Love Letters to Lukewarm Souls

ONE OF THE THINGS that I found interesting reading Sherry Weddell's book "𝙁𝙤𝙧𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙄𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝘿𝙞𝙨𝙘𝙞𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙨" is the term "𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙎𝙥𝙞𝙧𝙖𝙡 𝙤𝙛 𝙎𝙞𝙡𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚." The "𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙎𝙥𝙞𝙧𝙖𝙡 𝙤𝙛 𝙎𝙞𝙡𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚" is a well-known communication theory by political scientist Noelle-Neumann. She found that 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘷𝘰𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘢𝘯 𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘯 𝘢 𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘤 𝘪𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺, 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘧𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘪𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘫𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺.   Isn't this the truth (or at least makes perfect sense) particularly in politics and especially in religion? In politics, many seems to go along with what the secular worldviews and media's talking points are, which tend to be more left and liberal. In religion, many feel awkward sharing or talking about Jesus in gatherings or social media for fear or shame they ma...

"My Nightly Examination of Conscience: A Prayer, Meditation, Examen & Gratitude Journal in One to Intentionally Cultivate Saintly Virtue, Grow in Holiness & Transform your Life Before Bedtime" is now available at Amazon. The only companion you'll need for your evening prayer, meditation, examen and gratitude journaling, all in one notebook!   Get a copy by clicking this link: https://amzn.to/3go5ti4 or click the image above.   This multi-purpose journal book is created with the following objectives in mind:   Contains only the necessary, useful, self-explanatory, and straightforward guided prayer prompts to get you started right off the bat and help you cultivate a more productive and efficacious prayer time and reflection to grow in your faith and holiness.   The format is inspired by the spiritual exercises and principles of St. Josemaria Escriva, St. Ignatius of Loyola, and Catholic contemporary Matthew Kelly. The Opening and Clo...

This was an Advent talk I gave last year, December 2019, in a Christian Charismatic Community that I am a part of, e dited for the purpose of this blog. May it help you prepare your heart to Jesus this Christmas.  I was asked to share perhaps a personal reflection or insight as we approach this season of Advent. Well, before anything else, I must confess the past few months I've been feeling, as the saying goes, "down on my luck" lately. Work has been kind of slow, and discouraging. And it distressingly affects me emotionally and makes me lose interest in doing things. And so, as I pray on what the Holy Spirit wanted me to share to you as we prepare ourselves for the season of Advent given my said despondent disposition, I was reminded about the gift God had shown me during my 1st deeper conversion of faith back in high school many eons ago, that helps recollect my spirit in times such as these. And it's a timely reminder for me because it's also something we are ...

Whether you are red or blue or in between, I like to share what Dr. David Anders from EWTN said that, for me, succinctly articulated my political philosophy in the hope it may help enlighten those of what as a Catholic should decide, even for a little bit.   "The CHURCH has maintained always that no ideology, whether conservative, liberal, capitalist, socialist-- no political ideology is adequate to really capture the essence of the human person or of human flourishing, because people are transcendent beings, body and soul, made in God’s likeness and image and we have a transcendent destiny, and so there’s no material construction of civil society that is adequate to man’s transcendent end. There are however some basic natural law principles, things that we can know naturally about human flourishing that have to be respected in any civil society. And one of them, Pope Leo XIII made this point very plainly in 'Rerum Novarum'--the first of the social encyclicals--is the ri...

How Catholic Worship (aka Mass) Is Different From Non-Catholic's "Worship" (aka Service)     One time in a party, I introduced a family new to our town to an old friend of mine. As we were all having nice conversation of pretty much anything the family needs to expect as newbies, my old friend (a fallen-away Catholic and now an active member of a certain evangelical ecclesiastic community) brought up in the conversation that they have a new pastor in their church that is smart and charismatic, and invited the new family to come and attend their worship service sometime. Now, as a Catholic, I always admire our Non-Catholic brethren's enthusiasm of inviting other people to their church. They always seem to make evangelizing so easy and natural than a Catholic would do the inviting. We can always learn from them, we grant them that. However, I also wonder how come is it this way? How come for some reason inviting someone to a Catholic Mass does not seem to have the sa...

This was an exhortation I gave last March 1st, 2020 in a Christian community where I led a prayer meeting session, some portion were edited and revised for the purpose of this blog.  The very 1st Christian community I had been with was back in High school. It was in a group called Opus Dei (perhaps some of you might have heard of it or familiar with it. It was even mocked and fictionalized in the popular book and movie by Dan Brown years ago called the DaVinci Code). Photo courtesy of Juniverse © 2020 Opus Dei was founded by St. Josemaria Escriva and it is a Latin phrase which means "Work of God". The basic precept of Opus Dei is for laypeople like you & me to foster and aspire for holiness in our everyday ordinary circumstances and profession. Wherever you are or whatever you do, whether you are in school, at work, at home, washing dishes, doing the laundry, even doing number 2 (jokingly speaking, but you get the point: Everything you do), all of our activ...