any time and will calm the wind for us if we trust in him. (Let me sum things up for you. Believe in Christ with all you heart and you are on your way to paradise to be with him forever!)

**Love That Perfects Us

        In today's first reading from 1 John 4, the Apostle talks about God's love. Because God loves us, the Father sent his Son as savior of the world. More fundamentally, I believe that God wants to teach us how to love. If we become like him and love all his children, then we are saved. This is the love that brings us to perfection. John tells us that perfect love drives out fear, for if we love like God, there will be no more punishment from him. 

**To Be with God Instantly*

         I finished reading Ed Kelly's book A Walk to Garabandal and am now reading Garabandal, Message of Hope by José Luis Saavedra, possibly the best book on the subject. The English edition came out in 2016 and I am reading the 2017 second edition. Conchita, the oldest of the four seers kept a diary. After seeing Mary in the first apparition, she wrote, "And so ended the 2nd, Sunday; a very happy day! We have seen the virgin for the first time. We are all with her, whenever we want." I am struck by that last sentence. We can be with God or Mary whenever we want! They are totally accessible even if we don't see them. Of course, if we are in union with God already, we don't even need to want God to be with him. Anyway, to be with God or the Blessed Mother is just great!

****Fantastic Bonding

        It's a great feeling to be able to share what's deep in your heart to someone who totally understands you and can heal all your wounds and make you whole as well. That person exists and is Christ our Savior. When you share everything within you with him, you bond with him in the process. Eventually, he and you become soulmates, no less. 

***No Need to Ask Christ Questions

        If I meet someone I don't know, to know him I'll have to ask him a lot of questions. Even to know someone already known to me better, there'll still be plenty more questions I can ask. It is interesting that I seem to know Christ whom I have never even met so well that if I see him, I don't feel the need to ask him any questions anymore. Just to be with him is perfect satisfaction and pure joy already. 

**Our Easy Part

        In today's first reading from 1 John 4, we read that God proved his love for us by sending his only-begotten Son into the world as expiation for our sins. Now we can prove that we love God by following his will.

***Why Be Perfect?

        We should be perfect because God loves us and wishes us to be like him.

*****Ultimate Prayer

        It is to be out of God's way so that his will may prevail! This calls for our total obedience to him, thus incapacitating Satan and restoring the order in the universe. 

***The Only One

        Psalms 130:3—If you, LORD, keep account of sins, Lord, who can stand? This makes me ask "If you, LORD, do not save us, who can?" Obviously, The God of Christ is the only one who can save us and forgive our sins if we repent.

****Repentance, a Great Joy!****

        The Lord has just made me see a most beautiful experience. We commit a sin, and it could be a small one. We realize that we were wrong and turn to God to repent. And the Lord forgives us. The moment we realize that we have sinned is a moment of sweet joy! Realizing that you need to repent is truly a most beautiful feeling—it's the Holy Spirit touching your heart or the Lord gazing at you with love! When you confess you sin, the whole heaven rejoices! The Lord forgives you and you are back in his all-embracing love! It's precisely because offending God is such a horrible thing that reconciling yourself to God is so joyful and consoling. Now, you don't sin against the Lord anymore . . . your joy remains constant!

***Seeing the Overall Reality

        It is critically important for us to be aware that good and evil are real and that a fierce spiritual war is being fought between God and Satan for our souls. God who loves and wishes to save us has revealed this to us, while Satan wants us to believe that God doesn't even exist. So we must choose sides. Your have the free will to choose to believe or disbelieve what I've just said here; but since I see that you are actually the cause of this war with your soul at stake, you must consider the whole thing most carefully and not come to any rash conclusion.

***Humility, True and False

        If you want to become holy or a saint, that's actually being humble, for you are willing to set all your pride aside to let the Lord mold and shape you as he wishes. On the other hand, if you think that you are not good enough to become a saint, that is no genuine humility, for you still decide what you don't want to do. Besides, you offend the Lord by telling him it's not possible for him to make you holy. It is clear that God desires that we all be perfect (Matthew 5:48).

**Love's Progression

         Get to know God first. The Lord is so beautiful that it'd be impossible not to fall in love with him once you get to know him well. By the way, the simplest way to know him is to let him know you. Once you're in love with the Lord, you'll easily fall in love with all the saints and holy angels. Loving your fellow human beings is a little more difficult as they are all sinners. But at least you no longer judge or look down on them anymore. As your love for God deepens, you start to see Christ in all of them too.

***Love Strengthens Faith and More

        We need to have faith to move mountains, but to sustain that faith we need to have God's love. The Lord is to be loved by us foremost, as he is love. Receive this love and our faith becomes strong. This love is most precious to us, for it's thru this love that we are saved.   

***The Way to Freedom

        To surrender yourself to God is to be what he wants you to be, do what he wants you to do, and go where he wants you to go. This is the way to become one with God and be set free!

****To Put Off God's Chastisement

           I just enjoyed reading the book A Walk to Garabandal by Ed Kelly. Here's the first message the Virgin Mary gave to the four children (Mari Cruz, Jacinta, Conchita, and Mari Loli) who saw her. It's clearly for all of us.

     "You must make many sacrifices, do much penance, visit the Blessed Sacrament; but first, we must be very good. If we are not, a chastisement will come upon us. The cup is filling up, and if we do not change, a great chastisement will befall us."

       Note that we don't just make sacrifices, do much penance, and visit the Blessed Sacrament; we must be very good first. In other words, we must be holy first! Again, seek to attain union with God is the right way to go.

***Basic Facts Review

      A new year just began. It's the appropriate time to review our basic facts. (1) We are all sinners. (2) To go to heaven, we must get our sins removed by God. (3) We are so made by God that if we remain in sin, we can never be free nor happy in our whole existence. (4) Accept Christ as our Savior and we are set free from our sins and become happy now and forever. 

***Praying for Souls

         I've learned that we need to pray for the souls in purgatory for their early release, since they cannot pray for themselves. And if we pray for them, they in turn will pray for us too. I've also learned that many souls are lost because no one prays for them. Naturally, we cannot get in touch with all the souls, so praying for them becomes our only means of saving them. So pray for all the souls as best you can to help the Lord triumph over the Devil.

***Better Way to Know Christ***

        Before I knew Christ well, I read a lot about various saints and their writings. I felt that all saints were human beings and I should be able to relate to them. St. Thérèse of Lisieux was my favorite. That really helped me know the Lord. Now that I know Christ most intimately, I see that I should have gone to him directly a lot sooner, for he became a man when he came to us on earth. So today I recommend that you go straight to him if you want to know him. Open up to him to let him reveal himself to and teach you directly. This will save you much time and effort. Of course, you can still read about the saints to bolster your faith. But tactically, "To Christ First" is the better approach.

***God Is All for Us

         Today I realize that God wants to rule us because he wants to protect us, guides us, so that we may have eternal life! That is, he wants us to become happy forever! Yes, he has nothing but love for us, so I can say that he is all for us! I am making it clear to you now in case you still have doubts. There is no one more on our side than our Lord and creator, the God of Christ.

**Belonging to the Heavenly Family

        Today is not a holy day of obligation, but I went to Mass anyway, as there's no better way to start a new year than receiving the Lord in the Holy Sacrament; besides, it is the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God. When you unite yourself to the Lord, you become one with the Holy Mother too. As a matter of fact, you now belong to the entire heavenly Family! 

**New Year Is Renewal Time

        The beginning of a new year is the time to begin living for Christ again, for he is forever new and can renew us to become like him. If you do not accept him, you remain your old self, living in darkness.

****Year-End Reflections and Wishes

       Some thoughts as the year concludes. As my time on earth becomes increasingly limited, doing the will of God is now my only priority. Prayer comes first. At this point, blogging to draw as many people to the Lord as possible through the Holy Eucharist is my primary mission. I leave how much I can achieve entirely to Christ and care only about how obedient I am to him. I still enjoy playing the piano and photographing with my iPhone, but they no longer have any hold on me. It's a beautiful day today with blue skies, white clouds, and green grasslands all around, begging me to go outside to enjoy the outdoors, yet no feeling can ever be more exhilarating than knowing that the Lord God dwells within you.  
          My prayer is that every single person will come to know that Christ is our Lord and Savior. I wish more than anything else that you will let him love you so that you may love him and enter heaven. There is no greater joy than giving Christ joy. 

***Glory Be to Our Lord***

         Today's Gospel reading at Mass began with the Gospel of John. I'd like to present the first 5 verses below to glorify our Lord on this last day of the year 2021.

        In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. he was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

***Greatest Revelation and Test

         John 1:14a, 12a is today's Gospel acclamation. "The word of God became flesh and dwelt among us. To those who accepted him he gave power to become the children of God." This has to be the greatest revelation to us, for it is stunning, awesome, and incredible! Of course, to those who do not believe, it means nothing. But for those who believe, it is everything! The Lord wishes to take complete care of us— and it's up to us to say yes or no to him. So this greatest revelation is also our greatest test.

*****God's Love at Work

        This year is coming to an end tomorrow. I'd like to share this story which is basically a happy one, for it shows how beautifully God's love works. Here's the site. If you are looking for a good charity to make a donation to, you have an ideal candidate here. 
          May you have the brightest New Year coming to you!

***Same Old Dilemma

        In today's first reading from 1 John 2, the Apostle writes, "Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life, is not from the Father but is from the world. Yet the world and its enticement are passing away. But whoever does the will of God remains forever." It seems as if the Apostle had just seen our world today. To love the Father and not what's in the world is indeed most difficult. The only remedy is to do the will of God. So we must know God first. To attain union with God is of course the way to go. It again comes down to how we respond to God's call. We can keep on loving the world, which is easy, or turn to loving God, which is possible if we were humble enough.

***Our Best Prayer

         Abandoning ourselves totally to God without reservation. 

**Nobody Becomes Somebody

        Be a nobody in the eyes of the world and you become somebody before the Lord. (You can achieve the same result by living for Christ only in secret.) 

**False Humility & True Lack of Pride

        If God asks you to become a saint and you say "Oh no, I am not good enough"—do you know that this is false humility? On the other hand, if you say "Yes, I'll do it"—this shows that you are humble enough to know that nothing is impossible for God and you do not let the your pride get in the way.    

**Are You a Burden or Joy to God?*

        Do Christians carry a heavier burden than non-Christians? I believe so. That's because a Christian feels the tremendous pain the Lord suffers as the entire world sins against him. What is amazing is that Lord helps carrying the burdens of all his servants with joy! 

***Purify the Vaccines!

        Fr. Mark Goring follows up his video Tainted Vaccines of yesterday with a new one today. You can learn more and do something about it by visiting the website https://cogforlife.org/. (Note: Today is 1/26/2022. It looks like YouTube has removed this video. Anyway, you can still visit the website given here.)

**Tainted Vaccines

        Fr. Mark Goring's new message. In case you don't know, not all vaccines are "clean." 

***Christ Our Determinator

        In today's Gospel reading from Luke 2, we have the presentation of the child Jesus in the temple. Simeon blessed Joseph and Mary and said to Mary, "Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." Indeed, it is through Jesus that all our hearts will be judged and our destiny determined by him. For he is our creator, our judge, and our Savior! 

***Why I Love the Holy Spirit

        I love God the Holy Spirit for the following reasons. (1) He makes me new and keeps me refreshed. (2) He teaches me in all things and revealed the truth to me always. (3) He sets my heart on fire to glorify God to the max in this life. (4) Last but not least, he is the greatest joy to me.

****Proclaiming God's Glory

        From Psalm 96, today's responsorial Psalm, I read the following: "Announce the LORD's salvation, day after day. Tell his glory among the nations; among all peoples, his wondrous deeds." We Christians must never stop spreading the good news and telling people what the Lord has done for us! Never let anyone who reacts negatively to us silence you. Even if there is no one around, we need to proclaim the glory of God to the mountains and the sea. The joy of God is not to be suppressed!

***Learned from Saint John the Apostle

        Today's first reading comes from 1 John 2. Two things the Apostle wrote impress me. (1) "Whoever keeps Jesus' word, the love of God is truly perfected in him. This is the way we may know that we are in union with him." So obedience to the word of Christ leads to union with him. (2) "Whoever says he is in the light, yet hates his brother, is still in the darkness." So whoever remains in the light of Christ does not hate anyone anymore. This is how we remains in peace. If you are still angry at a brother or sister, you are not yet walking in the light of Christ.

**Never Worry for the Lord

        We often pray to God for some favor and wonder if he is going to grant it to us or not. Well, the Lord knows exactly whether what you ask for is best for you or not and how he should respond to you. If we don't have peace after praying to him, then you are in a way worrying for him. Our role is to trust in God completely and wait for things to work out in peace. Know that faith can only get stronger after being tested 

**Being Secure in God's Light

        Today is the Feast of Holy Innocents. In the first reading from 1 John 1, the Apostle writes that God is light and exhorts us to walk in that light. I love the Lord shining his light on us always while we fellowship with him, being cleansed by him from all sin and prevented from sinning anymore. No darkness can now invade our space again.  

**That Which Completes Our Joy

        Today is the Feast of Saint John, Apostle. In the first reading from 1 John 1, as an eye witness and Apostle of the Lord Jesus, he writes, "What we have seen and heard we proclaim now to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; for our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing this so that our joy may be complete." When we are in union with the Lord, we attain the ultimate fellowship with him, and our joy is complete. This joy, being the ultimate joy that surpasses all other joys, becomes the only joy we need to possess. It is the joy what will sustain and vitalize us for all eternity. 

**Another Christian Joy

        The great joy for those who follow Christ is, of course, knowing that they will be in heaven with him forever. Another joy we mustn't forget is that when that happens, we'll be like him ourselves!  

**Saving the Family

         Today is the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. In these evil times, Satan has succeeded in breaking up so many families. It's common to meet Catholic parents whose sons and daughters were raised in the Catholic faith but have left the Church altogether. When prayers don't seem to work, the parents are left with no choice but to give their children completely to God. This is a good move, but remember that if you truly trust in the Lord, your burden is now carried by your heavenly Father and you mustn't let it burden you anymore.

**Learning How to Love

          If you love anyone, you must be concerned about that person's soul and eternal life. If you don't live a good spiritual life, you basically don't love yourself. Love Christ first and foremost and you'll know how to love everyone else and yourself right.

**Completing God's Joy

        Communion experience. God has completed my joy. I must now focus upon completing his joy.