***Perfect Prayer***

        I went to the first morning Mass at church on this Sunday. When you go before the Lord, what do you have to say to him? What are you going to ask from him? It seems that a good way of praying is to go before him, say nothing, not ask for anything, but submit yourself completely to him. This is perfect obedience to let the Lord do whatever he wants with you, setting you free. Just imagine, if everyone does this, we'd certainly have instant peace and total salvation! And rejoicing can begin now and last through eternity! Saying nothing but submitting totally to God has to be one perfect prayer.

Why Not Be Holy?

        If you let God take away your sins, why not follow up by asking him to make you holy? People don't do that because they know they would sin again, which is sad. Here's why you should seek union with God. In union, the Lord removes your desire to sin and at the same time inspires you to remain holy. This is how inner peace is born.

Jesus Our Treasure

        For all of us, Jesus should be our most precious treasure. For he is the only one who can liberate us spiritually, and as our creator, mold and shape us into a new being, beautiful for him to behold. Now, to love becomes our vocation and heaven our final destination.  

*Intuitive Proof God Created Us

        It amazes me that we all know that the heart handles our feelings and emotions, and our brain does the thinking and reasoning, while both are merely organs of our physical body. And we all have an inborn conscience too. Intuitively, I clearly sense that God must have created us.

***My Proof That God Is Real***

        I have mentioned that the joy of Christ comes when it comes. You never know when the Holy Spirit is going to surprise you, and what a beautiful, sensational surprise it is! It's as if the Lord ignites that joy within your heart, and it bursts forth instantly, seizing your entire being. It's so powerful that you willingly let yourself be crushed by this sweet love. You just know that it's the Lord. Truly I can say that God is my joy!

***Unbelievable Experience

        Communion experience. I didn't need to enter the Holy of Holies; rather, the Lord God came and enter to dwell in me! Unbelievable, but his infinite love had made it happen.

***Most Fundamental Commitment & Call

        Chastity, poverty, and obedience make up the three vows for men and women religious. A more fundamental commitment for all of us who love the Lord to make is to abandon ourselves in him, more important than any vow. Broadly speaking, one's vocation call is to be a religious or to remain a layperson. The most fundamental call for a Christian is to be holy, underlying any other call.

Choosing Your Path

        Follow Jesus faithfully and you cannot help but end up in heaven. Follow yourself and you'll invariably end up being lost forever. There may be other ways to follow, but there can be only one true path. 

**Solid Link to God

        Because Jesus has come to us as God the Son, we can now be solidly linked to God. Jesus has said to all, "If you knew me, you would know my Father also." We can no longer say we don't see or hear God or we cannot get to know him. In fact, we can receive his body and blood in the Holy Eucharist and attain union with him! God is now all ours for the asking.

Liberated From the Self

        Communion experience. One who lives a self-centered life is not free. Receiving the Lord and being liberated by him is all about forgetting about yourself and living for him alone. 

*In God's Hands

        Today I rejoice that I and everything else are all in God's hands.

**Our Key Revelation

        The Apostles (Judas Iscariot excepted) knew that Jesus was the Christ. That was a tremendous revelation (gift) from God. If we also recognize and believe that Jesus is our Savior, then we have also been chosen. Now we are God's own.  

**Most Exciting Living*

        Life becomes most exciting and rewarding when you go all out for God. For your discover that you can attain union with the Almighty and be transformed by him into a creature delightful to him! You can't help but be delighted about yourself too.      

*Obedience Makes Perfection

        The Lord is perfect. On earth with his help, we can grow to be more perfect. But compared to him, we'll always be imperfect. How perfect we can be depends upon how much we are obedient to him. 

**The God Who Is Love

          In today's Gospel reading from Luke 4, Jesus taught the people and they were astonished at his teaching because he spoke with authority. As a matter of fact, he spoke throughout his ministry with authority and power, yet he is never authoritarian. He is the Lord, but never lord it over us. He is truly the God who is love.

**How to Love Right

        To truly show your love for someone is to respect that person's wish and not do to him what you think might make him happy. For example, my son gives me a nice gift on Father's day. I appreciate that. But I would be so much happier if he would watch some videos I sincerely wish he'd watch instead. In other words, you take into consideration of what your loved one desires. It's the same way to love God. We simply obey him, not doing what we think might please him, which, of course, could turn out to be the same thing, but the motivation is different. 

**Important & Not So Important Things

        I was weeding in my yard early this morning when it was still cool. It may still take a few more mornings to finish weeding all around the house. The Lord made me see that weeding wasn't such an important task, for if I die today, leaving it unfinished would be just fine. So what is important? Let me use an example. Suppose you feel that you should forgive someone, but somehow you keep putting it off. Then you are dying and regret that you haven't let that person know of your intent – that is important. Right now I feel called to share some spiritual insights with someone, I know I should do it ASAP (definitely before I die). As for the weeds, one day they might get all wiped out or get to grow madly – who cares? So you see, anything you do for the sake of the Lord then is important.

*One Reason We Need God

       We cannot cleanse ourselves of sins, so we cannot become holy on our own. Only God can take sins away from us, so only he can make us holy. We absolutely need him.