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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.

A loving person takes care in setting the table for a family meal, just as a person who loves God takes care in making the sign of the cross. To be careless in making that sign of our Faith is to be like a careless person, before a meal, who throws the cutlery onto the table.

Grandparents and parents should receive regular care. Though people might rely on a whim, or a mood, when they choose a book from a bookshelf, that is wholly the wrong attitude to have when choosing what to do each day. It is one of our basic duties to care for our families, and to help others if we can. We should not wait until we feel in a good mood.

Those who love Christ, who serve Him in humility, and who persevere to the end, will be greeted by Christ, and led into Heaven, to be robed in bright garments, and led into the Banquet with other members of Christ's Royal Family.

God asks us: 'In how many Catholic homes is the Faith really practiced?' All who work to share the Faith should be certain that God is pleased with their efforts. Change and decline alternate with stable periods of joy, in human history. We can picture, in one age, pagan worship at Stonehenge, but then the life and work of Christ - followed by the stoning of St. Stephen, and, much later, a triumphant sculpture of Christ placed on high in Rio di Janeiro. And today? Weak faith, again, in very many places.

Some Catholics speak rightly about God's love for us, but suggest that He is not strict about sin, and overlooks disobedience. Real love is both tender and strict, whether in our loving God, or in a loving parent who, for example, is strict in order to keep a child safe from a dangerous well or a live electric rail beneath a station platform.

The Papacy is like the hearth at the centre of the home. As a family needs to be present together, if love is real, so a Church family needs to be in Communion with the Pope, if faith is real. All Christians are called to be in full Communion, even if they don't agree with everything in the home.

If someone were to walk for thousands of miles, searching for peace, and found himself emerging into a place where there is, routinely, injustice in family life, corruption in Government, and war-like behaviour in everyday life, he will not find the peace he was looking for. Peace has to start in the human heart, and then spread outward. It cannot be imposed from outside upon persons whose hearts remain angry, cruel or hopeless.

Christ is touched to the heart by our desire to celebrate His Birthday, at Christmas, and by our desire to share our joy in His love and goodness with other people, through cards and letters. It also strengthens bonds on the family, and society.

Christ as an infant in the care of His Mother has set us an example of complete trust, which is a quality necessary for the good functioning of a good society. God the Father has arranged that people everywhere entrust themselves to the care of others: babies to parents, children to teachers, elderly people to their grown-up children, and spouses trusting one another. A good society should be ordered on the pre-supposition that citizens desire to lead good lives.

Each of us will appear one day, before the throne of God. The aim of family members should be to love God and one another, and to help one another to do good and to reach Heaven. If they have any other goals, they should be subordinate to the desire for holiness. Nothing should impede their progress towards Heaven.

We must work and pray to help the lost to avoid disaster. Many Catholics are falling away from the practice of the Faith. They don't seem to notice the moral vacuum at the centre of their lives, or in the life of society. It is like a great hole in the ground which endangers the lives of all who thoughtlessly walk or run around it. The hole has appeared through Christian societies introducing immoral laws, careless of the consequences: abortion, and other evils. Family life, and national life, are endangered.

Christ wants us to realise that wherever there is suffering and injustice, His love is needed: His love, and respect for all who are generally treated as inferior or even worthless: girls and women, the uneducated or sick or disabled, or people of another race or background. A really just society is one that follows the teachings of Christ. We can ask, as a 'measure' of justice anywhere on earth, 'How are women treated in their families?'

Some truths can scarcely by borne. It is tragic that a child in our world, who begins by trusting others, sometimes has that trust shattered - by family problems - or by war, when even children have ended a train journey in concentration camps. Despite these horrors, Christ asks us, who believe in Him, to trust Him, who is trustworthy. He asks us to be like little children, confident that He Who is good and loving, can help us to endure all trials, and eventually reach Heaven.

There is more to voting that supporting an attractive person. Policies matter. The Lord invites us to reflect on this matter, as we try to decide whom to vote for, in elections for Government: Are these people, or those, the more likely to encourage in our country the sort of life and behaviour that pleases God? Do politicians who support family life also desire to help the weak and needy? Do politicians seeking power want to promote further abortion provision, and contraceptive provision to children, whilst not favouring marriage? We need to support those who do good.

A person who cannot love his own family is unlikely to love others, and is more likely to refuse to join the Church than to make a humble request to be received - and he is less likely to enter Heaven in the end, unless he changes. This is one of the reasons why the family is so important. It should be a training-ground in virtue as well as a home.

It takes courage to be faithful to Catholic teaching on marriage. What Christ wants to see are many more faithful Catholic women: women who accept God's plan for married life, for example, and who avoid all sinful practices so common in our culture, and who do not neglect their children; women who pursue a career only if their children are genuinely well cared for; women who do not see it as demeaning to serve the family, and to respect their husbands, yet with each spouse respecting the other.

Just as there are tumble-down houses with overgrown gardens and broken fences, so there are elderly persons who are forgetful or disorganised, or manipulative. We might find some of them difficult to deal with; but it's important to be kind, as some of these people cannot help their condition. Practical help might be needed, and prudence in making decisions; but we must look at everyone as if through the eyes of Christ.

Christ hears all sorts of prayers. Some people show their love for Christ by praying usually with very flowery language: very formal, or poetical or elegant. It springs from the traditions of their family or country. Others, brought up by plain-speaking parents, pray simple, honest, reverent prayers with no clever words but much love. We must not worry, about our simple prayers, since Christ said in the Gospel, 'Let your Yes be Yes and your No be No.' He likes our simplicity, just as He likes the beautiful words that other people offer, too.

Nothing can happen to us except what God permits, in this life. Someone who trusts in Christ has no need to panic when illness arrives. There are problems to face, with unpleasant symptoms, procedures - and ways of sustaining the family. But if we are on our way to Heaven, anyway, we are wise if we not only consult doctors, and make day-to-day wise decisions, but also abandon ourselves to God's plans, allowing Him to carry us closer towards Heaven, as if on an escalator.