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We are right to put prayer first - to put Christ first - no matter how busy our day. Whether we are religious sisters or mothers looking after sick children, we will do our work better and more cheerfully if it is underpinned with prayer. Blessed Mother Teresa insisted that her busy sisters had an hour's adoration each day.

It is always worthwhile to pray for people who are apparently being swept away on a tide of sinful practices. By our intercessions, in Christ, we make it more likely that they will recognise the truth, that they are in danger of spiritual ruin.

She is only human; however, Our Lady can bring down Divine grace upon us. When the Blessed Virgin Mary reaches up in prayer to her son, to ask Him to help us, He hears her; and when her son turns to His Heavenly Father, in Heaven, the Father hears Him; so we can be confident that it is worthwhile, in every situation, to seek the help of our dear mother, the Blessed Virgin, Mother of God.

By deliberate misdeeds, whether acts of malice or immorality, it's as if a man places himself at a distance from Christ. He cannot hear Christ's good advice about repentance and salvation; indeed, he does not want to listen - yet there is no way into Heaven except through Christ. We must pray for all sinners.

In medieval times, powerful men had a castle, with towers used as dungeons for enemies. A worse fate awaits people who die in unrepented sin, especially acts of malice or cruelty towards their fellow men. God does not want to send people to Hell. Wicked people condemn themselves, for if they refuse to live with God, Who is good, they must live without goodness, or peace, or love.

It is a great tragedy, when someone walks away from God, whatever form that rebellion might take. Only God can bring people to Heaven. He is Heaven. All who love Him, and share His life fully when they die live in eternal bliss; but those who have lost God have lost everything worthwhile, unless they repent before they die.

A Christian in a state of grace is intimately united with the Triune God. By Baptism, all sin is washed away from the soul, the person is made a member of the Church; Baptism brings the life of God to shine within the soul through the presence there of the Blessed Trinity: called the Divine Indwelling. No longer need people go to a special Temple in order to pray - though we have churches for our public worship as the Body of Christ: consecrated places where Christ is Really Present, in the tabernacle, in the Blessed Sacrament.

When we talk about the Magisterium we mean that it is Christ Who has given us the Pope and the other Catholic Bishops, to teach us the truth handed on in Sacred Scripture and in the Sacred Tradition. They teach us right from wrong. To spend a life-time arguing about their sure teaching is to waste valuable time, which we could have spent striving for holiness in the service of God and neighbour.

The Church recommends to her children many devotions, three special ones having been practiced by Saints through the ages; we honour Jesus in His Sacred Passion; we adore Him in the Most Blessed Sacrament; and we honour His Holy Virgin Mother Mary, at whose consent Jesus was made flesh in our world.

Are we handing on the Faith? Christ asks us to teach the Faith to our children. If we do that, we share a priceless gift, but also strengthen the family, which is precious. A family replicates the life of God. It is important for us to know how to live, and how to love with Divine charity, so that we will all be saved.

There are people in the Church who dishonour Christ by distorting the Faith. No-one should insult such dissenters; it is enough to speak about the errors in their works; but no Bishop should give them work to do in His Diocese that will damage the souls of his flock, no matter how famous, influential or persuasive that person might be.

Christ wants us all to know that nothing matters more than this: to do good, in union with Christ, and to go to Heaven, by the grace of Christ, when our work on earth is done, and God calls us Home.

Those who adore the Lamb, on earth, in sincere devotion, will do so in Heaven, if they persevere to the end. But those who do not adore Christ, here on earth, will not adore Him, close by Him, in Heaven - unless they repent and are changed before they die.

Carelessness can be the first step on a path that leads to terrible results. Carelessness about life leads to the deaths of innocent babies by abortion. Carelessness about our neighbour's welfare leads to silence when they are harmed by an evil regime. Carelessness in catechesis can lead to gross irreverence towards Christ our God and Saviour, and to uncharity towards the neighbour who prays - and even to carelessness about the moral law, and about sin and death.

People urge us to live in fear of global warming or disease, and expect us to make huge sacrifices for their causes. Yet if Christians urge people to change the sinful behaviour that plainly damages their lives, their families, and society, they are accused of not respecting the freedom and diversity of their fellow creatures!

Whenever we make new efforts to be more attentive to Christ's wishes, and more vigilant about our sins and failings, we come to prayer in a new closeness to Christ; even if we neither see nor feel this, it's as if the 'wall' that seems to separate Heaven from earth has been torn open, and Christ gazes down with joy and gratitude, because He is loved.

God can work wonders through our perseverance. When a priest, or any sincere follower of Christ, finds it hard to believe in the saving power of the Cross, and sees life as a grim progress with little hope, he should reflect on this truth: whoever imitates Christ and accepts the Cross, in patience, finds that, little by little, it becomes a living thing, fruitful, putting out new branches and leaves, precisely because that person is reproducing Christ's life, and being fruitful in saving souls.

There are tragic consequences when people misunderstand the word 'ecumenism'. Some Catholics suppose that they can go where they choose, for Sunday worship; yet whenever a minister without valid orders presides at a service, Christ is not made sacramentally Present. No Catholic should miss Mass, by choosing non-Catholic prayer instead.

What is the message given to us by those who allow children in baseball hats to stand between some priests, at the altar, during the Eucharistic prayer? It is that it is more important to make children feel involved than to allow the priests to be close to the altar, undisturbed, as they offer the Holy Sacrifice of Christ! This is a tragic piece of evidence of flawed attitudes, today, to the Mass and the Priesthood.

The Angels look on with joy, to see their Lord, Jesus Christ, adored. This is true whether the venue of the Mass is a tent or a Cathedral, or whether Christ is being adored in the Mass, or in the tabernacle - or enthroned in the monstrance, for Adoration and Benediction.