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We should be able to defend the Faith. It is not superstition. We believe in things Divinely revealed, but our faith is not unreasonable. God's beauty, power and laws are discernable in nature - including our nature and conscience. There is historical evidence for Christ's life; and His friends were transformed and made brave by His Resurrection. We have two thousand years of evidence - despite sins and mistakes - that Catholicism elevates society, marriage, government, education, treatment of the sick, and children, and brings peace, and hope of Heaven.

By trust, we help to build a good society. Christ set us an example by entrusting Himself to human care. He asks spouses to trust one another. He asks mothers to be worthy of their children's trust. He wants children to be able to trust their teachers, and the sick to be able to trust those who look after them; and the elderly too, even if they are not sick, should be with people they can trust.

Christ as an infant in the care of His Mother has set us an example of complete trust, which is a quality necessary for the good functioning of a good society. God the Father has arranged that people everywhere entrust themselves to the care of others: babies to parents, children to teachers, elderly people to their grown-up children, and spouses trusting one another. A good society should be ordered on the pre-supposition that citizens desire to lead good lives.

God is pleased to see people welcome children, to see the love for life in the hearts of many people on earth; He is also pleased to see that some of the faithful even have a 'love for death', in the sense that they have banished their fears, by His grace, and even long to go through death, as through a doorway, in order to meet the Lord, when He calls them 'home'.

Some children's books are far too simple. It is often said that children are too young to learn words which Christians have used for centuries about the spiritual life and the sacraments. Yet even young children can remember complicated film-plots, and the names of foreign weapons, and hierarchies. Can they not be helped to learn the correct words for religious matters?

How ungrateful many Catholics are, for Christ's saving Work. If we ever fail to go to Mass because we can't be bothered to plan our travel, or organise our meals or our children, we would do well to reflect on the sufferings of our fellow-Catholics in far-off countries, who would walk miles to attend Mass, if they could, but who are often kept away, or imprisoned, or worse, by their enemies.

God knows all our needs, fears, hopes and joys. God asks us to live in a beautiful relationship with Him, now that we have been reconciled. He asks us to entrust ourselves to Jesus as comfortably as a tiny child entrusts itself to a good mother, never doubting that she is there to feed, console, hold and nurture him.

All who persevere in love, and enter heaven, find that the blind, the lame, the deaf are healed. No-one suffers shame in Heaven. All are forgiven; and they are as joyful as carefree children. And no-one is sick or disabled. They might bear visible wounds, as Jesus does; but the formerly blind now see, the lame walk, the deaf hear; and everyone - the Blessed Trinity, and all the Saints, and all the Angels - is beautiful!

Children deserve to have peaceful childhoods, with mixed work and fun. Can anyone who really cares about little children want them to learn about sex and reproduction? They are too young. It is their parents' task, for later on - and not something for early years, discussed and illustrated in mixed classes, with little or no moral content. What would our reaction be, if children came across pictures of body parts and sex techniques and contraceptive devices?

Christ is weeping, horrified at witnessing the abuse of innocent children by priests who should have been trustworthy figures in their lives, indeed, should have been 'icons of Christ', holy, loveable and loving, chaste and kind.

Some truths can scarcely by borne. It is tragic that a child in our world, who begins by trusting others, sometimes has that trust shattered - by family problems - or by war, when even children have ended a train journey in concentration camps. Despite these horrors, Christ asks us, who believe in Him, to trust Him, who is trustworthy. He asks us to be like little children, confident that He Who is good and loving, can help us to endure all trials, and eventually reach Heaven.

Saint Michael is a powerful warrior, glad to protect God's children from the evil one: from temptation and spiritual assaults. We should turn to him in prayer, and to other holy Angels, and to the Saints, when we are in need of help, as well as to our Saviour and His Virgin Mother.

There is more to voting that supporting an attractive person. Policies matter. The Lord invites us to reflect on this matter, as we try to decide whom to vote for, in elections for Government: Are these people, or those, the more likely to encourage in our country the sort of life and behaviour that pleases God? Do politicians who support family life also desire to help the weak and needy? Do politicians seeking power want to promote further abortion provision, and contraceptive provision to children, whilst not favouring marriage? We need to support those who do good.

If we want God to make a beautiful pattern out of our lives, using our various gifts, interspersed with weaknesses, failings, unhappy memories and foolish ambitions, it's as if we must allow Him to shake up our lives, by the various crosses we carry and the trials we endure. Then, from all those odd pieces, God can form a beautiful, unique pattern, as seen in a wonderful kaleidoscope such as children enjoy.

Even if they are kind to their friends, very many young Catholics cannot be bothered to pray, to give up their sins, to attend Holy Mass, or to show reverence, like the Saints. Many loll in an armchair to pray, without much respect or reverence, and then feel virtuous because they have spoken to God.

Some of the moulds that are grown by scientists are life-giving; but others are deadly, and should be isolated. A sort of 'deadly life' grown in the world is the life of a priest who abuses children in his care. That priest should be isolated, not allowed to conduct wicked assaults again.

It takes courage to be faithful to Catholic teaching on marriage. What Christ wants to see are many more faithful Catholic women: women who accept God's plan for married life, for example, and who avoid all sinful practices so common in our culture, and who do not neglect their children; women who pursue a career only if their children are genuinely well cared for; women who do not see it as demeaning to serve the family, and to respect their husbands, yet with each spouse respecting the other.

Just as in a childrens' play-house there can arise nasty squabbles, and an adult has to swoop down to help the children to see reason, so in the Church, our joy can be spoiled by squabbles about doctrine or Liturgy, especially when the truth offered by those in authority is ignored; and so God swoops down from time to time, to help, by means of an inspiring vision, or a message, or a new call to penance, or a new gift of encouragement for the Church.

There are three more things that many Catholics need to be told about the Mass - especially children. They know about the gathered Church, the Scriptures, and Holy Communion; it is tragic that so few have learned: 1) Jesus is made Really Present at the Consecration, 2) Through Him, we are made present to the One Sacrifice of Calvary, 3) Jesus, today, prays for us: He prays for our forgiveness and our Salvation.

It is as if they are choosing to dive into darkness, whenever Catholics decide to ignore the teaching of the Church and follow a way of life always regarded by Christians with horror - involving unchastity, contraceptive use, divorce and attempted re-marriage, combined with a failure to hand on the Faith in its entirety to the children they do have. To ignore the Church's teaching is to ignore Christ, Who guides her by His Spirit - although Christ sees that some people are not entirely blameworthy, perhaps because of fear or ignorance.