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It is only too easy to avoid doing God's Will. There are some Christians who neglect the Fourth Commandment about honouring father and mother. It's as if a woman complains that if granny comes to live with them, they won't be able to continue with their dinner parties - and the children will grumble about having to behave at meals.

Our voices are made for speaking truth. When someone lies, it is as though a stream of filthy water pours out of her heart and through her mouth. Even so-called white lies produce a stream of polluted water: as do exaggerations, slander, blasphemy, boasting and innuendo.

Christ wanted to make His Catholic church buildings into 'little Heavens' on earth, where people could offer prayer, in peace, in His Presence, before the Holy Eucharist, with the Angels. When there is constant chatter, this defeats His purpose. The Clergy, above all, should encourage people in church to behave with a reverent silence.

It is hard to bear criticism for doing right, or persecution, personal abuse or slander. But if we bear it in patience, with peaceful words and peaceful hearts, we please Christ, Who has power to give us whatever help He wishes. He has power, too, over our persecutors, even when He has given them the freedom to do good or evil.

When an angry and uncharitable person pours a torrent of abuse upon an innocent person, the effect upon that soul is as if a torrent of filthy water had surged into a home. It is important to sweep out that flood-water, which is the venomous phrases and insinuations causing distress, or they might stick in the mind, to fester, and cause spiritual sickness or self-pity.

Some people refuse to be helped towards salvation and joy. When we pray in the name of Jesus we should be confident that the Father will hear our prayers and grant many of our wishes: if they are in accordance with His Will; but it can happen that certain persons refuse to benefit from our intercessions. If they are people who insist on walking away from God, refusing to co-operate with His graces, we cannot raise them up to Heaven by our prayer. God has given them free will; and some condemn themselves.

Christ's friends live as if within a bight cloud, of God's love. When we live in union with God in everyday life, nourished by the Sacraments, forgiven and in a state of grace, we do not need to see the path ahead, before we can love and serve God well. We don't need to picture the future. Even if we are uncertain of His plans for us, or unsure of our vocation, we should be confident that here, from moment to moment, we can delight Him by doing His Will, in our ordinary circumstances.

It can be helpful to turn from habitual prayers to a Litany, or to Sacred Scripture. If our routine prayers are disturbed by assaults from the evil one, or unwanted images, temptations or suggestions, we can change our plans - not by, abandoning prayer, but by praying in another way, so that his plans are confounded; and we shall still give glory to God, and benefit our own souls and those of other people, as we remain in the 'bright cloud' which is God, our hearts full of love for Him.

We must be kind to everyone, especially when a person is agonising over a major problem, knowing what to do, to please God, to act justly, and to correct his appalling behaviour. He is like a fish on a hook, wriggling, in torment. He dreads the humiliation involved, though he now wants to do right.

It can be distressining, to see people we know apparently taking the wrong road, away from Christ, and Heaven. Only God knows their final destination; and we are right to hope, and to intercede for them; however, some people use their gift of free-will deliberately to disobey Christ, act unjustly, or ignore the teachings of the Church about charity, and penance; and, like Christ, we must accept that they have made their own choices, even foolish ones.

Especially if we are doing important work for Christ, the evil one is capable of hurling painful memories to our imagination, trying to stir up our minds in fruitless speculation, so that we will lose trust in Christ and become miserable or afraid - or full of self-pity, or anxiety. We must not give in, but should focus our minds, by God's grace, on all the good things for which we can be thankful to God.

As we pray in the name of Christ to God our Father, the most important thing about prayer is that we approach God with hearts open to His love, willing to learn from Him, and reverent, humble, contrite and grateful. Books can be useful, if they give us words in which to clothe our thoughts, for a sincere offering to God; but books are useless, if we read to God but do so without humility, without trust, or without willingness to love, forgive and serve our neighbour.

Although God allowed sinful men, whom He justified, to guide and lead His People, He wants to teach all the peoples of the world through the truth spoken by His own Son, on earth, hence the Incarnation and Birth of Jesus Christ. He was inevitably persecuted and killed, yet knowing and accepting this in advance. But death, a punishment for sin, could not hold the sinless one, or His sinless Virgin Mother. They are in Heaven now, encouraging us to persevere is truth and holiness.

We cannot look away when people starve; nor should we look away when the souls of fellow creatures are in danger. People who deliberately defy God's law, and commit mortal sin, and who even show pride in what they do, or boast about it, are as if climbers dancing only inches away from the mouth of a live volcano. They will end in Hell, unless they repent; and so they are in desperate need of our fervent intercessions.

If a child could look back five centuries, then another five, then another - to when Christ lived on earth, she would see: the very same Catholic Faith is taught today, as in the first century after Christ. God the Father looks upon the earth, glad to see people who believe in the whole Deposit of Faith, handed down from the time of Jesus Christ and the Apostles. Yet very few believe the Faith in its entirety; so, in our age, as in the first century, and the fifth, tenth and fifteenth, there is a great need for witness, evangelisation, and intercession.

What we believe affects how we behave, in life; so it is tragic that there is a current mind-set within certain groups of priests, Bishops and Catechists, which makes a thoroughly orthodox Catholic priest into an object of dislike and suspicion. It's as if a person who believes all that the Church teaches, and encourages others to teach it and practice it must necessarily be 'rigid, lacking in compassion', whereas those who criticise him usually offer a distorted, truncated, or watered down version of the Faith.

As we pray for the Holy Souls we help them to move forward, closer to Heaven's light. It is as if they are in a queue, waiting their turn to meet Christ and His Mother Mary. We cannot see the Holy Souls, but if we could peep into Purgatory as if into a cellar beneath our world, we would see that they are safe, content to be in God's care, grateful for the prospect of Heaven.

In Mediaeval times, people were taught the truth about the Mass, the central act of our religion, and the greatest means of praising God - through His Son, and His Son's Holy Sacrifice, re-presented in the presence of the Saints, the Holy Souls and the Angels. What is important are prayer, adoration, and the knowledge that we join in the worship of Heaven. (It is because most children are taught only that the Mass is a community meal, that there are so many images given, through Radiant Light, of every aspect of the Holy Sacrifice. The Lord wants every effort made to teach the truth about these Holy Mysteries.)

Those Who encourage children to take a busy part doing 'jobs' during the Sacred Liturgy might make the children feel important but often lead them to become distracted from what is said, and certainly not prayerful. There should be encouragement, rather, for children to know what happens in the Holy Sacrifice, to believe it, to be grateful for God's love and action, and to adore and praise Him.

Just as a person who wants to go to the shops to buy essentials takes the sensible route: the direct route across the village, and doesn't wander aimlessly around, so people who want to be successful in reaching Heaven co-operate with God by talking the Way He has made, rather than saying: "I can find my own way", or even, "There are things I want to do, first, that You don't approve of".