***The Joy of Salvation

              Today's reading from Psalm 32 has this verse as the response: I turn to you, Lord, in time of trouble, and you fill me with the joy of salvation. It seems that after we have heard about our salvation so many times for so long, we no longer feel this joy. If we appreciate and think about our salvation, it should keep us excited our whole time on earth! The Lord is waiting for us in heaven. The only reason I don't want to leave this world yet is because there is still work for me to do in serving him. Eternal happiness can wait; it's not something that will ever pass away. Think about it and you feel sorry for those who are lost, but happy for yourself and all others who are in the Lord. The end is going to be bitter sweet, but that will pass too. After that, it'll be everlasting bliss! Now you should definitely feel the joy of salvation. 

***Letting God Work Effectively

         You wish to attain union with God, to really get to know him, or to abandon yourself entirely to him. So you are determined and try hard to achieve it, but that's not going about it the right way. The effective, effortless way is to relax, go passive, and open yourself up to God. Then he sees you and will come quickly to fulfill your desire. Picture the Lord at the top of a high steep mountain and you want to reach him. You can try climbing the mountain, struggling all the way, or just let him see that you'd like go to him and wait for him to send down a speedy tram to carry you to him in no time. As I'd said before, the password for logging into God was "passive." To let God work effectively in you life, just yield yourself to him completely.

*Shielded from Evil

           Today's Communion experience. I received the Holy Eucharist, the body and blood, the soul and divinity, of the Lord. I knew that where he dwells, there cannot be evil. I knew that I was shielded from all evil and that no evil thought could possibly germinate in my heart. Praised be my Lord!

***Only Info You Need to Know About Yourself

           We are all citizens of different countries. We may belong to the upper or lower echelons of society. Our families may be rich or poor, educated or illiterate. Lately, many people are taking DNA ancestry tests to get an ethnicity estimate. Does it really matter that you are 25% Irish, 4% Korean, 1% Ghana, etc.? To me, you only need to know that you belong to Christ and to the family of your heavenly Father. Forget everything else about you, for they no longer matter.

**Our Sin Affects All (Be a Saint!)

        When we sin, we directly or indirectly cause others to sin too and our sin becomes more serious than we think. So we need to be concerned about not only our own, but also all souls. All the more we need to be blameless before God. You can't regard sinning to be your own business, for it offends God and the whole heaven knows about it. Then, keep sinning and you not only draw others away from God, you get yourself condemned in the end as well. God wants to save you and the whole world, so let him turn you into a saint. It'll be so easy for him to accomplish that, once you give him the full green light.

**Not Quite Successfully Transformed

         Christ can completely transform us, making us anew, yet it's often hard to tell Christians from non-Christians. So many Christians hold onto their old ways, following the tradition or the custom of the world. All their empty gestures may appear OK, but not truly genuine. Christ wouldn't have acted like that. Of course, you can say that God's ways and thoughts are way higher than ours, but to let the Lord transform us is to make us think and act more like him. And this is not obvious, when you look at how these Christians live and act. So we are not perfect yet, showing that we have not surrendered ourselves completely to God yet. This is the fundamental challenge all Christians face and must meet if we are to be successfully transformed.

**Folly of Much Ado About Nothing

        Much Ado About Nothing is the title of a comedy by Shakespeare. It describes so well what most people are doing nowadays. They lead their lives and do their things divorced from God altogether. They are busy and occupied, but unknowingly drifting away from God further and further. It there ever will be an awakening, it will most likely come as a shock, still infinitely better than receiving ultimately the worst shock without an awakening.   

**How to Remain Undefiled

        In today's Gospel reading from Mark 7, Jesus said to his disciples, "What comes out of the man, that is what defiles him. From within the man, from his heart, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile." If you agree to what the Lord had said here, then give your heart to him so that you may remain clean from now on.

***To Be with Christ***

        When I am physically suffering, I realize that I am just tasting a tiny, tiny bit of what Jesus experienced when he went through the Passion. Nevertheless, this realization unites me more to the Lord and is a good thing. To go further, if we truly want to be with Christ at all times, we need to experience what he is experiencing at all times.

*****Abandonment-to-God Time

          Yesterday I blogged that I fell while walking. I felt OK at the time, but started to feel the pain afterwards. My left shoulder already had a tendon injury that had never completely healed, so I had been relying on my right arm most of the time. Now, after this fall, the left shoulder has gotten a lot worse; I could hardly lift the arm up high. My left chest is hurting too from the impact of the fall. I had a worse fall some years back. It was the right chest that got impacted badly; it took a month for the pain to go away. I expect it'll be at least a month this time, as I am now older. At a time like this, I must reprioritize my activities. I'll probably stop walking for a while and not do anything that requires the use of both arms. It is the time to pray even more, perhaps get in touch with some friends and relatives to tell them about Christ. When you realize that what you can do is limited, you can see that it is the perfect time to abandon yourself in God! This happens again when you are dying and see that abandoning yourself to God is the only sensible thing left for you to do. But why wait until such moments? Experience the freedom of letting go in God right now. We may suffer physically, but we are free to enjoy even more freedom spiritually!

***Be Aware of Body and Soul

        Let's be absolutely clear that each of us inhabits a perishable physical body on earth and possesses an unperishable soul that lives on forever. Often when our body is giving in to death, we see that as the end of our life and forget that we still have an everlasting soul that's about to begin living a new life, the real life! Realizing this can help us live a much happier and fruitful life. Otherwise, you are just a lost soul, not knowing where you are going. Know Christ the Lord and Savior to let him put your soul on the path to heaven while you still have your physical body.

**God Not Finished with Us

        Another good message from Fr. Corapi to share. 

**No Nonsense Teaching

        It is so refreshing to hear a concise, clear, to-the-point message than some long-winded, confusing, convoluted teaching.

*A Lesson Learned (& First Things First)

         I walk daily from the house to the street and back three times, just enough time to pray five decades of the Rosary. I walk briskly to help the heart. This morning as I was walking and looking sideways for something, I unexpectedly stepped on the edge of the asphalt road, tripped, fell forward and hit the pavement. The impact knocked the frame of my glasses out of shape. I was all right after sitting and resting on the ground for a couple of minutes. I have been falling yearly these past few years. I know that a fall can be detrimental to old folks like me. I am blessed that the Lord has given me strong bones. The lesson learned: no matter how much precaution we take, accidents can still happen. We must not only be careful, we must be extra, extra careful. Here I am only concerned about our physical wellbeing. What about our soul which is infinitely more important than the body? Good thing is that you only need to believe in the Lord and he will take care of our soul completely forever! Do this first before trying not to fall.

**False Teaching by Bishops

         This is a short video on false teaching within the Church posted by Fr. Corapi  today. End times are here. 
      

*****Biggest Sin of This Nation

        Fr. John Corapi has started speaking out again. I have always thought that before asking God to bless this nation, it is appropriate that we repent of the sin of having legalized abortion first. Now listen to Fr. Corapi's clear pro-life message. (Note: The 48 million figure Fr. Corapi quoted for the number of abortions since Roe vs. Wade was on the low side. The number of know abortions hit 60 million in 2017.)

***Unwavering Faith***

        Faith in the God of Christ should be unconditional and unwavering. This sounds good and is right and beautiful. It calls for believing in the Lord under all circumstances, irrespective of whatever happens to you. You may have to live through complete darkness your whole life, but you are fully aware that you'll be with your God for all eternity, knowing that he will never forsake you.

***Be like a Child

         In search of God, the educated ones would read books, research online, or even traveling abroad to find gurus. Sadly, finding nothing concrete, they end up believing that all religions are the same or everybody goes to heaven anyway or that there is neither heaven nor hell, etc. I see myself as a kindergarten kid before the Lord. I just believe what Jesus said to me that if we believe in him, we'll have eternal life. I now feel free, enjoy deep peace, and receive great joy. God has become my dearest father and soulmate. To God we are his little children, but sadly our pride has made us believe that we can find our way around without him.