Love Letters to Lukewarm Souls

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 ...

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...