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Angels and Archangels are present at Christ's sacrifice - in little rooms as much as in great cathedrals.

So many Angels are present in our sanctuary, in festivity, preparing it with garlands for our Blessed Lady's feast.

The whole church building is thronged with Angels; we brush them at every moment.

Before Holy Mass began, I saw the church invisibly decorated with garlands for our Blessed Lady's feast.

How glorious is the sacred space of our churches, where Holy Mass is offered. How fervently ought we to prepare for our work of praise.

The Holy Angels were present: and were decorating the Church with garlands, showing Heaven's delight at an ordination.

The Holy Angels guard the Church, always; they are all reverent, amidst those who carelessly disturb them with loud chatter.

God's holiness is so great that - all at once - it fills our church, yet also holds the whole building in invisible light and fire.

God's holiness is so great that - all at once - it fills our church, yet also holds the whole building in invisible light and fire.

By representations, in our sanctuaries, of Heavenly realities, people find it easier to pray: hearts and minds are raised to God.

People who use a Catholic church as merely a concert hall for secular music, or a meeting place for secular gatherings (sometimes even removing the Blessed Sacrament from the tabernacle) are like people taking a beautiful and sacred Reliquary box, to use it as a sandwich tin for a parish picnic.

Christ and Our Lady are ready to greet everyone who arrives in Church for Mass. Yet they also look beyond the church building, searching for those family members of the 'Communion of Saints' who rarely or never come to take part in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Just as, in an art gallery, it is tragic if pictures have been cut from their frames, and visitors can only gaze at empty spaces, so it is also tragic, the Lord showed me, when the Catholic faithful must look at empty spaces in their churches where once they found beautiful and expressive imagery, to inspire them.

Some Catholic churches have neither a crucifix in them, nor a statue of Our Lady. Just as an art-lover would see it as a tragedy if all the pictures in a gallery were to have been cut out of their frames, so faithful Catholics are not wrong to call it a 'tragedy' when a new church is built - or an old one stripped - and those who pray there must face bare walls, without reminders of Gospel scenes, or Heavenly realities.

If we enter a little door labelled 'The Past' we enter a world where Catholic churches were adorned with glorious images, to the glory of God and to inspire and educate the faithful. There is no reason why good Catholics today cannot commission and install powerful reminders of the Creation, of Christ and His Mother Mary, of the Last Judgement, and Heaven and Hell, and other subjects.

As the Lord gazes upon our world, it is His wish that the faithful can find, in their churches, visual reminders of what has really happened in history: for example, the infancy of Jesus Christ, and His Crucifixion. Why should Catholics look at bare walls, in Church, when they could have reminders of the foundation of the Faith?

The Lord pictured the contents of a sacristy, and asked: How would a priest feel, were treasured possessions to be ripped from the sacristy: photos of his silver jubilee Mass, his mother's crucifix, his favourite statue of Our Lady, his ordination photos, and special gifts? Why should his parishioners be expected to look on, calmly, as their favourite 'mementos', of statues and pictures, are condemned as so much rubbish?

If we look at those churches of past times which were decorated with colourful imagery and biblical scenes, we can see the importance of the altar, where Jesus Christ is made Present in the Mass. All that is beautiful here has been made so, in His honour. He deserves our adoration. He deserves to come to a place more like a throne-room than a garage.

Christ is our Divine Saviour, Who becomes Present with us, in the Blessed Sacrament. He deserves our adoration; and people in the Church who make decisions about the design and re-ordering of our church buildings would be wise to realise that the place to which Christ comes should look more like a throne-room than a garage.

It is part of Christ's plan that this 'Last Judgement' picture serve as an image in a sanctuary, and as a restatement of truth, an illustration of the Catechism, a teaching aid, and a proof of my own understanding of the Gospel: that each of us is making our way to Heaven or Hell, through our freely made choices as we accept or reject the graces Christ won for us on the Cross.