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An orthodox and fervent form of catechesis is badly needed. Things began to go wrong thirty years ago when many tabernacles were moved to unsuitable, make-shift chapels unworthy of our Divine Saviour. Christ's Real Presence is ignored or forgotten. Children were taught little about His Presence. Attention was paid, frequently, more to the community than to almighty God.

We are mistaken if we think that ours is a civilised age. There was a temple dedicated to pagan gods, near Christ's home town. Living creatures - even human beings - were thrown to their deaths, at the back of it, to persuade the gods to grant some favour. In our days, slaughter continues, though mostly hidden away. For the good fortune or convenience of many today, lives are sacrificed through abortion, or people are quietly killed if deemed sick, elderly and useless, or the chronic sick are helped to commit suicide.

Modern countries call themselves civilized. But they differ from those ancient cultures who offered human sacrifice only in that people today usually try to hide what they do. Unborn babies are routinely killed, supposedly to bring happiness to the mothers, and some elderly or sick persons are killed, to make life easier for other people: killed in modern hospitals, quietly, by professionals who defy God and ruin their own souls.

God is a powerful God, Who loves us. The God Who is powerful enough to raise Jesus Christ from the grave, radiant and joyful, is powerful enough to answer the prayers we offer in Jesus' name for people to be converted and made hopeful. The Lord is pleased when we trust in Him, and pray for great gifts as well as help with small matters in daily life.

We who follow in Christ's Way, faithful to His wishes, should be confident when we turn to the Father in prayer. Despite our many weaknesses, we can know we are heard, simply because we pray in and through Christ. It's as though He stands beside us, reaching up to the Father, praying for us, saying to the Father, about each of us: "Hear her!" or "Hear him!".

The love of God is like a great flame that encloses all who trust in Christ. By our Baptism, we are made members of the Church and children of God. We already share in the life of God, and can be confident that our prayers are heard, and confident that, if we do not leave that state of grace, we will be carried across the Abyss when we die, to be brought towards Heaven: carried in the love of God, with no fear of being lost.

Everyone has a desire to pray, unless it is stifled by false teaching. Almighty God sees and hears everything that is said or done by people on earth. He loves everyone; yet those who have freely chosen to repent and to believe in His Son and to share His life through Baptism can be confident that God hears them because they already live 'in Christ', as if enclosed in a great flame of Divine charity which has reached out across the Abyss which separates earth from Heaven. Children of God should be confident in prayer.

The evil one is at work, to plant weeds on our path: to spoil our hopes and plans by his malicious acts and deceits, all in order to make us lose trust in God, or to grow fearful. But God is powerful, like a gardener who, with one movement of His foot can crush the poisonous weeds and then clear the pathway.

Christ's attitude is one of eternal surrender to the Father's Will; yet Father, Son and Holy Spirit have one single, loving purpose: by the lifting-up of Christ, in His Death and Resurrection, to make a Way in which weak people can follow: people who have also surrendered to God's plans and have become Christlike, loving, obedient and dutiful, relying on Divine Grace.

Our Blessed Lady, who is not Divine, was chosen for a special role. In consenting to conceive within her womb the very Son of God, she allowed Him to show out more clearly than ever His Divine nature: His love, compassion, willingness to share our lives from beginning to end, and His mercy and tenderness. Christ showed out, on earth, as man, what the Triune God is like: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one all-holy Creator and Redeemer.

If we are tired or despondent, or feel over-burdened by Crosses, we need to reflect on the love that surrounds us, if we have remained faithful, living 'in' God, the Blessed Trinity. What joy we give to the heart of Christ, as He turns to the Father Who sent Him to us, and to the Holy Spirit Who is making us holy, and says with delight: "She loves us!" - or "He loves us!"

It would be easy to say, of a view over a city, by night: "Oh, how beautiful - but how marvellous it must look in the daytime!" And so it is, with the Godhead. We have been given a glimpse, so to speak, from within the darkness of earthly life, through Jesus, and the sacraments and prayer; but all who enter Heaven are enthralled by the beauty of the glory of the Blessed Trinity, as are the people they have helped to bring there by their intercessions.

It can sometimes seem as if the small number of Parliamentarians who want to do God's Will in opposing laws which permit abortion, and the killing of the sick or the elderly, cannot possibly succeed. Yet Christians do not work for good all alone. Just as an army of Angels accompanied the brave men who once crossed the Channel to defeat an evil regime, so armies of angels and Saints are ready to help any 'child of God' who calls for their aid and has confidence in their communion with him, 'in Christ'.

For every little or large suffering we willingly bear in patience - even an experience of pain at the dental surgery - we can help to save souls, by that offering of penance in union with Christ. We can help someone in mortal sin who suddenly realises what a dangerous state he is in, or perhaps a dying person, who suddenly receives the grace to turn to God, in trust and hope.

There are people all over the world who long to have some connection with God and Heaven. How marvellous it is, that through membership of the Catholic Church we can know that "we too rejoice with the Angels", in the praise of God, every day, even in a tiny church in a little village (in this case, Harpenden!) thousands of Angels pray with us, adoring the Blessed Trinity.

When we are too tired or too ill to name each precious friend and relation before God, to intercede for each in the name of God's Son, we can be certain that God understands our plight. He welcomes, all at once, all the people we have in mind, as if they are like a swarm of bees powerfully rising upwards to Heaven.

God pours down His gifts from Heaven so that we can use them in the service of the Church and the world, just as Pope John Paul II did. If we use the gifts for personal fulfilment rather than to fulfil God's plans, it's as if we are building a roof over our lives, to avoid seeing God's wishes. We make a notice that says to Him: "Keep Out".

Our loving Father in Heaven invites us to share our lives with Him. We can be confident that He is just, kind and merciful, just like Jesus His Son; yet we are often afraid to show Him what our lives are really like. What do we try to keep secret from Him? What dark areas do we hide? Are we really sincere, as we say we are doing His Will and loving Him and our neighbour?

Just as desperate drifters all over the world might travel the highways of rich countries but have little hope, so, people who are spiritually lost might be in danger of despair. Yet to turn to God is to change things, by His grace. With encouragement from sincere God-loving people, those in turmoil can see a prospect of change.

Our Blessed Lady, standing in a snowy landscape, represents a perfect, sinless woman in a world populated by selfish, hard-hearted sinners. She was the perfect receptacle for the Son of God, descended from Heaven to save us. She never ceases to hold in her Immaculate heart the needs of all 'children of God', hence her numerous visits to this world throughout the centuries.