Getting Out of Darkness

        In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 6, Jesus mentioned light and darkness. No one can be happy in darkness, but they cannot get out of it because there is no light to show the way. This is the situation of a sinner. The light they need is Jesus. Reach out for him and he will dispel all darkness. 

Rejoicing in God Always

        In today's first reading at Mass from 2 Corinthians, Paul mentioned his labors, imprisonments, beatings, numerous brushes with death, being lashed, beaten with rods, stoned, and shipwrecked, and other toil and hardships. We are to rejoice in the Lord always. All trials and suffering for the sake of Christ are to be welcomed, for he is drawing us to him.

It's the Holy Spirit!

        If you cry out to God calling him Father, if you long for him, if you are grateful to him and rejoice in him, if you feel compassion for all others and are willing to forgive those who trespass against you, if you have the strong urge to share the good news with all and feel bold about doing it . . .  the Holy Spirit dwells within you! 

God's Infinite Genius

        Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson are regarded as the two greatest jazz pianists that have ever lived. Here are two Oscar Peterson videos for you to enjoy. May the genius you see in him make you think of the infinite genius of our loving Lord.

Must-Have Experience

        The prodigal son is saved when he realized his sinful state, repented, and returned to the father to be in his good graces again. We may not be as bad as the prodigal son in the parable, but do you realize that every single one of us needs to go through such an experience, unless you deliberately reject God's mercy and salvation?

Jesus Our Savior

        Today's tragic news: A 21-year-old man shoots nine dead at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. It appears to be a hate-crime. Is the human life no longer valued? Of course, many good people are angry at the killing and feel great sorrow for the victims, yet I see inconsistency in today's general attitude. For example, you can hate such horrible crimes, yet believe in abortion and the death sentence. I see Jesus as our Savior also in the sense that only by following him can we stop all the killings and correct our inconsistent views.

Believing Is Seeing

        Communion experience. The Lord let me see that we'd see his wonders only if we believed in him.

Aiming High

        Jesus the Son and the Father are one ~ imagine joining them to become one with God! This is actually his wish, his plan. Are we not to aim high to let him uplift us all the way to him? Scraping the bottom on our own is just not good enough for us who were made in his image and whom he had died for.

*Forgive, We Must

        In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 6, Jesus taught his disciples about prayer. He informed them: "Your Father knows what you need before you ask him." Remembering this bring us comfort and makes us feel close to God when we pray. After he taught the disciples the Lord's Prayer, he added, "If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions." These are "worrisome" sayings we must take seriously. As of now, I don't believe that many of us are ready to forgive everyone else yet ~ this means that the Father is not ready to forgive them yet, although he wants to. Therefore, it's absolutely necessary that we reconcile ourselves with God before we die, repenting all our sins we could not overcome! Naturally, doing it now is much better than doing it on your deathbed.

Ego Must Go

        In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 6 at Mass, Jesus gave us teachings on almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. In essence, we must not let our ego turn us into hypocrites. It is the ego that makes us want to be seen, known, and recognized. When we want others to notice us and not God, we lose peace. To let others see Christ in us, we must be meek and humble like him. If you are sincere about wanting God to be No. 1 in your life, ask him to take away, in fact, annihilate, your ego first.  

"Bypassing" Judgment

       In John 14, Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." This shows that Jesus is the one who is going to judge us. Then in John 10, we read that the Father gives him his sheep and he gives them eternal life and they shall never perish. What we need to do is to remain being his faithful sheep and we don't need to be concerned about the judgment anymore.

Be a Spiritual Genius

        There are truly many intelligent people in the genius category with very high IQs. If we are not one of them, there's nothing we can do about it because God has not give us this gift. But we can all be geniuses with high spiritual IQs! Perhaps we should call it HQ, standing for holiness quotient. How do we achieve that? All you need to do is to surrender to God to ask him to make you a saint, and he'll do just that!

Best Investment Ever

        In Matthew 6, Jesus made it clear that we can store up treasures in heaven while on earth.  And he said, "Where your treasure is, there also will your heart be" ~ this is beautiful! Therefore, set your sight on heaven and start performing loving deeds, and you'll have your mountain of treasures waiting for you in heaven.

Nutrition for the Soul

        Communion experience. The Holy Eucharist was precisely the nutrition my soul needed, being prepared for entering heaven.

Contrasting Journeys

        It's either living mostly for yourself or living for God. When you live mostly for yourself, you seek to have a good time as often as possible. Then invariably, things don't go your way, causing you to see that life is but a string of consecutive unhappy events with only time to enjoy between events. When you live for God, you live to do his will to please him alone and see unhappy events as permitted by the Lord to further your spiritual progress. Overall, living for yourself is an uneven experience, while living for God is more peaceful and rewarding, not to mention that the two journeys would most likely lead you to different destinations.

Our Greatest Enjoyment

        We do not see Jesus with our eyes, but I can imagine how beautiful he must be during his Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor. Nevertheless, we can discover his great inner beauty. Once we realize how great his love is, how unloving we are, and how we need him, we begin to see how beautiful he truly is. Let this beauty draw us ever closer to him and we end up falling deeply in love with the Lord ~ now he becomes our greatest enjoyment. 

Accepting Hard Teachings

        In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 5, Jesus taught about retaliation. We hear hard sayings such as "When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well," "If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well," "Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles." I essentially see that Jesus wants us to remain undisturbed in all circumstances, to realize that he alone is our judge and love is to override all negative feelings we may have. Seek union with the Lord so that we may follow him to the letter, and we shall be liberated.

On Being Faithful

        Today's Communion antiphon at Mass came from Psalm 27.4: One thing I ask of the LORD; this I seek: To dwell in the LORD's house all the days of my life. To be faithful to God goes beyond believing in him by abandoning ourselves completely to him unconditionally and through thick and thin. It is "to dwell in the LORD's house all the days of my life."