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Our Lady and St. Elizabeth practiced it; but the virtue of obedience is not much valued today. Christ offered His own example of obedience and love, to guide us; but He sees many Catholics refusing to obey the teachings of the Church; and He sees many Clergy and religious looking upon the practice of obedience as something demeaning, not liberating.

We know that sin is like a chain round the ankle that prevents us from serving God. But a little weakness such as fear of public opinion - or our own family - can be like a 'thread' holding us back from valiant work for God, unless with His help we break it.

There are many people who seek out counselling or therapy whose problems could be solved by the repentance that leads to Confession, and a state of grace, and the peace and freedom which came from being forgiven. Many people, Christ observes, make excuses for themselves when they became downcast through grievous sin, and a failure to repent.

Some priests mistakenly see themselves as counsellors rather than priests. In their misguided view of pastoral care they forget that they have been called to be 'other Christs' who teach the truth about sin and holiness, who invite people to repent and to receive forgiveness, freedom and peace.

Christ told me, as we prayed together, that although I had just been looking at my picture of Hell, He was at that moment seeing the reality. He can see all those souls who refused to listen to Him as He spoke through their conscience, their good friends, and the Church. He gave them freedom; they chose to ignore Him.

When a person repents of serious sin, and is reconciled with God, his Father and Creator, it is as marvellous as a raising-from-the-dead miracle worked by Elijah and by Jesus. That soul, in an instant, can rise up by the Spirit's power, in prayer, in the freedom and joy of a fervent child of God.

When a monk or nun or devout lay-person offers prayers and penances in order to draw a soul away away from mortal sin, into a state of grace, it's as though that sinner has been pushed along in a dangerous coal-mine, helped to reach the main shaft leading upwards so that he can reach God's light, and freedom.

There are people in many places who wrongly believe that we can earn Heaven by our repeated prayers and laborious religious practices. Heaven is a free gift, received in the end as a free gift, through faith in Jesus Christ Who Himself came down from Heaven to show us the Way, and to free us from our sins.

It would please Christ very much if priests were to say: "We all do wrong. The Church can tell us what is right and wrong, but we can be forgiven. I shall be in the Confessional at certain times, this week, and every week". Christ wants them to invite people to repent, to change their lives, and to find freedom and peace-of-soul at last.

Only a person willing to change can co-operate with God's grace, to be freed from the bad habits, attitudes and beliefs which imprisoned him; then his bright soul can soar to God in confident and peaceful prayer.

A person who trusts in Christ completely, believes in the teachings of Christ's one true Church, and strives to put them into practice, has a freedom and joy in life and in prayer which those people deny themselves who are stuck in the 'mud' of disbelief, dissent, and argument.

We are wise to pray: "O Sacred Heart of Jesus, Have mercy on us". Christ holds in His heart and love and affections the entire world, and every person on it. No-one can escape from His concern, even though some people insist on ignoring, rejecting or opposing Christ - and, from love, He respects their freedom to walk away.

We are on a long climb, as if up a rope, on a cliff-face, in our efforts to reach Heaven in a state of holiness. We sometimes grow weary. We are in pain, or tempted to let go of the rope to enjoy some freedom from our daily routine of service. If we really let go - by deliberate mortal sin - we are doomed, except for a miracle. By faith and prayer, we can persevere to the top.

From Heaven, it is as if a great cloud of sin covers those areas of the country and the world where there is mostly ignorance of Christ, indifference to God's laws, determination to fulfil personal desires and ambitions, and no thought about duty, or death and judgement. Faith in Christ is the 'Door' by which those people can reach freedom.

People who take other people hostage and keep them captive do the opposite of what Jesus did - Who came to set people free from sin and slavery. There is a need for prisons, in ordinary life, for people justly tried and found guilty. But those who keep innocent people captive do, in physical terms, what the evil one does in spiritual ways. Indeed, they have aligned themselves with the evil one who always opposes God and goodness.

After coming to earth, as man, Christ founded a Church, to continue His teaching: to hand on the truth about sin and goodness, to give power in the sacraments to be freed from sin and made holy. Catholics who refuse to believe in Church teachings on grave matters, and so do not avoid those sins, are like people who smash some of the rungs on the ladder by which they imagined they would reach Heaven; but by their own fault they make that ascent impossible, unless they repair it.

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.

People who have chosen to commit mortal sin imagine that they are free; but they have been weakened by Satan. It is if he seizes and moulds them, making them rigid, helpless parts of a great fence around his kingdom of evil. To escape, they need the grace of God and the prayers of the faithful.

We must never forget how powerful are the sacraments. Death is the 'cut-off' point: the moment in which we lose our ability to decide for God, or against Him. There are few death-bed conversions. Usually, as people live, so they die, either loving God or focussed upon their own desires. This is all the more reason for asking a priest to anoint a sick or dying person. Christ, through this holy sacrament, can free from sin someone who was about to fall into Hell.

A priest fulfils the Will of Christ, and becomes joyful, when he has begun to accept the Cross, in being conformed to Christ in a sinful world. By his union with Christ, and His imitation of Christ, he can be freed to do what he is called to do, which is not primarily to help people with their earthly cares, but above all to bring them and himself towards holiness and salvation, and thereby to play his part in God's plan of salvation.