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The Father looks down from Heaven with a compassionate gaze, seeing all the elderly parents who are regarded as a nuisance by their healthy adult children. He sees how few are invited to share their children's lives and homes when they are becoming lonely, and deserve love and attention.

Christ, Who asks each of us to 'Honour your mother and father', set us an example of care. Even when He was dying in agony, on the Cross, He remembered to commend His dear Mother to the care of St. John, to ensure that she had a loving home.

It is the Lord's dear wish that each child to whom He has given the gift of life will be brought up by it's parents to be worthy to inherit Eternal Life. It is tragic if children are made aware only of earthly life, and are led to believe that the purpose of life is to become rich, or to fill every moment with earthly pleasure.

The Catholic Faith is something simple enough for a child to understand, even though it also fascinates and satisfies the most profound souls and the greatest intellects. A child can grasp the truth about a loving, Divine Saviour, Whose family, the Church, hands on the truth about how to do good and prepare for Heaven.

If we wish we could give to a beloved relation all the wisdom and goodness that we have received from God in a life-time, the best means is by encouraging them to receive Christ with devotion in Holy Communion. In Christ is His Divinity, wisdom, power, beauty, and goodness: more than enough to fill our hearts, if we open our hearts fully to receive Him.

When we suffer heartache, in earthly life, because our own children are sad or in trouble, we do well to remember Our Lady, and the heartache she suffered: not just at her son's Passion, in Jerusalem, but earlier in Galilee, when she waved to Christ as He left her to set out at last on His adult Ministry.

All over the world are people in spiritual darkness, caused by original sin. Parents require the grace of God in order to bring up their child to have the right attitudes and beliefs, and so become holy; and they also need grace in order to love one another always with a love that is pure, fruitful and faithful.

Christ assured me that if I made a hat to wear to my grandson's Baptism I would honour Christ by obediently covering my hair in church, honour the occasion by special dress, and honour my husband by looking so smart!

How much children suffer, when the matter of abortion arises in conversation or on television today! It is no small matter, when children learn from their mother that she has destroyed an earlier sibling - however grave her excuse. What a dreadful thing for them to learn, that their mother has chosen to end one human life, at an early stage. She sat in judgement on a member of the family, and awarded the death penalty.

There is little thought given by many young women to the grief they cause, by their abortions, to their own mothers. It has not occurred to some young women that in disposing of their own unborn babies they are in fact destroying their parents' grandchildren: destroying the next generation, which could have brought joy and fulfilment to themselves and to other family members.

Fathers have traditionally sacrificed themselves to defend their wives and children. Mothers have traditionally sacrificed their hopes, in times of crisis, to send their children into safe-keeping, away from danger. Today, many mothers sacrifice their babies on the altar of convenience. To avoid hardship to themselves, they sentence their own children to death by abortion.

It is claimed that an abortion is an event that pertains only to the mother who carries a tiny child, and that no-one else need be affected by her decision. Sad-to-say, several abortions in one family show out the truth: that several generations can be horribly altered by these deaths, and that babies who might have been parents or become priests or religious have been sacrificed and slain.

A ruby wedding celebration today might have numerous gaps in the family photograph, even if most people don't realise it. Those who have had abortions have been too ashamed to say that they have sacrificed the lives of tiny babies to make their own lives easier or to avoid expense or dashed ambitions.

It is a strange era, when some doctors provide a service to certain people, showing willingness to abort their female babies. The message they send out is a terrible message. "It is all right to kill your daughters, who are worthless, and will be a drain on your family".

It is outrageous that the laws of our country have been framed so that parental responsibility has been badly dented. Though schools need the permission of parents before a school nurse can hand out minor medication, medical officials can arrange for a girl to have an abortion - a serious operation - without her parent's knowledge.

When a family lives in a state of alienation from God, it's as if the main aim of each member is personal, prolonged pleasure, with no thought for God's wishes or the needs of others. So there is quarrelling, noise, immorality, hard-heartedness, physical danger and no interior joy.

The husband deserves respect, as the head of the family: that is the truth shown out in Sacred Scripture and the constant teaching of the Church. A wife has an equal dignity, in God's sight, and deserves respect, love, and genuine care; yet she is not the head, and has a different role.

How few of those young women who think about having an abortion think about the fact that they are pondering the destruction of someone to whom all the family is related: grandparents, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces and siblings.

People used to hear a married woman announce her pregnancy; and they replied with "Congratulations". When legal abortion had been introduced, it became necessary to be cautious, knowing that women can find doctors to destroy their unborn babies, even without the approval or consent of the husband, the child's father.

Just as my children and husband and other relations are always in my heart and prayers because we are members of one family, so the whole Church - the Communion of Saints, on earth, in Heaven and in Purgatory - should be held in my heart. We are a great family, with special relationships binding us. All people deserve respect and love, but especially those in our 'household of faith'.