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We must not allow shame and embarrassment to keep us from experiencing the joy of being forgiven, after Confession. It can be embarrassing to realise how engrossed we once were in our sins, just as children are engrossed in their ecstasy at the funfair, unable to pay attention to ordinary concerns. The time has come to make a careful assessment of how we spend our time, no longer engrossed in selfish pleasures.

We do not always feel wonderful after a good Confession, because we are like a man who has climbed out of a deep mine shaft - mortal sin - and who now sits exhausted on the ground. But within the soul the peace of Christ increases, as Christ present within the soul gives grace and spiritual nourishment.

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 Father in Heaven loves all His creatures, but He looks with delight and wonder upon the soul of a person newly-forgiven in the Sacrament of Penance; and like a mother full of wonder at her new-born baby's delightful fingers and toes, God looks with wonder upon the penitent's virtues and good resolutions.

What matters is not how many people die, but in what state-of-soul each person died. Has this one died - or that - in friendship with God, to inherit Heaven, or alienated from God, as one who had allowed Satan to lead him?

It is important to treat the dead with respect. Yet, no matter what type of death people die, no matter in what way they will be mourned, what counts, when they die, is whether they did so in friendship with God - which means they are on their way to God - or alienated from Him, forever to be without His love and beauty and peace. We all ought to prepare to leave this life.

It is not the duty of the priest, at a Requiem Mass, to announce that the deceased person is certainly in Heaven. His duty is to lead the Church in prayer, and to offer the Holy Sacrifice for the remission of the sins of the living and the departed. Only God knows who has been saved - though we should live in hope - and who has gone straight to Heaven: God and His Church, who canonises the Saints.

Whether a man cruelly murders an innocent woman in order to steal her valuables without a witness, or kills an innocent baby currently developing in its mother's womb, an act has been done which is barbaric in God the Father's sight, and deserving of punishment - even if the circumstances vary.

When abortion was always a crime in English law, it was sometimes judged compassionately by those who knew of a woman's difficult circumstances, yet it was true, all the same, that a death had occurred. It is an outrage, in God's sight, that some politicians today support the killing of unborn babies, and have made it easier to do, and are applauded for it.

If we reflect, we will remember that Christ was an innocent victim, in a long-ago earthly life. Innocent victims of abortion today deserve, of us, fervent prayer and brave words, so that Christ, by His almighty power, will banish this barbaric practice.

They do not see our sins; yet the saints in Heaven are in Communion with us. They see our joys, and comfort us by their prayers when we are in pain or dispirited. There is no death, for those who live in Christ: only 'life in Christ'

Though we might recognise how weak and sinful we are, we are acting with wisdom if we come to Mass with contrite hearts, so that we are present as Christ prays to the Father on our behalf. Christ knows all our needs.

It is a dreadful thing, in God's sight, that elected law-makers can, of their free will, vote for abortion, that is, make possible the killing of tiny babies in the womb. They are as blameworthy, in God's eyes, as people who carry out those barbaric procedures.

A man who provides a gun for a murderer, and shows him how to use it, to shoot a victim, shares responsibility for that terrible act, just as a member of Parliament who votes for continued abortions, or greater numbers of abortions, is as blameworthy, in God's sight, as the people who carry out those dreadful procedures.

The eye has a simple function: to enable us to see; yet its working depends on millions of cells in the brain and the optic nerve. The Godhead is simple; yet God has millions of means of dealing with human beings, in order to help us; so our Religion is not simple - although it's purpose is simple: to bring us to Eternal union with God.

Christ is One God with the Father and the Holy Spirit: always joyful. What can possibly give Him joy? He is joyful when we believe what He has said; and He said, of the Holy Eucharist: "This is My Body", and "This is My Blood". He wants everyone to believe in His Real Presence, and to celebrate Corpus Christi.

Just as a consecrated Host, which seems so insignificant, is in fact the Presence of Christ the Saviour, so a tiny embryo, which seems so insignificant, is already a living person who will grow into adult life.

God invites us to love Him, to follow the hard road of obedience until we die, and share His love, with the Saints, eternally. People who refuse to love God and who deliberately take the broad road, refusing to repent of their sins, find that at death, by their own choice, they remain on the same path, on which there is no light from Heaven, nor any Heavenly peace, joy, beauty or companionship. To be without God is to exist in Hell.

In a story, a kind king told His children that He would give them every advantage, and make them very happy, but they must learn to take responsibility for their behaviour. He said: When you are grown-up, and if you deliberately do grave wrong, you will go to prison. They all agreed that the king's words are wise and just. And so it is, with the warnings given to us by Jesus Christ our God and King, about persistant grave sin, and Hell.

A person who has successfully struggled against sin or temptation might expect to feel joyful, not tearful and half-dead. Yet he is like a man who is just leaving a battlefield, who only then sees his ragged uniform, and his wounds. It takes time to recover, and to regain equilibrium.