Speaking of God’s masterpiece, the month of May is dedicated to our Blessed Mother Mary who is God’s greatest masterpiece for humanity. She not only reflects perfectly God’s goodness and love for the world, but she’s also a perfect reflection of Jesus, her son and our Lord. Mother Mary not only carried the Son of God in her womb for 9 months, she gave birth to Him, raised Him up to be a kind and loving person, then as He matured into adulthood, she whole-heartedly followed his ways and became His most faithful "disciple" until the end.

Mother Mary is the perfect model for us to imitate in letting God’s beauty shine forth from within us. Unfortunately, some of us just can’t recognize such beauty in ourselves because there are just too many problems, obstacles and mishaps that occur in our lives. These "flaws" clouded our perception of who we really are and lead us to be more discontented about ourselves. We don’t like who we are. This in turn effects our relationship with people around us, which in turn will cause more unhappiness in our lives... and the cycle continues on and on... until somehow, we can break out of such vicious cycle. One of the way to break out of such situation is to learn to: " Love Yourselves...For All the Right Reasons". Dear friends, this is the title of an article which I read on the April issue of the Liguorian Magazine. This very meaningful article was written by Mr. Jim Auer, a high school teacher in Ohio. I‘d like to share it with you with the hope that you might gain some useful insight and be "inspired" to love yourself more ... for all the right reasons. Enjoy the readings.

May God bless you and keep you in the palm of His hand all and my prayer also goes out to all the mothers on this month of May as we celebrate Mother’s Day (May 13).

* Smile, we’re God’s children!

Jesus said: "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Mt 22:39), not "instead of yourself". The question is: What does it mean to love yourself? And what are some things that may look like loving yourself but aren’t? Let’s start by examining some things that love of self is not:

* Love of self is not self-worship, which puts self first in everything and at the center of everything. People who worship themselves just can’t stop admiring themselves all day long. In their eyes, everything they do is wonderful. They make no mistakes - and if they do, it certainly isn’t their fault. People who worship themselves have a fake god.

* Loving yourself is not conceit - a conceited person looks at almost everyone else and thinks "I’m glad I’m better than they are".

* True self-love is not excessive pampering. It doesn’t mean you seek out every comfort, try to get something for little or no effort of your own, buy yourself the latest and best of everything and feel deprived if you don’t have certain things.

* Self-love is not and endless series of excuses for mistakes, faults, irresponsibility, non-achievement, or just plain wrong stuff. Automatic, all-the-time reactions of "I couldn’t help it" and "It wasn’t my fault" are signs of self-deceit, not self-love.

Genuinely loving yourself is based on deciding to accept God’s opinion of you. Your conception may have been elaborately planned, or it may have been accidental. But to God, you are no accident. "Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed" (Psalm 139:16). God saw you back when dinosaurs were dining on smaller creatures and God liked - loved - what he saw.

So loving yourself is based on the one thing that doesn’t change no matter what you do or what happens in your life: You are God’s child, a reflection of God, whether you’re reflecting clearly or muddily. And that’s all it takes! You might have a ton of great qualities and talents, be popular, athletic, creative and artistic and a cute nose on top of it all. But you may not possess any of these qualities, and the ones you do can change or fade. The foundation of what makes you worthwhile (and therefore lovable, even to yourself) is that you are God’s child, a fact that will never change. You need to hang on to that whenever and for whatever reason you’ve fallen toward the bottom of your List of Lovable People. Some of the things that can keep you from loving yourself honestly and realistically are:

- Guilt over past mistake - You can remind yourself of "that was then, this is now". Jesus said he had come to save the sinners, not the already righteous.

- Feeling you don’t measure up - Make sure that the area in which you want to measure up is something that will really matter throughout most of your life. If you’re not popular, remind yourself that the business, sports and entertainment worlds are full of people who were nowhere near to top of the social ladder during their teen and young-adult years. Also, don’t compare yourself to people who don’t really exist - the "physically perfect" people playing sand volleyball in an advertisement photograph that’s been computer-enhanced a couple dozen ways. It hurts when you fall short of some success that you very much want. But don’t let it lead you to think less of yourself of to love yourself less. There will always be people who are smarter, more popular, more athletic or wealthier than you are, or more something-or-other than you are.

Many of the things you do when you truly love others apply to loving yourself. You don’t insist that they be perfect. You forgive their faults and imperfections. You don’t hold grudges. You don’t abandon them when times are tough. You’re willing to start over. You try to get to know them on the inside and understand where they’re coming from. You give them a push when they need it and even a loving correction. You don’t give things that are bad for them and you don’t look the other way when they are about to do something harmful to themselves or others. When love is real, it doesn’t depend on external or emotional rush. You simply love the person for who he/she is and try to meet his/her real needs. Real love of self is like that. It doesn’t depend on your appearance or popularity, nor scoring a winning run or making the basket. You love yourself because you’re God’s kid.