An Hour with Jesus This booklet was designed to enhance your time spent with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. It includes a prayer format to use in Adoration with rosary meditations, prayers and spontaneous meditation topics. It's a terrific tool to guide your devotions. Hugely popular. Let this booklet lead you into deep solemn moment with Him. CLICK HERE

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DEDICATE YOURSELF TO THE TRUTH OF YOUR LIFE AND YOU WILL FIND THE HIGHER REACH OF HEAVEN

Are you dedicated to the truth of your life?  Do you follow your mind and the genius of your spirit (which is your true self)? Or is your life one of mirages?

Smoke and mirrors.

These are important questions because all during life we obscure (or let others obscure) the truth of who we really are. Layer upon layer is heaped upon us. Ask God for guidance.

We have false personas. We feel one way among one group, another way amid others. We lose touch with our true identity -- the "self" that is closest to God.

When we die, we will have no doubt. We will step into our "true selves." There will be no pretense. We will inhabit what we have "sent up." The Bible says to love others as we love ourselves but to do that (and it is a key to Heaven) we have to know the true "us."

Layer upon layer. Think about it: you have facades due to ambition. You have facades due to a feeling of inferiority instilled by an evil spirit that seeks to bring you down. (Always, cast out the "spirit of inferiority"!) You have facades that may come due to hurt, or resentment.  Through life we develop "crust" and scar tissue and pretense that separate us from our true destination.

We develop cocoons around us.

Cocoons can be necessary ("distance yourself from that which afflicts you"), but not when it turns into a callus!

We harden and reshape and send around us smoke and portray ourselves in a way that  seems least likely to bring hurt. Or, we seek superiority. This is pride. We forget that we are all exactly equal. A great sin!

Through life, we pile layers and layers of perceptions upon us -- often adopting the way others view us as the way we act or view ourselves. Big mistake. Don't let others define you!

Perceptions are heaped upon us. We hide behind our jobs. We hide behind accomplishments. We erect personas behind which we feel secure.  Through education, through money, through possessions,  through fashion, and mostly through demeanor, we develop facades that are meant to shield or advance us.

Read: falsity. Every time we sin, there is another layer obscuring the profound essence of our selves.

It can be like the facade in the wizard of Oz -- hiding behind a construct, which causes blindness. Mainly, we deceive ourselves. We have trouble seeing through the masks. So many of them! We add facades until we are so top heavy (have such a big head) that we stumble forward (or even fall on our faces). Pride goeth! We become blind -- spiritually. We also lose sight of our life missions.

All of us are put here for a reason and we lose touch with it when we stray in a way that lacks peace.

How often have you asked the Holy Spirit what your unique mission in life is? How often have you asked Jesus to help you fulfill it? How often do you direct yourself to what God intended for you (or is it the expectations of others that you seek to meet)?

On the Cross, Jesus said, "It is finished."

At the end our lives, we want to feel the same: That sense of having done what we were sent to do in a mysterious plan that affects the universe.

As babies, we were open; we were innocent; we were full of love. There was purity. There was no arrogance. The key to life is getting back to that purity. When we have the Heart of Jesus we transcend the negativity of every circumstance with love. Hold this!

Jesus said only if we are like children do we gain direct entry (into Heaven). For that, we need what Lent teaches: discipline. This is a key: discipline in all that we do, say, and think. Thoughts count! Stop and say three Our Fathers every time a thought of temptation (or negativity) enters. Discipline your thoughts. Tame them. Purify them. Have purity of intention. Thoughts of lust? Our Father... Thought of revenge? Our Father...

Go to Confession.

Get back to that "first you," the real you, which is the you at your most loving, your most humble -- at the level you must sustain unto Heaven.

When we die we die into our true selves. We find the mystery of who we really are. Bad is subtracted from good and we are left with the result. You will be astonished at your most profound being -- the true you.

Make the "good" part the big part.

"I am home," you will say. "I am really home. This is where and who I was at the beginning."

[resources: The Other Side]

[see also: Who does Jesus think you are?]

[St. Louis retreat, Michael Brown: March 27 (opening Mass, Fr. Mark Bozada]

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