Many of us are sincerely trying to grow spiritually. Here is some good encouraging news. If you try on your own, you'll find making progress hard and slow. But if you surrender yourself to God first, the whole game changes because Almighty God is now involved. This change does not happen quickly, as surrendering to God is not normally our cup of tea. But you will definitely experience that the more you submit yourself to God, the easier it becomes to do his will. Amazed by your own progress, the surrendering process starts to accelerate and you start to fall in love with God. Eventually, you come to know and love the Lord so much that you abandon yourself completely to him. With the aid of the Holy Eucharist, union with God is attained. At this point, growing spiritually becomes effortless, since you are finally letting the Lord do all the work for you. What a joyful state!
Saturday, August 21, 2021
*****Power of the Holy Spirit*****
Today Fr. Goring talks about invoking the Holy Spirit in his video. In the last part beginning at 1:39, the message given by the Lord thru St. Maryam completely resonates with me; it is beautiful. We need to pray to the Holy Spirit daily asking him to renew us. Then miracle will happen! I can personally testify to that. (Note that it was by the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Holy Trinity, that Jesus was first conceived and later raised from the dead. Surely this same Spirit can transform us into holy saints.)
Friday, August 20, 2021
***God, the Source of Mercy*
From God, his mercy pours out on all of us. Without his mercy, we are doomed. With his mercy, we are saved. His mercy is essential to our existence. Take advantage of it, for it's free and infinite, but you'll have to want it. Acknowledge that your survival is totally dependent upon his mercy. Pray "Lord, have mercy on us" unceasingly. When we appreciate God's mercy, we are saved! The evildoers are to be pitied for ignoring or rejecting this life-saving gift that comes from heaven. Pray the Divine Mercy chaplet. Read St. Faustina's Diary, a beautiful inspiring book. Love the Lord and rejoice in his great mercy!
**Learning How to Love from God*
God is so loving that he wants us to love our enemies. He wants us to pray for the conversion of all evildoers, his enemy, and not wish them ill. This is something we followers need to learn from the Lord. To wish ill on anyone shows that we do not know how great God's love is yet. To learn from God is learn how he loves. God does not want us to condemn anyone. That's why he does not want us to judge anyone. If we hate anyone, we follow Satan, not the Lord.
*To Be Happy Now or Forever
We all want to live happily in this life, but without God, it'd be impossible for us to succeed, I can tell you that. It is more important that you'll have a happy death and most importantly, a happy afterlife. With God, all three goals can be attained. In fact, a happy death and a happy afterlife are assured. To be happy in this life matters the least, for in the overall scheme of things, our life doesn't last much longer than the blink of an eye.
***Simple and Reliable Guide for Us
The world can perish, with all the things in it. Everything passes except the Lord God. If we hold onto him, we become everlasting like him! So let everything go and hold onto Christ our Lord and Savior. This is such a simple and reliable guide for us. He is the only shining beacon in this universe and beyond, for he is the Lord of all. Without him, we would have totally darkness. Wake up, while the light is still shining. Lose him and you live in darkness forever.
*****Falling in Love with God (Love)
God is love. If you fall in love with God, you are in love with love and that love can completely transform you. Love is God's power that can vanquish all evil and transport us to paradise. Falling in love with love is the most exalted feeling you can ever have on earth. To experience that, all you need to do is be wide open to God to let him reveal himself to you fully, then you can't help but fall in love with him. Yes, he becomes your Lord and soulmate. The opposite to falling in love with God is unthinkable, for you could end up hating everyone and yourself for all eternity.
***When to Get Ready
Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of the coming of the Messiah centuries later. Today we are seeing many things happening that were prophesied two millenniums ago. At present we do sense the urgency of numerous warnings coming to us from heaven through many seers. The Lord himself had asked us to remain ready and alert always, for he'd be coming again. Whether prophecies will be fulfilled soon or later, our Lord has given us the best advice. More to the point, since we may die and face the Lord anytime, shouldn't we get ready right now? You can wait until that last moment, but that's taking an awfully big chance. Besides, the Lord can spot your insincerity instantly. Thinking that you can outsmart the Lord is surely not a smart move.
Thursday, August 19, 2021
**God's Miracles
It seems that all the other planets are all barren except our earth. I believe that God created the earth just right for us to live on. Today after visiting a friend, I saw on the way home the sun in the smoky sky. I could directly look at it, and it looked as big as the moon. I know it's so much bigger and farther away than the moon, yet God placed the moon at the right distance so that it blocks the sun perfectly during a total eclipse. This to me is also a great miracle of God.
**Us Against Ourselves*
This is not a new message. I am giving it a little differently because it is an important basic message. We can safely leave Satan out of the picture when we focus on the Lord God alone. Living is all about deciding whether to submit yourself to God or not. In most cases, we struggle with this question our whole life. Yet unknowingly, we know that we'll be facing the Lord alone one day. It won't be like facing a judge in a court on earth where you can hire lawyers to speak for you. We'll have to answer to the Lord for everything we've done ourselves. Anyway, know that the Lord loves you and is totally on your side, so give in to him. Stopping fighting yourself and submitting yourself to God go hand in hand—they are the two prongs of attack for restoring harmony with heaven and bringing peace to yourself on earth.
*****Most Glorious Miracle*****
The last Luminous Mysteries of the Holy Rosary is The Institution of the Holy Eucharist. It is a miracle that the Lord changes bread and wine into his own flesh and blood. This is not one of those miracles you can see and would say wow after seeing it. To me, this is the most glorious of all miracles because it is most personal and humble. The Lord offering himself to us, again. It should absolutely humble us and make us praise and thank him forever! (To learn more about the Eucharist, search "Eucharist" or "Eucharistic miracle" on this blog.)
**Becoming Free of the Past
Because wildfire smoke has polluted the air outdoors, I've been doing my daily walk inside the house. This morning I noticed the tiled floor I was walking on and recalled the unpleasant experience I had with the tile layer over a decade ago. He was a personable, cordial young man. Immediately after the job was done, I had to get him back to replace some cracked tiles. He showed up, no problem. I trusted in him and wasn't even around when he finished the repairs and left. After I got home, I noticed that the long extension ladder in my garage was gone. This ladder belonged to a handyman who was still doing work around the house. I was puzzled. Luckily, my son's camera at the gate had recorded all the people who entered and left our property that day. The recording showed that the ladder was on the truck of my tile guy on his way out. Of course, we confronted him and got the ladder back. I didn't press charges against him though. Incidents such as this one tend to stick in one's memory. Then I saw that I must let the Lord truly be my refuge. Then I would not look back on the past anymore—he must now occupy my mind my entire life. This is how we become free of the past.
Wednesday, August 18, 2021
**Not of Our Concern
In today's Gospel reading from Matthew 20, we have the parable of the workers of the vineyard. In it, all workers hired at different times of the day got paid the same at the end of the day, and this made the ones hired first unhappy. Jesus concluded the parable by saying: "Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last." What I learned here was that the Lord wants us to serve him well and not be concerned about whether we get rewarded first or last, or the most or the least. Getting rewarded by him alone is good enough. Jealousy has no place when you work for the Lord. If you want to get to heaven ahead of all others who go there, you may not even make it.
**Power of God's Word
Today's Gospel acclamation, Hebrew 4:12. "The word of God is living and effective, able to discern the reflections and thoughts of the heart." In Matthew 4, Jesus said to the tempter, quoting from Deuteronomy 8, "It is written: 'One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.'" John 14:23: "Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him." May I add that being attentive to the word of God can totally transform us; we come to know the Lord and ourselves thoroughly. And it's by the word of God that we are drawn into union with the Word, our God.
*****Trust in God's Saving Power
We are now anticipating the Illumination of Conscience to take place any day now. It should be obvious that God can make you see your own conscience clearly no matter what mental or physical condition you are in. I've heard about people who just before they died were given one more chance by God to see their sins and repent. The Lord really wants to save everyone. I've mentioned visiting someone recently in a coma and dying. When I prayed aloud, repenting our sins and asking the Lord to forgive us, and told him that we loved him . . . that person opened his eyes once and started moving his lips as if he's praying too. It's possible that he was receiving that last grace from the Lord. So my advice is never stop praying for anyone even if it seems that the person's mind is gone. The Lord God can always make that person see what he wishes him or her to see! Trust in God fully and leave the salvation to him.
***Soul over All Else***
As usual, wildfires have spread across the state due to extreme dry conditions. Residents of some neighboring counties have had to evacuate from their homes. One fire started just 30 miles away from here. Today the sun seen through the smoke and haze is all red again. If a fire threatens your home, you pretty much have to leave all material possessions behind and run. I'll probably grab my laptop first. Then, even if you are not threatened in any way like this in your lifetime, you still must leave everything behind when you die. In Matthew 10:28, Jesus said to the Twelve, "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna." Avoid wild fires if you can, but never ever fall into the fires of hell. Material things you can let go, but never your own soul because it's treasured by God!
Tuesday, August 17, 2021
***Crucifixion Not to Be Ignored***
Jesus did die on the cross. Did he really die for our sins? If you are aware that you are a sinner, then you must look into this, for it could make your life meaningful for all eternity. There are already multitudes of us who can testify to you that Christ is the true God and are willing to even die for him, for his love is that great. As far as I know, he is the only person impossible to dismiss, for he created us and will judge us after we die. (If you are smart, you would become one with him now and banish all worries from now on. This may sound too good to be true, but truth sounds good because it is true.)
***God's Amazing Mercy*
Today Tuesday I prayed the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary. The last decade was on the Crucifixion. Two criminals were crucified alongside of Jesus. One of them hanging there reviled Jesus, saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us.” The other, however, rebuking him, said in reply, "Have you no fear of God, for you are subject to the same condemnation? We have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal." The he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." He replied to him, "Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise." Here we see the amazing mercy of Jesus. This criminal reconciled himself to God was instantly saved. I believe that his suffering on the cross was his purgatory. That's why he was able to be in Paradise with the Lord on the same day.