It struck me today that the forgiveness of sins is a big deal! God can actually take away our sins to make our soul clean again! It is astounding that God can and is eager to do this for us so that we may enjoy heaven for all eternity. Unless you have no sin, how can anyone not care about the forgiveness of their sins?
Tuesday, February 8, 2022
Monday, February 7, 2022
***Another Union Benefit
God does everything properly according to his plan, but we always struggle with making choices. One advantage of having attained union with God is that we know and follow his will, eliminating all struggles. And this is a great joy!
**Acknowledging the Lord*
To know our place before the Lord, we need to realize that we are made in his image and he loves us, that we, having inherited the original sin, need salvation, and that God the Son had already come down to earth to die for our sins so that we might have eternal life in heaven.
***Christ Foremost
Once we believe in Christ and decide to follow him, we must not look back or even sideways. That is, we must not let anything of the past or the present make us lose our concentration upon the Lord. There are just so many things of interest around us that are distracting. Of course, we should dismiss outright anything that can cast doubts on our faith, but we shouldn't let any alleged prophesies and miracles get much of our attention either. Keeping our eyes on the Lord alone is the safest way to proceed.
***Christ's Lofty Stature!
Today's realization while praying the Joyful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary. Christ Jesus is the humblest and meekest of all beings, yet he is the Lord we, the whole world, must answer to. He is most merciful, but if we do not repent of our sins before we answer to him, we become the most foolish of all beings.
Sunday, February 6, 2022
**Desiring the Impossible
After Mass this morning, I had the tremendous desire for God to know me. I knew that he already knew me, so I suppose basically I desired to be loved by him even more, which of course is impossible.
**How to Love
Give yourself to God first, then you will know his love. With this love, you'll know how to love others.
***Receiving the Greatest Gift
Communion experience. Fr. Steven recalled the words of Jesus at the Last supper during consecration of the bread and wine: "TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND EAT OF IT: FOR THIS IS MY BODY WHICH WILL BE GIVEN UP FOR YOU" and "TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND DRINK FROM IT: FOR THIS IS THE CHALICE OF MY BLOOD, THE BLOOD OF THE NEW AND ETERNAL COVENANT, WHICH WILL BE POURED OUT FOR YOU AND FOR MANY FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. DO THIS IN MEMORY OF ME." When I heard these words, it's the Lord giving himself up for us—this is absolutely a huge deal! I was going the receive the greatest possible gift, the Lord himself, shortly!
**God's Sanctity*
God's holiness is so awesome that upon realizing it, those who do not know him would experience great fear and those who already know him would gladly submit themselves to him totally.
**God's One-Two
The selfless, pure love of God first drew me to him and subsequently made me fall in love with him. Then his awesome holiness awed me and made me want to obey him totally.
**Beautiful Eye-Opening Moment
In today's Gospel reading from Luke 5, Jesus, sitting in Simon's fishing boat, asked Simon to put out into deep water and lower the nets for a catch. Simon and his fellow fishermen had worked hard all night and caught nothing, but at Jesus' command lowered the nets. And they caught such a great number of fish that the nets started to tear. The catch filled their boat and their partners' boat to the point of being in danger of sinking. Simon Peter saw this and fell at the knees of Jesus and said, "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." For astonishment seized him. May all nonbelievers and believers have a wake up moment like this. It's such a beautiful moment. It's like the Lord suddenly opening your eyes for you to see the light.
**The Test Catholics Face
As the Holy Church is going thru a period of great turmoil and confusion, Catholics are being tested severely. One thing we must realize is that all Church members, including the Pope and the entire clergy, can sin, but the Lord is always holy. We must never leave the Church, for doing it breaks up the Church which is the body of Christ. We must not do anything to hurt the Lord further. The right course of action to take is to pray for the Church, ourselves, and the whole world even more fervently.
****Love and Obedience
In Corinthians 13, Paul writes, "If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but I do not have love, I gain nothing." This has inspired me to say that if I worship, adore, and praise the Lord but do not obey him in all things; I worship, adore, and praise him in vain and am a hypocrite.
Saturday, February 5, 2022
Making Special Requests to God
In today's first reading from 1 Kings 3, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream and said, "Ask something of me and I will give it to you." Solomon humbly asked for an understanding heart so that he might distinguish right from wrong and judge the people wisely. The Lord was pleased with Solomon and did as he requested. It struck me that we can ask the Lord for what we think would glorify him and he's likely to honor our requests too.
***Challenging Choice
Do you wish to be with God alone or to be with the whole world? The prices you pay and the rewards you receive are vastly different.
***Recipe for Achieving Freedom
You are not free if you only want to do what you want to do. But if you only do what God wants you to do, you become free. This really tells you something.
***Our Only Source of Happiness
There are no perfect nations in this world. You can go to a country and live a pretty comfortable life as long as you don't speak up against the government. Or you can live in a country where the people have the freedom of speech and that right gets abused and you end up with chaos. Also, you can find nations that are materially affluent but morally corrupt. I can go on and on. Yet people still seek to live a happy life in this world, not realizing that life is a lot more than just being happy in this life. It should be clear that you cannot find true happiness on earth. Even if you can, it'll be short-lived. We are made by God to find true, permanent joy in him. So quit chasing after an empty dream on earth and start storing up treasures in heaven to prepare for your eternity. This was what Christ had come to tell us all along. It's either him or oblivion.
***Our Smart Alternative***
As I was praying the 5th Joyful Mystery of the Holy Rosary this morning, the Finding of Jesus in Temple, I recalled the 12-year-old Jesus told his parents after they found him that he must be in his Father's house. This got me thinking that we must be wanting to go back to the Father in his house. We surely don't want to be left outside the Father's house forever!
**Be Christ-Centered
To know Christ, we must know about him first. At some point, we make a leap of faith and become believers. Now the danger is that many things can distract you and lure you away from him. So I advise that you focus exclusively upon him and never let anything make you look away from him. Of course, anything that draws you even closer to him would be fine. Remain Christ-centered and you are sure to reap your heavenly reward.
**Trust in God, Not Ourselves
We do so many things in life, trusting in ourselves. And we don't really turn to God unless we are in some kind of trouble. The question is whether we truly treat God as our Lord. If we do, then we need to trust in him only, consulting him in all things beforehand and leaving the outcome to him. This is the proper, easy, and happy way, believe me. Trusting in yourself basically amounts to letting the blind lead the blind.
****Just in Case You Die
It was in the news that on the 29th of this past month, a young Catholic priest, Fr. Joseph Tran Ngoc Thanh, was killed while hearing confession in his parish church in a city in Vietnam. The death was tragic, but triumphant, for he died serving the Lord. It's better to die like this than dying in sin. Here are two worst ways of dying. (1) You die at the hands of a sin. For example, you lose your temper, fly into a rage, and suffer a fatal heart attack. (2) You die while you are committing some serious sin. Since we don't know the hour of our death, it's best that we be holy at all times. You wouldn't want to be caught dead doing anything that could make you lose your soul forever, would you?
Friday, February 4, 2022
**A Good Start to Becoming Holy
From what I've read so far, it seems that when we go before the Lord to be judged by him, he's going to show us the harm we've done to others, how we badly we've made them feel. (I believe this is what we'll experience when the illumination of conscience takes place.) So it would do us great good to start working on not hurting anyone in any way.
***Repentance and Obedience
The Lord always looks at our intention in whatever we do. Whether we succeed or fail is not as important as our original intention. Sometimes we fail to accomplish God's will because it's not easy, then God understands. Peter's denial of Jesus comes to my mind. If we have sinned, we need to repent the sin. If we have failed to do God's will, we need to pray for more submission to him so that we might not fail the next time. God loves his children who repent and obey him.
**Union with God Strengthened
To want to attain union with God is to want to be like him. We learn his ways and his thoughts. Since we love the Lord, we want to know how he feels about all things. Sharing his joys and sorrows greatly strengthens the union.
Thursday, February 3, 2022
***To Be Spirit-Filled
God is spirit, so to know him we must let the Holy Spirit touch our spirit. Such an encounter is essential for us to be filled with the Spirit and to set our heart on fire. Pray for baptism in the Holy Spirit.
**Hearing God Calling
Some people pray to God hard, do not hear anything from him, and conclude that he does not exist. The better approach would be to remain passive and listen for his voice, for God is always calling us thru various means. Revelation 3.20: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me." In life, anytime you feel discouraged, rejected, hopeless, bored, or burdened down, it's the Lord calling you to look his way. If you'd just listen with your heart, you should hear him calling you to follow him. This would be such a blessing! Of course, if you've already hardened your heart and/or in a wrong environment, you probably wouldn't hear anything or a voice so faint that you can easily dismiss.
**Faith Is Fundamemtal
It is faith that makes it possible for God to forgive our sins and save us, and for us to experience peace and be made whole. All good things spring from faith in God our Savior. Start believing in him with all your heart today.
***GOD'S LOVE***
If we truly love others, we would harbor absolutely no hatred for anyone and forgive always everyone, and we'll have peace in our hearts. Fr. Mark Goring's video today, inviting us to become fire to ignite lives, is most timely. The Spirit-filled message comes straight from his heart.
***God Most Miraculous!
We do not expect to see miracles very often, yet there are ongoing miracles we don't even notice. One prime example is the fact that we can remain alive on earth for many years. This morning before I got out of bed, I noticed the sunlight on a part of the bedroom wall outlining the window opening thru which it came. Then I realized that this light has been visiting me every year at the same time on the same day at the same spot for all these past years; perhaps it's been consistent like that for billions of years since the earth came into existence. This has to be a miracle made by God. I further realized that he must have made the size of the earth, its distance from the sun, the speed of its rotation about its own axis, the speed for it to go around the sun, etc., just right so that we who reside on the earth do not even feel that we are being whirled thru space—all this is truly miraculous too. The infinite God has truly created infinite miracles around us. Actually, everything he does is miraculous, and the most amazing miracle of all is that he loves us and is ready to transport us into heaven to be happy with him for all eternity. Let us appreciate our miraculous God.
Wednesday, February 2, 2022
**Freedom from Fear of Death
Today is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord. In the second reading from Hebrews 2, Paul wrote that the Devil has the power of death, but Jesus can free those who through fear of death had been subject to slavery all their life. It makes me see that if you fear death, you are not free, and the resurrected Lord is precisely the one who can remove the fear of death from us to set us free by granting us eternal life.
**God Exceeding Our Expectations
This we can be certain of. When we start to consider God's beauty, mercy, faithfulness, sanctity . . . all the good qualities, the reality has to exceed our highest expectations, as it is impossible for us finite beings to comprehend fully the infinite God.
***When God Honors Us . . .
he never inflates our ego. Instead he humbles us and fills us with great joy! And our soul is refreshed! (I love my Lord.)
*****The One We Must Face*
Christ or the God of Christ is the only one everyone must face now or later. There is not another one like him, for he is our creator, our final judge, and our God. In John 1, the Apostle speaks about Christ: "He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be." Again in John 14:6, Jesus said to Thomas, "I am the way and the the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." His Crucifixion proves that he loves us and his Resurrection and Ascension prove that he is indeed the Lord God. Since facing him is unavoidable, it'd be wise to face him now, not later. If you don't believe all I've said here, then you are living in an imaginary world.
Tuesday, February 1, 2022
*Big Realization*
In this life, unpredictable things happen to us our whole life. Blessed is the one who finally realizes that he cannot possibly be happy without the God of Christ, turns and gives himself to him, and finds meaning in life and peace in his heart. Now he can finally say what David proclaimed to God in Psalm 86: "You are my God." The has to be the big realization that cheers up the whole heaven.
**Expediting Attaining Union with God
Every time we pray or do anything, we can act to surrender ourselves to God from the heart. This is most appropriate and should speed up our process of attaining union with God.
**Where to Experience God
Just saw this video featuring the Prahran House in Melbourne, Australia. It's a luxurious home beautifully designed with expensive art works filling the whole house. It seems that everything about the house was specially designed and the overall picture you see is quite impressive. Then I do feel that one would not feel free living in such a home, for everything has to be in place and safeguarded. The bottom line is that we cannot be spiritually free if we must serve our own material treasures. In fact, it is in suffering that we find it easy to unite ourselves with the Lord God. (To see and read about this house, you can go here.)
**God Screens Us
When we hire someone to do a certain job, we screen the candidate carefully to make sure that he or she is the best person for that job. Now, to determine whether we are to go to heaven or hell is so much more important that whether we are qualified for filling some job vacancy. The Lord has to be sure that we are holy enough. That's why we need to do everything according to God's will. For every thought, word, and deed of ours he knows and matters.
Monday, January 31, 2022
***One Thing We Must Know***
There are zillions of things we don't need to know in our lifetime, and it doesn't matter. But we cannot afford not to know whether Jesus is truly our God and Savior, for it could be absolutely disastrous for us if we find out after we die that he indeed is.
Sunday, January 30, 2022
***Irresistible Lord
Communion experience. As the bread and wine were transformed into the body and blood of the Lord, his light shined upon me. I was not worthy to receive him, yet I had no choice but to submit myself completely to him. I received the Holy Eucharist, for the Lord is irresistible, and he healed my soul.
Appreciating God
At Mass this morning, I saw myself, a most wretched sinner, before the Most Holy One, yet he understands me perfectly with great love. How could I not be moved and grateful!
** Prayer Coverage
We can just pray that God's will be done, not asking for anything in particular. This is a prayer that that's comprehensive and should please the Lord greatly, for it calls for our total obedience and abandonment to God. Then in Matthew 7, Jesus says, "Ask and it will be given to you." In Luke 18 in telling the parable of the persistent widow, he teaches us to ask for our rights with persistence. I thought about it and saw that we should pray both ways. We need to pray for our total abandonment to God always and our specific needs with persistence.
**Trusting in God ≠ Doing Nothing
When I say that I trust in God and do not worry about any problem that might come up, believing that God will always take care of it, people often misunderstand me and tell me that you can't just sit home, do nothing, and expect God to do everything for you. They are right and they are wrong. Of course, I would do what I can, but if I can't possibly solve my problem on my own, then I am confident that God will step in to help me do it. After all, nothing is impossible for him. In fact, as soon as a problem comes up, I hand it over to him and do my part, knowing that he'll be with me doing his part.
Friday, January 28, 2022
***To Be a Saint
For most people today, to be a saint couldn't be further from their mind. It's easy to think that saints belonged to the past and are totally out of fashion now. The fact is that fashions of our world come and go, while achieving sainthood puts you ahead of all the fashions and you remain in fashion forever! And by the way, there's nothing more exciting and satisfying than being in union with God as a saint.
Wednesday, January 26, 2022
**Be Mary First
In Luke 10, we read that a woman whose name was Martha welcomed Jesus. She had a sister named Mary who sat beside the Lord at his feel listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me." The Lord said to her in reply, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Many has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her." We have to be Martha sometimes and Mary at other times, but we must be Mary first always. When we are Martha, we must be a Martha who does not get anxious nor worry about things. In my own case, prayers, blogging, and other spiritual works must take priority over all other necessary tasks. And I can certainly do all things in Jesus' name and for his sake.
**Clear Choices for Us
Here are our only two choices. (1) We have the God of Christ. He is all holy and loves us. If we follow him, We are set free from sin and gain peace in this life and eternal life afterwards. (2) We have Satan who is all evil and hates us. If you follow him, you may get to enjoy all the worldly pleasures, fulfilling your temporal desires, but then you'll suffer hellfire for all eternity afterwards.
***God Perfect for Us
Of course, God is almighty so that nothing is impossible for him. And through Christ we know that he absolutely loves us. It is clear that he is exactly the one we need, the one perfect for us. Submit ourselves to the God of Christ and we are loved and protected for all eternity. Our life is now completely fulfilled!
Tuesday, January 25, 2022
**Benefits of Prayer
Pray the Rosary is not that easy for some, for you are supposed to meditate upon the mysteries as you recite the words. I believe that when you have the Lord in your thoughts, he is present with you already. And when he is present, no evil can possibly approach you. That's why praying unceasingly is so beneficial.
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