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Just as a scientist, using an illuminated magnifying lens, can see hair-line cracks, and other dangers to hygiene, invisible to the naked eye, so the Lord can illuminate our souls in prayer; and the Divine, healing light that shines within our souls when we bring our sins, hurts and problems to God is a powerful means of achieving purity and holiness.

We must not be made despondent by our minor distractions in prayer, or our tiny failings. As sure as miners find what they want in a mine, we can mine spiritual treasure from our little faults, by using each as a reason for prayer. If we are distracted, we can make an act of humility. If we have neglected some good, we can make an act of gratitude for all God's gifts. If we find it hard to forgive, we can praise God for having forgiven us our sins.

When people have such an elevated self-regard, and, in pride, insist on fulfilling their own desires and ambitions even if this means overturning the good work of other people, they walk away from the sunlight of a healthy society into a cloudy area where people become confused about morality and ignore the laws of God.

Everyone who hopes for union with God in Heaven should ask himself, is he the sort of person who will be happy there: pure-in-heart, peaceful, holy? People who are more anxious about fulfilling their earthly desires and ambitions - including sexual desires - than about honouring God by obeying His laws are not making the necessary preparation for the reception of the gift of salvation.

Some Catholics are so impressed with the fervour of certain Christian groups that they think about leaving the Catholic Church, forgetful of what they already have, from God. It is the Holy Eucharist that makes the Church - not a charismatic founder, or a special healer, or huge numbers of new members. Jesus is Really Present in His one true Church. To go elsewhere is to desert Him.

A person who wants to get to Heaven, and who is not against God, but who is not yet willing to repent, is like a man who searches for a way across the great Abyss between earth and Heaven, but is unsuccessful. To cross that great divide, we need the help of the Holy Spirit, Who comes only to those who repent of their sins, and thus allow the Spirit of purity and peace into their hearts.

In making a spiritual Communion we invite God to come into our hearts and lives in a more powerful way. If we turn to Christ, make an act of sorrow for sin, an act of trust in His love, and an act of confidence in His presence in our souls, with a reverent request for a spiritual Communion, it can be as if the clouds and the sky have parted, to let the light of Christ shine more strongly upon us, bringing His peace and joy to our souls.

A Mass can be offered anywhere appropriate, even in a private house, with due respect and reverence. But a domestic setting should not be an excuse for informality, or disregard for the rubrics. Jesus Christ is no longer a carpenter, but King of Heaven, and glorious in His Majesty. It is better if there is room to kneel, as we adore Him, and offer His praise and His sacrificial prayer to the Father in Heaven.

We all need the prayers and intercessions of others. There is only one Way across the gulf that separates earth from Heaven, and we shall not cross it when we die if we have wandered away, far from the bridge, looking for all sorts of distractions from our ordinary duties, or avoiding the call of conscience, or unwilling to suffer for Christ by remaining faithful. Perseverance is all-important, by the grace of God.

God delights in our love, proved by our devotion in prayer; but He delights in the charity in our hearts, when we freely choose to leave our devotions to attend to a neighbour, whether a person taken ill, or a husband arriving home and deserving a kind welcome.

Through Christ and His Church, we can avoid confusion, and avoid Hell. God longs for Catholic priests and Bishops to teach the simple truth, in ecumenical relationships as well as Church events: that God became man, founded one Church, which is still here, teaching the truth, forgiving sins, making people holy, and preparing them to lead holy lives and then to enter Heaven, to be with God, the Saints and the Angels forever.

Christ asks His friends to be brave in speaking the truth about God and goodness; but He also asks us to be prudent. We need not feel guilty about avoiding trouble and controversy when this is possible without cowardice. He Himself ran away or hid, to avoid death, when He had stirred up anger by His words, but when it was too early to fulfil His great plan.

Christ's saving work on earth was something that only He could do. As God-made-man, He enabled sinful human beings to know and love Him, and, through Him, the Father. We can neither free ourselves from our sins nor know, without Christ and His Revelation, exactly how to please the Father. Through His Spirit, given in Baptism, we receive power; and through His Church, in every age, Truth, to guide us.

The Catholic Church is like a rescue ship which appears out of the darkness, to rescue those willing to be rescued from their disastrous state of alienation from God, trapped in their sins: a state caused by the sin of the first human beings: the Original sin. The good news we can share is that sins can be forgiven and sinners put on the road to Heaven.

When the first human beings said "No" to God, the all-good, beautiful and holy, it was as if that cry of disobedience reverberated round the whole universe, so shocking was their pride and hard-heartedness. The whole of nature was damaged by the consequences of that Original Sin, at what we call 'the Fall'; and suffering entered our world.

Most Catholics have heard the phrase, "The Real Presence"; but few have thought it through. Those who do so are aware the Almighty God, the Son of God, chooses to be Really Present in a special, sacramental way, in each of our Catholic churches! Those who know this kneel, bow, and adore Christ. Those who don't know, or don't care, chat and laugh as if in a pub or a cafe.

Everyone receives a just judgement, at death. The Blessed Trinity, our God, is infinitely compassionate and merciful, but does not over-ride our freedom, by which we choose to follow the path to life, opened by Christ, or choose to walk away, to sin, and to end in the Abyss, in a disaster of our own making.

To be trapped in sinful ways, alienated from God, and helpless to bring about lasting change, is like being trapped on a rocky island, surrounded by a deep Abyss. Only if someone is parachuted in to save people there can they be helped to safety. And that is what Christ did, by coming to our world as God-made-man

The gift we are given at Baptism is the gift of the Holy Spirit, Who can lift our souls up to Heaven, across the gulf, when we die. A person who has become careless or disobedient and who has driven away the Spirit of Love, and no longer lives in a state of grace, will be lost, at death, in the Abyss, unable to rely on the Holy Spirit, having refused Him.

Any wife ought to say what she believes is right, in conversation with her husband, but in obedience to Christ and the Apostles she ought always to speak with respect, and bearing in mind the fact that, in God's sight, her husband is the head of the household; and God wants her to honour him as the head, according to the tradition.