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Water flows downstream, because of the law of gravity. This is the normal way, planned by God. Likewise, He has plans for families. It is usual for a child to be conceived of two parents: a man and a woman. It is the Will of God that children are looked after by a mother and a father, or, in case of tragedy, by a substitute mother and father.

Satan's great desire is to wreck God's plan for family life. Satan reaches out of the depths of Hell - out of the Abyss - to encourage family breakdown, to help spouses to desert one another, to cause children to be rebellious, and women to have abortions, and young adults to neglect their aging parents. He is also undermining the principles of people in Government, to induce them to pass anti-family laws.

God is so lavish in his creativity that there are thousands of creatures which He has designed, hidden in the depths of the ocean, or elsewhere, and so with us; it should not cause us sorrow if all our gifts or creative powers, given by God, are not used or recognised to the fullest degree. With God's guidance, we can be certain that He will use them in the best possible ways for His good purposes.

The dangerous step of a suicide: Everyone who plans to commit suicide deserves to be reminded that death is like a prison with no exit. The entrance to it cannot be opened again, for a person who says: "I've changed my mind! I want to live! There I things I want to do". To commit suicide is to go towards judgement, before God has chosen to call that person, though only God knows how blame-worthy is someone who commits the sin of self-killing.

We are sometimes humiliated, slandered or ignored, because of our Christian faith. In His Passion, Christ set us an example. He kept silent, as an example for His friends to follow, as He accepted the Will of the Father, to fulfill the Father's plan of salvation. He had confidence in the Father's love, and the Father's power to save Him.

We are sometimes humiliated, slandered or ignored, because of our Christian faith. In His Passion, Christ set us an example. He kept silent, as an example for His friends to follow, as He accepted the Will of the Father, to fulfill the Father's plan of salvation. He had confidence in the Father's love, and the Father's power to save Him.

God pours down His gifts from Heaven so that we can use them in the service of the Church and the world, just as Pope John Paul II did. If we use the gifts for personal fulfilment rather than to fulfil God's plans, it's as if we are building a roof over our lives, to avoid seeing God's wishes. We make a notice that says to Him: "Keep Out".

Just as a mathematician finds joys in his calculations, as he explores obscure aspects of his subject, so, some theologians like to make nuanced statements about obscure aspects of doctrine; yet theologians are unwise if they neglect basic principles of the Faith, or forget that, in essence, it is simple, consisting of truths about God's plan of salvation, and how we can be saved.

Many Christians make a dreadful error in refusing to know Our Lady or to seek her prayers. They draw a curtain over centuries of Christian devotions to her, devotions she deserves because of her central place in God's plan of salvation. How shocking, to ignore the mother of God!

We are foolish if we endanger our state of grace, and our eternal destiny. To have been given the gift of life in Christ is a great privilege. It is to share the very life of God through the indwelling Trinity, and so to fulfill the Father's plan that each of us begins to resemble Christ and to be transformed by the action of the Holy Spirit. It's as if we are held in His embrace, being prepared for life in Heaven.

Faith is a gift from God, but it comes when people who have heard the story of God's action proclaimed, accept the grace to believe it. That story or proclamation is about God's plan of Salvation. It includes His gradual Revelation of Himself to Abraham, Moses, and others, and His Revelation in His Son, Jesus Christ, who is God-made-man, and who lived on earth, and died, and rose from the dead, to conquer sin and death, to save sinners.

Everything that happens on earth has been planned, permitted or chosen by God. Yet God's gift to everyone in His plan of salvation, and to everyone on earth, is freedom. Whoever serves Him does so having freely chosen to do so. God coerces no-one, not even the Mother of His own Son, Jesus Christ. If we look past the figures of Christ and Our Lady, to whom we pray so often, and approach the Invisible Father, we can remember: a wise person is one who chooses Life.

If we could pierce the Heavens, we would still not 'understand' all about God. If we search the Sacred Scriptures, we can find out why Christ came to earth, but we cannot find out everything about the Mind of God in Eternity. He is far above us. We can draw reasonable conclusions about His plan, however. We need not say, 'Christ would have come to earth had man not sinned'. The freedom, through which man sinned, was always part of God's plan; so the sin was always foreseen.

If we love Christ and trust in Him, we can hurl ourselves - by His grace - into His loving heart, in prayer, as if into an Abyss of light, in total surrender but real unknowing, and real acceptance of Christ's plans for us, whatever these might be. He is utterly trustworthy, even if He leads us along unexpected paths.

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.