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It is astonishing, how careless we are, in the face of danger. What the Lord allows us to picture as the fires of Hell are only images; but they represent a terrible reality, which is that there is no greater torment than alienation from God, forever. Christ often warned us about Hell. He has done so, through His Church, for 2000 years; and so He wants us to see that if we deliberately walk towards those flames, by refusing to repent and to live in His love, we are foolish as well as disobedient. For people who die in their sins, Hell never ends.

Christ wants everyone to know the truth about Hell as well as Heaven. He spoke a lot about Hell, in the Gospel stories, but this is rarely mentioned today. He wants us to realise that someone who deliberately commits grave sin, despite Christ's warnings, is foolish as well as disobedient. That person is freely choosing to walk into those flames, unless he repents in time.

God looks down from Heaven, ready to distribute lavish gifts upon us, yet sees many dispirited priests who are too afraid to teach the Faith in its fullness; thus they are unwilling to imitate their Saviour and risk criticism from those they teach; and so they omit to mention the wrongness of adultery, contraceptive use, desertion of spouses, and neglect of children by mothers, and much more. In failing to rescue people from sin they fail in their duty, as if hiding away in a pit, hoping to be unnoticed.

Whether we are single or married, called to the lay state, or single and called to Priesthood or the Religious Life, we are invited by God to have firm faith in His power to help us. It's as if He has arms full of gifts such as courage, hope, greater faith, and love and humility. If we ask for them, He will lavish them upon us, so that we can be good and obedient like Christ.

Many of the Clergy preach a truncated Faith. There is little preaching today on important issues of sexual morality: sins which are common-place, such as adultery, pre-marital sex, contraceptive use and much more. In Christ's sight, a Bishop who does not teach the Faith in its fullness and lead people away from sin and hopelessness is still a beloved 'child', but is as useless as a shopkeeper who refuses to sell things.

Christ wants everyone to be reminded that life ends. By our choices and actions today we are choosing to move towards Heaven or Hell. Either we are good children of God who will be confident that the Holy Spirit will carry them to Heaven when they die, or we are in danger of falling into the Abyss, to join the demons in Hell, by our own fault. Christ wants each person to think about this question: "What are you doing with your life?"

A priest fulfils the Will of Christ, and becomes joyful, when he has begun to accept the Cross, in being conformed to Christ in a sinful world. By his union with Christ, and His imitation of Christ, he can be freed to do what he is called to do, which is not primarily to help people with their earthly cares, but above all to bring them and himself towards holiness and salvation, and thereby to play his part in God's plan of salvation.

The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ. Just as we help the whole Church by our good deeds, thoughts and prayers, we harm the Church by our sins and failings. Even when Catholics call themselves people of 'loyal dissent', they harm the Body of Christ by their disobedience, their disbelief in Christ's teachings, given through the Church, and their lack of charity as they attack the Church and help to undermine the Faith of those who do believe. Christ looks on, as His own children hurt Him.

This is a picture of a mind, as someone wonders if he can avoid a moral obligation. Although we can freely make any one of several decisions, in following a good career, or choosing a spouse, for example; yet when we are reluctant to act, in moral issues, we often see that there is only one way - Christ's Way - by which we can please God, do good, help others, and gain or re-gain our peace of conscience. He can give us the courage to walk where He leads us. We can avoid our kaleidoscope of temptations, and call on Christ to lead us: to holiness and Heaven.

The souls in Purgatory suffer amidst the clouds of remorse and sin from which they are being purified. They desperately want our prayers, to aid them in their preparation for Heaven, by God's grace. It is tragic that many Catholics are careless about having a Mass said for the dead, or praying in private, and even more tragic that many Christians don't believe prayer for the Departed is necessary, despite its scriptural warrant. They in fact abandon their departed friends and relations.

It is tragic not only that some Catholics forget the Holy Souls in Purgatory, but that many Christians are told by their leaders that prayer for departed souls is unnecessary or useless. Well-meaning people leave their friends and relations in Purgatory, without offering a single prayer to God for them, and imagining that every kind of person will speed straight into Heaven, even when laden with sinful habits and attitudes.

Many people who sincerely love Christ and do His Will become the targets of the evil one. If he cannot tempt them to sin, he mocks them for their kindness, or their purity, and makes them endure salacious spiritual assaults of various types; yet all the time, Christ is close to such souls, supporting them in their trials. It's as if each of these faithful persons stands amidst piles of stinking rubbish, but is being held in the arms of Christ.

No sinful human being was worthy, or ever could be worthy to enter the glory and purity of Heaven. So God the Son became man: holy and sinless. After His work on earth He made a Way to Heaven. He was worthy to enter; and He can draw into Heaven, after Him, each person who has been made worthy by the grace of Christ, and through having persevered in grace to the very end.

It was the Father's plan to give His Son to the world through Mary, the Blessed Virgin. Only because of her consent to the Father's plan - which would bring her tremendous suffering as well as joy - did Jesus come to our world: the God-man, to save us from our sins. She is still active, with Christ, as she prays for us, as our Mother.

This is the ideal, for a priest: to be totally conformed to Christ - and for lay-persons too, who want to do the Will of God. Whoever conforms his will to the Will of Christ, and believes and practices the teachings of the Church, for love of Christ, and has a pure heart, avoids all sin, and shares the Faith where he can, and loves his neighbour, is a channel for God's powerful graces to others, even if he or she has weaknesses and imperfections from character defects, or poor upbringing.

Many Catholics believe it is enough to be kind to other people. The greatest love is shown when people are not only offered kindness but also when they are offered the truth which sets us free: the truth about God's love for us, about sin and virtue, repentance and forgiveness, about the Real Presence of Jesus in His Church, helping us to prepare for Heaven.

Those priests who have grievously sinned, or have become dispirited and somewhat hopeless, are not abandoned by Christ. Some might be in danger of falling into Hell, in the depths of the Abyss; but Christ is reaching out to them. If they reach up to Him in repentance and trust, before they die, they can find salvation and even joy and peace of soul.

Everyone who sincerely repents of his sins, before he dies, will be forgiven by God, as Christ has promised. Yet someone who has acted with unimaginable cruelty is left in great need of penance and purification. He can find that, in Purgatory, he is allowed to reflect on his great wickedness, and on the mercy of God who has saved him from Hell, in circumstances similar to those in which he once confined his victims. It will be a long time before he is ready for Heaven.

There might be pleasure in sinning, but there is no spiritual joy in being in spiritual danger. If a person freely chooses to do what God has forbidden, it's as if he is holding on to the edge of a cliff; if he dies without repenting and moving up onto level ground, he will inevitably let go and fall into the depths, never to emerge.

At the Mass, we are present as Christ prays for us to be forgiven. When He is made Really Present at the Consecration, it is as though we have a pathway, in Him, through time and space, to be present to all He has done for us in His earthly life, supremely to the once-for-all Sacrifice of the Cross, on which He suffered to win forgiveness for sinners, including ourselves. By His Precious Blood, He sealed a new Covenant between Heaven and earth. By His Resurrection He conquered sin and death.