***Challenging Message from Jesus

        In today's Gospel acclamation from John 11, Jesus said: "I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me will never die." Is there anything not clear to you? If you do not believe in Jesus, it has to be either you believe that he was lying to you or you just reject the truth.

***Requisite for Knowing God

        Since God knows everything about us, what's in our heart and on our mind, we must be completely honest and truthful to him, for an iota of deviation from that he can instantly detect. Being completely honest and truthful to God greatly strengthens our union with him. This is how we really get to know the Lord.

***Stop Persecuting Priests

          This is today's post from Fr. Corapi. We need to support and pray for all the priests who speak the truth. The video shows the silencing of some of these priests, but there are more cases. 

**Great Realization

        As we age and experience physical deterioration and begin to depend upon others more to do some of the things for us, we think about God more. When we were young, we might be attracted to God, but still thought that there's so much time left that we easily attended to things of the world first. For me, I now catch myself making more and more mistakes even in typing a message like this one, as the old physical dexterity is no longer there. Anyway, turning to God is a great blessing! The ultimate realization is that the God of Christ is all we need. For all things of the world pass. 

**Most Glorious Feeling!

        Today's Gospel acclamation comes from Ephesians 1 in which Paul prayed for all that God the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ might open the eyes of their hearts. Yes, our hearts also have eyes and ears through which God communicates with us and we get to know him intimately. When you are totally obedient and receptive to the Lord (or in union with him), you hear and see him. He now is your lifeline, your inspiration, your counselor and guide. Hearing the voice from him alone is enough to transform, nourish, and sustain us. Now you know that you are one with and belong to your God. What a glorious feeling!

***Be Prepared

        June begins today. The temperature had been mild and delightful in the 70s until yesterday, when it shot up to over 100 degrees. It looks like today is going to be another scorcher. Talk about sudden change. Big changes in life always seem to happen unexpectedly, such as the death of someone you love or a serious traffic accident. God's warnings and chastisements also come to us that way. Be prepared is our best preparation. If you are prepared to meet the Lord at any time, then you are prepared for anything that might happen to you in this life.

**Inspired by a Musician

        There is a very talented, creative classical pianist and composer named Nahre Sol who explores all genres of music and presents her findings on many YouTube videos. As one interested in piano music, I watched her recent video Nahre Sol Answers Your Questions. She says what she wants to accomplish is to spread her enthusiasm about music and her love for music to others. She has no idea where it will all end, but it's her obsession and feels happy about it. What came to my mind was that as Christians, what we want to accomplish should be to spread the good news about Christ and our love for him to others. We have no idea (in fact we shouldn't be concerned about) where it will all end, but it's our duty to do so and feel happy about it. Thank you, Nahre Sol.

*****Praising the Most Holy Trinity

        Today is The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. The Lord makes me see that our greatest sorrow should be for our own sins and our greatest joy for his mercy. And I see that our greatest miracle is to be able to attain union with him through the Holy Eucharist. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, how great and glorious you are! May you be praised and adored by all your creatures for ever.

***Secret of Feeing Good About Yourself***

         If you are not truly happy about things in general and yourself, you clearly need God to make you perfect. Your perfection will please God greatly. When God your Father is pleased, you'll have peace and be happy about yourself and everything else. Believe me, I am hitting the truth! We are not happy because we sin, harming others and our own soul. And God is the one who can change all that, making us clean and blameless. It all comes down to having enough humility to submit ourselves to him totally. This is the challenge we all face. Blessed are those who can overcome it by abandoning themselves to God.  

***Support O.U.R.

        Some good news in these dark days. 

***Getting Your Prayers Answered

           In today's Gospel reading from Mark 11, Jesus revealed to us the secret of having your prayers answered. He said to the disciples, "Have faith in God. Amen, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it shall be done for him. Therefore I tell you, all that you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive it and it shall be yours." The Lord loves that you place full confidence in him. How likely he'll grant you what you ask for depends upon how much you trust in him.

**The Joy of Christ

         If you already belong to Christ and know that you are heaven bound, what does it matter if you have to go through some hardships in this life? It may be easily said than done, but it does completely make sense. True, if you know you are going to be happy forever, you shouldn't feel unhappy anymore. The fact is that you can achieve this, as the joy of knowing Christ is so great that it's able to subdue all unhappiness.

***Sad State of Mankind*

         The Lord God is wide open to us. His love is boundless and mercy infinite. The process of getting saved from sin and to heaven can't be simpler. Give yourself to God and all he has is yours. Yet how do we respond? In most cases we act as if we don't care! What has happened to our hearts, our conscience? Warnings have been coming to us nonstop and chastisements have already begun, but people remain blind, deaf, and close-hearted. If they don't repent and convert now, will they likely do so in their dying moments? I wonder. 

***Minding God Alone

         God is the only one who can judge us, so whatever other people say about or think of us doesn't matter; we answer to God alone. If I draw a picture, I would show a line linking each of the billions of us to God with no linking among ourselves at all. It's how we live for God alone that matters. By the way, this is also how we can experience freedom from the world and not let anyone rob us of peace.

***God Bless Fr. Altman

        The second video by Fr. Goring is about Fr. James Altman. It's sad to hear that his bishop wanted him to resign. He needs our support and prayers. And don't forget to pray for his bishop. You may want to watch John-Henry Westen's presentation of Fr. Altman's case to find out how you can help.

*****Pentecostal Power!

          I'd like to share some videos again. Two were made by Fr. Mark Goring. I'll post the first one first, a talk about the power of the Holy Spirit. I experienced it in the 1970s and the fire that kindled by the Holy Spirit in me is still burning today! (Pretty amazing.) Every Christian should seek Baptism in the Holy Spirit to know what it feels like to be the temple of the Holy Spirit.

**Be True to Yourself & God*

        It is clear from the Gospels that the Lord is most displeased with hypocrites. He said "Woe to you" many times to the scribes and Pharisees, calling them hypocrites. They were all religious people. So for a Christian to be a hypocritical, it's no light matter.  

***WE NEED GOD!

        As I walked early this morning, I saw that the number of things that needed our prayers was absolutely staggering! This shows how much God is needed by us! No doubt that without God, we would be doomed. And with God, we need to go all out to trust in him to get all the help we need.