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Christ has given His Church the authority to teach us. Christian principles have underpinned the government of our country for over a thousand years; and she should not be pushed off course by a handful of atheists in power. We please Christ when we speak the truth about making laws based on moral and ethical foundations.
God wants our children to learn the truth. Each received life from God, is loved by God; and life has a purpose; we should prepare for Heaven by a life of love and holiness, through the friendship of Jesus Christ and the teachings of the Church. The Christian principles, on which our country is founded must not be pushed aside by atheistic government persons.
It is the Holy Spirit Who inspires us to pray for the Holy Souls in Purgatory; and He wants us to know that they are not only helped by our prayers, towards heaven, but also consoled, in the knowledge that they are not forgotten by the Church.
Christ was betrayed and left alone with His enemies because people were afraid - or did not believe in Him. Today, He sees many Catholics betray Him when they dispute or ignore His Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament, or other teachings of the Church, and when they criticize priests and lay-persons who speak the truth about sin and virtue.
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.
Christ is Really Present in our church. He delights in our visits. When I was on retreat at Douai Abbey, Christ spoke to me, on Good Friday, about His delight that I had kept Him company in His Passion. He was even more pleased that I had offered my whole adult life to Him, for the doing of His Will; and so He gave me reassurance and comfort.
There are three groups that endanger their salvation by not benefiting from the 'Bread of Life' which is Jesus our Eucharistic Lord: those who refuse to believe in Him or to join the Church, those other Christians who insist on believing that their Orders are valid, but who receive only bread, and those Catholics whose Communions are ineffective because of the refusal of those Communicants to believe in what Christ teaches them through His Church.
When someone we care for seems to be 'lost' in sinful behaviour, or alienation from the Church, it's as though he seems to be drowning: but Christ is there with a net, acting to rescue him, if he will allow it. As long as a person is alive, there is hope that he will repent and be saved.
The lives of those people on earth who live according to God's laws are lived 'in the light'. They inhabit the 'City of God' on earth, which has at its centre a church, for the worship of the Father through Christ, in the Spirit. The light of Heaven shines down upon those lives, but others live in darkness.
Around the City of God, where people live according to God's laws, is a place only dimly-lit, where people who sin hide from the light, like medieval outlaws staying outside the city. When people in darkness eventually die, they cannot rise up to Heaven to the God they have rejected but must fall into the Abyss.
Far above the City of God on earth, where people live who do God's Will, God the Father reigns, His hand held up in blessing, as He gazes upon all who love Him. God loves everyone; yet those who choose to live beyond the City, in the darkness of serious sin, did not receive that blessing; nor will they join the Saints in Heaven, unless they repent.
The Lord asks us all to speak the simple truth to evangelisers of various sects, and to be kind, yet, in charity, to tell them that their beliefs are mistaken. Real charity is to want them to see the truth about Christ and the Catholic Church, not to pay false compliments about false religions. Plainly, we should be well-informed about our Catholic Faith, before we take part in discussions.
Christ asked His followers to follow the teachings given by religious leaders but not to do as they did. The same is necessary today. We should follow the authentic teachings offered by faithful Bishops, but should never do what some Bishops do, which is to water down the Faith to make it acceptable to non-believers, and to avoid being seen as 'rigid' at ecumenical gatherings.
Through the free gift of Divine grace, all that Christ out God did for us in His earthly life has been given to the Church to dispense. It all stemmed from His being made flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary. As man, He preached the truth, suffered and died for our sins, rose up from the tomb, and by rising up to Heaven made a Way in which we can follow, by our union with Him in our Baptism: a union made stronger by prayer, sacraments, and good works.
Some Catholics ignore Christ; others look bored in His Presence; many take no notice of the teachings He gives through His Church. They scarcely believe that He is a real person - a Divine Person - Who is pleased to be shown love as well as to give it.
Christ asks us to picture a peaceful home, and what it is like to enter where there are no loud disagreements or resentments or disobedience. The soul of a person who really loves Christ, welcomes Him with reverence, believes in His Church's teachings, and puts them into practice, is like a 'peaceful home' for Him, when He enters in Holy Communion.
The Church is like a house, where the faithful are happy. Only if people leave the 'cellars' of sinful behaviour are they free to follow Christ to Heaven when He calls them, at the end of earthly life. His is the only Way. To refuse His invitation is to be lost forever, unable to ascend to where the Saints live, in Eternal Bliss.
Those people who make a great noise within the Church by their constant refusal to accept the Church's teaching, their attempts to lead others astray, and their disobedience towards those placed by Christ in authority over them, are as if living in a dark cellar of discontent, beneath the 'house of faith'.
The Church teaches the truth, in every age of our history, yet each of the mystics experiences it - for example, St Paul, St Teresa of Avila, St Thomas Aquinas. It is the Christian mystic who prays with trust, reverence and humility, who knows God better than anyone, through union with Christ in prayer. The mystics have produced the most lyrical and intellectually-coherent accounts of what they have learned of God - which knowledge echoes and confirms the truths taught by the Church, and illumines them.
As well as being fervent teachers, the Church's greatest sinners, when forgiven, have been the most lyrical in their expressions of gratitude to God for helping the weak and hopeless: for example, St. Augustine of Hippo, St. Ignatius Loyola, and St. Francis of Assisi.
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