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Stages of the spiritual life - used for a retreat at Ampleforth College

Keeping God out: attitudes, decisions and distractions that can keep God at a distance.

The view from Heaven: Christ, looking down at the world, sees his priests as 'other Christs', each a visible 'embodied' Christ in a particular place on earth, each chosen and made ready to sanctify the Faithful and to teach those who do not yet know Him, each one visible, truth-speaking, kind, prayerful, and trusting in the Father's plans and the Spirit's power.

Christ is born in a stable in Bethlehem

She did not realise that in deliberately rejecting God and His laws she had embraced evil. She thought she was free, but she had already put herself in the power of him who now half-devoured her.

I used to lie in the long warm grass, in summer, overwhelmed by the beauty around me, looking at the little insects that ran up and down a grass-stalk, or following the pattern of the clouds in the sky: aware of the 'hand' or presence of our Creator.

Christ loves to be welcomed when He comes amongst us at the Consecration. He is overjoyed when we welcome the children to whom He has given the gift of life, and to whom we should give not just nourishment but also loving care.

Some people, through their obscene conversations and sinful desires, proceed in a way of life which leads towards Hell - unless they are fortunate enough to realise it, and to change.

The light of prayer reveals the truth in our hearts and minds.

Some souls have not heeded the warning that the evil one, like a lion, prowls around seeking those he can devour. They do their own will, not God's Will, until death; then are horrified to enter the 'lion's mouth', which is the evil one's 'embrace'.

Each separate congregation of Catholics at Mass, in every place and every era, in present to the unique, once-for-all Holy Sacrifice of Christ, which He offered on Calvary for sinners.

There are many people who look upon the Church's teaching on celibacy as being something medieval that belongs to a time of fairy stories and superstition. They have no realisation that it is an heroic way of life on a par with the costly ventures undertaken by military forces. The military go out in order to save a nation, but the priests to save souls, by a radical way of life, like that of Jesus.