10 Tips for New Year's Resolution

1.Be honest. Know yourself. What is your strongest virtue? What is your worst vice? Therefore, tailor your resolution so it strengthens your good side and fights your bad one. A one-size fits all resolution is useless.

2.Be specific. Don’t use generalities. They don’t work. For example, if you need to be more humble, just saying “I am going to be more humble,” is useless. You need to zero in on one situation where you need to practice humility and resolve to improve in that one situation.

3.Be simple. Don’t make it complicated. Focus on something you can see and measure easily and that does not overwhelm you each time you try to obtain it. Otherwise, you will become distracted and your energy will be dispersed and misdirected.

4.Be reasonable. Don’t try to do too much at once. You won’t become a saint in one day. Remember: every soul has one MAJOR point upon which is hinged his or her entire fidelity to God and His Holy Laws. Find out and work on improving that key point. You’ll see how everything else will improve if you improve on that one major point.

5.Be consistent. It’s far better to do something small everyday to improve on that one key point in your soul than to make a big resolution that you cannot keep for more than a week or two. Slow and steady wins the race!

6.Be humble. Recognize that you cannot do any good action which has value in the supernatural order without God’s grace and the intercessory help of the Blessed Mother. Beg God’s grace through Our Lady’s intercession constantly in all your thoughts, desires and actions

7.Be disinterested. Remember that God wants us to defend His rights and interests, and to share His thoughts and ways. And therefore, to focus on things, happening and events that are very close to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary that are not necessarily linked to our own personal interests.

8.Write it down. It’s important to write down your resolution so you can refer back to it often during the year. Also, by writing it down, you will be able to review it when the year is over, and to evaluate your progress since the time the resolution was made.

9.Public expressions of faith. Don’t hide your faith. That’s just what the devil wants. He knows when you express your faith publicly, others see you and are encouraged to follow your good example. Say grace openly and proudly before meals in a restaurant so people can see. You’ll be surprised with the good reactions you will get.

10.Devotion to Our Lady. Have more devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Devotion to the Mother of God is a panacea. Saint Louis de Montfort said that devotion to Holy Mary is the easiest, safest, fastest, most secure, and surest path to Jesus and to our own salvation. If you can nothing else, resolve to say the Rosary everyday. Saint Louis de Montfort wrote:

“If you say the Rosary faithfully until death, I do assure you that, in spite of the gravity of your sins 'you shall receive a never-fading crown of glory.' Even if you are on the brink of damnation, even if you have one foot in hell, even if you have sold your soul to the devil as sorcerers do who practice black magic, and even if you are a heretic as obstinate as a devil, sooner or later you will be converted and will amend your life and will save your soul, if-- and mark well what I say-- if you say the Holy Rosary devoutly every day until death for the purpose of knowing the truth and obtaining contrition and pardon for your sins."

Christian Glitter by www.christianglitter.com

Christian Glitter by www.christianglitter.com

HEAVEN IS OUR TRUE HOME AND IT IS OUT THERE BEYOND THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM

It is an uplifting week and a week during which our eyes should lift up toward Heaven.

What's it like?

All in Heaven edifies. All in Heaven gives health. Trees are august and towering and yet bear total symmetry – none growing beyond its place in a mosaic that could only be orchestrated by God.

It is a place of reception and also a place that ministers to those who are resting (taking a break from the tasks of God). Those who traverse do so with no rush because they have all the time of eternity, which of course means that there is no time at all – just the present. Past and future have found their way into one inconceivable package.

"In the distance by the river there were six or seven people standing by some trees, and I could tell that they were waiting for me," said a woman named Elaine who had a near-death experience. "It was as if they knew I was coming. One of them looked up and said, 'There she is!' A man leaning against a tree motioned with his arm.

"All of them were dressed in white, a white which radiated light. Their hands and faces were not the same as on earth, but I recognized them quickly. They were about thirty years of age in appearance, much younger than when I had seen them last."

A crippled aunt was no longer crippled.

Green radiates.

All communicates. All provides information.

Humility sends us in the proper direction.

Pride of intellect blinds us to God around us.

"Oh, my goodness, I should have known!" you will say when you see what your earthly mission had been. "Of course. Oh, that’s why such and such occurred. Oh, I see why that was arranged. Oh, my, I understand why those who were involved were involved – I see why I met everyone!"

This will unfold in a surrounding that is sheer delight.

As the mysteries of your life unfold, you may see the "wall" of eternity scroll down or view earth through the walls of the reception area. All will be brought before you in an instant. You will delight in what you overcame!

Kindness brings joy and somewhere in your mysterious mission is the task to love despite the circumstances (and the arrogance of this world).

Every hardship will be "gold" and you will see it.

Just think of what it would be like to realize that one important mission was simply to smile at someone each day!

A smile on earth, a "Merry Christmas" (with feeling), reflects the sunshine of Heaven.

At Christmas, in prayer, Heaven touches earth.

"The weather was absolutely perfect in terms of temperature and humidity," said a blind man who saw the surroundings when he too neared actual death. "It was so fresh, so unbelievably fresh that mountain air on earth could not even come close. It was absolutely refreshing, wonderfully refreshing."

"It seemed to be all-encompassing," said another blind man named Brad in a book about blind near-death cases penned by a doctor named Kenneth Ring. "It seemed like everything, even the grass I had been stepping on, seemed to soak in that light. It seemed like the light could actually penetrate through everything that was there, even the leaves on the trees. There was no shade; there was no need for shade."

False humility will not get you here.

The light shimmers; it causes warmth (as if you are inside of it).

There are jasper and gem stones – the blind have described such also, just like anyone else who goes through the experience.

Yet they are not gems – not like stones of the earth.

Everything will be imbued with the Light of God and will emanate it – everything, that is, beyond purgatory. On earth, objects depend on radiation from the sun, or artificial light, reflecting it. The way they refract or absorb the sun determines their color. On earth, there are primary colors (red, green, and blue; all other colors come from a mixture or concentration of those, or an absence). In Heaven, there are dozens – hundreds – and they are perceived in different ways according to the level.

In Heaven, everything seems luminous because everything yields the power of God from within instead of a reflection from without. We are more connected. Our thoughts are our communication and transportation. Often, those who die and return say they were taken through realms by Jesus and that as quick as they thought of where they wanted to head, they were there – to different levels and sometimes with a scenery that would put one in mind of traveling through the universe.

There are stars. There are galaxies. There are planets. Are they really stars?

Many who die describe a flight in what seemed like space, leaving earth and moving at a super speed. "Instead of a tunnel, some people report rising suddenly into the heavens and seeing the earth and the celestial sphere as they would be seen by astronauts in space," wrote the foremost researcher in this field, Dr. Raymond Moody.

When we die, we are free from the boundaries of this world and new worlds open for us. Endless worlds. Endless universes." Some of those who have died and returned even use the term "eternities."

There may be a wall. There may be a bridge. We will meet ancestors. We will map our genealogies. Families bear purpose and you will learn that purpose. When a West Coast woman named Kimberly Clark Sharp died, the way she described the feeling of eternity was with words she used as a child: "homey home." It is more than home. It is our origin. Our spirits were created here. They were infused into our bodies when the Lord knitted us in the womb. Before we existed, He knew us, says the Bible. Gabrielle Keller said "it was everything you could wish for if you were trying to imagine Heaven. The feeling of wonder and peace that I had was something I have never experienced before or since. A group of people met me, walking up to me with their arms outstretched. I had never seen any of them before, but somehow they were familiar."

Not forgiving will stifle you.

It is a lesson of the Crucifixion: to forgive no matter what, to release to the Father, and endure pain without purveying it. Christ gave us the keys to eternity on Calvary. We can rise like Him – not resurrect, bodily (that was for the Son of God), but to rise above the antagonisms, the hurts, the pain of this passing world.

How quickly it passes! We are here for but an average of 29,000 days or 42 million minutes. The clock ticks. We are "homeward bound." And this is what we must bind ourselves to: our true home, beyond the star that shone that night to shepherds who followed not their heads but their hearts.

Resources: Spirit Daily

THIS CHRISTMAS, CLEANSE YOUR FAMILY WITH HUMILITY AND A 'PRAYER' FOR TOUCH OF LOVE

This Christmas season, try the prayer of the touch of love.

Send God's light to everyone. Touch everyone with love -- and humility. During prayer, see each person and bless them. What power this has -- for them and for you! Humility.

"I have been making a Holy Hour for each year of my life, beginning with my conception to birth, and so on, for all my life," a viewer who was at our New Jersey retreat informed us. "At each Holy Hour I lift up the particular year, and ask Our Lord to shine His Light and Love throughout that whole year and to repair it!"

When we pray this way we can cleanse family disturbances. We can clean the "family tree." We can halt tragedy. We can rectify past areas -- times we didn't love.

And with it we gain supernatural logic: when we cleanse our interior lives and pray with love, we understand more of God and figure things the way they are meant to be figured. We begin to transcend the earth's blindness. The entirety of this test called earth becomes more available and lifts us from sorrows and repeating mistakes.

We see progression where others see personal disasters. Tragedies are not then always so "tragic" -- unless we don't learn from them. Often, when prayers are not answered -- when we pray and pray and they seem to simply bounce off -- it's because first we must remove evil. We must remove pride. That will block you!

Too often -- instead of a deep cleansing, instead of surgery -- we use band-aids. This leads to frustration. It can also lead to a series of unfortunate events. Now, not all tragedy is because we are doing wrong. There are the tests of life. But:

Just as God tries to warn society (through world events, through storms, through quakes), so does he send us first tremors. One hardship may be followed by another (and intensify). That's because God views what is best for your eternity.

The answer is to pray the prayer of the power of love and turn our sights into the deepest interiors of ourselves and our families -- praying to cleanse and then praying for a bubble of protection.

What a Christmas gift this is: love -- and deliverance -- in our families!

Especially, cast out pride. Pray to see where it hides.

Few things are more dangerous. Few things attract as much "bad luck."

They say that pride goes before the fall and that's because pride is the oxygen of the devil. It is spiritual octane. It's like pouring gasoline on embers. The metaphors! It puffs up.

It causes a fall and we could also say that it creates a barricade that bounces away supplications.

What is pride? It is seeking to be above others. It is an orientation toward self. It is putting self-interest above the interests of others. It is to believe what we achieve has been achieved solely through our own efforts or "talents" -- discounting that really any good we do is from gifts we have received from the Lord.

It is feeling inflated and it is to judge by numbers and it is to be jealous when we perceive someone as having what we deserve.

Pride is arrogant. Pride is celebrity. Pride is seeking notoriety (instead of the hidden way of Therese the Little Flower). Pride is seen as the skull in the vanity mirror.

Pride can not bear to be wrong.

Pride prohibits contrary opinions.

Pride forms cults.

Pride declares the truth to be an insult.

Pride causes one to attack another (to speak harshly and self-righteously).

Pride is violence against the spirit because it proclaims one person as worth more than another.

Pride is also deceptive; its greatest deception is upon the one who possesses it.

The spirit of pride can manifest as jealousy, haughtiness, superiority, materialism, conspicuous consumption, gossip, stubbornness, fashion, self-righteousness, and the need to control (which is the urge behind witchcraft). "I will also break down your pride of power," says Leviticus 26:19. "I will also make your sky like iron and your earth like bronze."

If you are under duress -- ill fortune, or attack -- see first if pride is empowering it.

Then, defeat it with humbleness.

Humility was the lesson of the manger.

Humility loves and pride hates and pride fuels the enemy because he is the prince of it.

If God seems absent, cleanse pride and pray with love and see things through the supernatural (as opposed to the worldly, which is what got you into trouble to begin with). "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world," says 1 John 2:16.

Do you have "blocks" in your life? Do you find yourself with intractable problems?

When we have pride, others have trouble praying for us. There is a resistance. There may even be revulsion. Pride builds in and around us. We are "sealed tight" by it (Job 41:15). "There they cry out, but He does not answer, because of the pride of evil men," adds 35:12. During exorcism the demon is exposed as having a wall of "pretense" that acts as a shell.

That needs to be broken or God will move to do so for you.

"A man's pride will bring him low, but a humble spirit will obtain honor," adds Proverbs

Pride goes along with "deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, and foolishness" (Mark 7:22). We have pride in our looks, in our cars, in our homes, in our smarts, in our jobs, in our schooling, in our neighborhoods, in our religiosity, in our friends, in our wealth. It is to compare, hoping always to have better. It is to compete instead of to cooperate.

It is clever. It is at the deepest levels of our souls. It is exhibited in ways we don't even see -- especially through any sort of facade.

This Christmas season, find out where it is.

This Christ-Mass, focus on expelling it.

Replace it with humility, with which (coupled with love) you will make life merry all year round and defeat darkness.

[resources: The God of Miracles- Spirit Daily]