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It is part of being faithful to Christ: expecting ourselves sometimes to be mocked or betrayed, since even He suffered scorn and betrayal in His life-time. But our suffering is not fruitless, if we offer it up, in union with Him.

None of our unavoidable sufferings or humiliations need be wasted. By our intercessory prayers, and the patient 'offering-up' of our sufferings, in union with Christ, we cause an outpouring of His grace to fall upon someone in danger of falling into mortal sin, or falling into Hell. Christ gives us the privilege of joining in His saving work, even though we are imperfect, as long as we live in a state of grace.

Every Mass is a triumph of grace, no matter how weak we are. When we unite our thanks and praises, our sorrow-for-sin, and our petitions and intercessions, with Christ's great sacrificial prayer in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we can be confident that our prayer is successful, for it is Christ Himself, from our altar, Who lifts up our prayer, with His, and presents them to our all-holy Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

There are many doctrines, traditions, customs, practices and attitudes within the Catholic Church which cause revulsion amongst those people who hoped that everything would change, after the Second Vatican Council; but Christ wants us all to stay faithful to the teachings and traditions of the Church, no matter what opposition we suffer.

There were people who hoped to cast off ancient beliefs, customs and disciplines, after the Second Vatican Council. For two generations, many Catholics have built a new 'road' for themselves to walk on, with their modernist ideas, and lack of reverence both for the Sacred Tradition and for the Real Presence of Christ amongst His People - and for the Pope, who leads us, by the Will of Christ.

Modernists have used the Second Vatican Council's decrees as a means of demanding more change in the Church than the decrees themselves allow. They have built a new road for themselves to walk upon, but have left behind the Holy Spirit. He is active, but in the heart and mind of the Pope, who guides the truly faithful souls on the Way of Christ, which winds around the path made by the extremists.

The Church's doctrine about the importance of the Papacy is so firm, that it's as if Christ has been calling out to His followers, all through the ages, "STAY WITH PETER!" No-one is a faithful Catholic who has cut himself adrift from the Pope.

Christ wants us to see this image, from Him, about the irreverence and silliness often seen in Church at what is a memorial of His Passion and Death! Those Catholics who wanted complete change in the Church after the Second Vatican Council tried to build a new road for everyone to follow, with changed doctrines and distorted attitudes; yet the one true Church continued to practice reverent worship, around them, and to teach truth in faith and morals.

Christ asks us to accept the tragic truth about atheism: that a person who does not believe in God does not pray, never thanks God for anything, never asks for forgiveness from God, never prays for other people, never asks to be delivered from evil in this life, and never prays to be saved and brought to Heaven. Every atheist is in desperate need of the prayers of the faithful, no matter how good a life he seems to lead.

Only because Christ suffered and died, as man, to conquer sin and death by rising up from the grave, has He made it possible for us sinners to follow in His Way. We who trust in Him, and go into the 'tomb' in our Baptism, and renounce sin, and carry our sufferings in patience, like crosses, know that our prayers are heard, and that Heaven awaits all who remain faithful.

When Christ washed the feet of His disciples at the Last Supper, He set us an example; and He is pleased, and grateful, whenever He sees us show out practical, compassionate love in our care of the needy: whether the members of our own families in everyday life, or people in our wider community,

On the evening of Holy Thursday, when we have gathered to celebrate the Mass of the Last Supper, Christ becomes Present amongst us; and He is touched to the heart by our devotion. We were not forced to attend; but we are aware of what He once suffered in His Passion, for our sakes. He is pleased that we prove our love by coming to be with Him in this special way.

Christ looks upon the faithful people who have come to the 'Mass of the Lord's Supper' on Holy Thursday: people only there because they love Him, Who suffered to save us. We touch His heart by our devotion, right up to the stripping of the altar, when we prepare to accompany Christ to Gethsemane.

Christ wants us to realise that the worst thing for Him to endure, in the events leading up to His trial, was not the roar of the crowd, but the desertion of His friends, which wounded His heart.

Just as our Saviour, Christ, was pushed towards the man who would pronounce the death sentence on Him, though He had done no wrong, so a beautiful, unborn baby is pushed - inside its mother - along a hospital corridor towards the surgeon who is willing to carry out its execution, though the child has done no wrong.

Some types of wrong-doing are merciless, and always wrong. Just as Pontius Pilate gestured towards Christ, and explained that he was going to wash his hands of that Galilean 'prophet', so a surgeon gestures towards a baby who lies hidden in the womb of the mother who has requested an abortion; and the surgeon explains that it won't take long to dispose of the child.

Just as Christ was left half-dead, after a cruel scourging, and was about to die on the Cross of Calvary, so it frequently happens that an aborted baby is left half-dead on a work-top, unwanted and untended, left to die solely because the child is unwanted. It is a monstrous sin, in God's sight, to kill the innocent.

Christians should ask for the grace to be charitable; but this does not mean that we must fail to speak necessary truths in order to spare people's feelings. Charity without truth is merely flattery, or leads us to placate those who need help in order to change. We should be as simple and straightforward as Christ, in our speech: kind and gentle, but unafraid to offer unpopular truths.

We need to pray for all people in Government. No Government is wise, which forgets that it rules under God. No Government in a Christian country can flourish if it takes no account of Christian feast-days, and undermines the moral teachings of the Church. Those of us who can, should speak out against anti-life and anti-Christian legislation.

Christ wants us to understand how deeply tragic is the issue of abortion. By this image, He is showing out what happens, as pregnant women see their doctors today. Some are so disappointed or angry about being pregnant that they arrange to have their own tiny infants deliberately destroyed in the womb. It's as if each baby carries a label, saying 'unwanted'.