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How to Pray, Part Two: Liturgy and Morals

There are martyrs for truth in every age. These three saints - Thomas More, Charles Lwanga and Maria Goretti - stood against sin, and defended the truth of marriage, of morality, and of chastity.

There are martyrs for truth in every age. These three saints - Thomas More, Charles Lwanga and Maria Goretti - stood against sin, and defended the truth of marriage, of morality, and of chastity.

There are martyrs for truth in every age. These three saints - Thomas More, Charles Lwanga and Maria Goretti - stood against sin, and defended the truth of marriage, of morality, and of chastity.

Pope John Paul II has been Christ-like in fearlessly speaking the truth about morals (as did Christ who spoke against divorce and adultery) whilst acting with great compassion towards individuals (as did Christ Who was kind to the adulteress).

Recent Popes, like their predecessors, speak the truth about morality. It is Christ who teaches us through them. They cannot invite us to sin, by changing Christ's teachings.

Good people work to raise awareness of the immorality of neglecting the poor. Far fewer are raising awareness - for the good of souls - of another sort of immorality, which is unchastity in all its forms, and abortion and contraception.

Christ asks us to speak out not just about the immoral causes of poverty, but about all sorts of sexual immorality, that endanger souls.

A dense cloud seems to cover those parts of the earth where there is war, which cuts off many people from God. Wherever there is conflict there is danger for souls as well as bodies. Except amongst those who stay close to God, there is immorality or hatred or revenge or other evils being worked bodily or within souls.

Christ is pleased whenever someone writes clearly about right and wrong in marriage. Few are willing to support and promote the Church's teaching about openness to life and the immorality of contraception.

A person who is trapped in immorality, to satisfy his appetites, is like a man living deep in the earth, in a small cellar with a trap-door. For a Christian to live like that is shameful - and for a priest to do so is especially tragic - though even the most sinful people can be helped by the intercessions of others.

A Catholic teacher is foolish and unwise if he waves away matters of sin and immorality as being 'pessimistic' or irrelevant.

If we speak about the teachings of the Church, about faith and morality, we may meet with anger or indifference. It is not comfortable speaking out with a prophetic voice.

The Lord asks the Bishops to look back at their lives. Have they ever failed to speak out about morals, for example, for fear of upsetting people or driving them away?

Some Catholics who currently 'fight' within the Church to spread their mistaken views about sin and sanctity will one day look back, and see how much time they have wasted in having acted, for many years, as if the truth about morality and sanctity were not yet known by the Church, and by those chosen by God to teach us.

Those who freely and deliberately decide to disobey Divine Law on sexual morality, as taught by Christ through His Church, and who lead unchaste lives, are like people who freely board a train, laid on by Satan. It steadily descends, then enters a great hole in the ground.

Like figures In a wintery landscape, we see all around us persons who remain frozen by despondency or lack of faith. Those who would allow Divine Love to enter their hearts would 'thaw'. They would repent of their immorality, and begin to notice all that is good, which God has given to them but which they ignore.

Those people who disbelieve in the Church's teachings will find out, after death, the truth of every aspect - whether matters of sexual morality or the Primacy of the Pope. What sadness they will feel, seeing how blind and disobedient they have been, ignoring the wishes of their God and Saviour.

When a family lives in a state of alienation from God, it's as if the main aim of each member is personal, prolonged pleasure, with no thought for God's wishes or the needs of others. So there is quarrelling, noise, immorality, hard-heartedness, physical danger and no interior joy.

Just as laws made by God control the movements of the planets, so the laws of natural law - from God - can guide us in the activities of our lives. We bring disaster upon ourselves if we try to ignore the natural law, and the Commandments, and we contribute to the destruction and decay of a whole society.