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A sure proof of devotion to God and the Saints is the keeping of a calendar or diary of the Church's year, when a Catholic looks up the feasts and seasons, prepares for them, and prays sincere and appropriate prayers.

We are right to pray for people in need: for the poor, the sick, those in prison or held hostage, and many more; but there are people in need of prayer who are often well-fed and physically strong, but left in darkness by their atheism: their lack of belief in God. Large areas of the world are afflicted by this tragedy.

Just as a loving Father, on holiday with his family, helps his disabled child to leave the water after only a short dip, so God the Father looks on lovingly if a sick or disabled person has to 'leave' prayer, through exhaustion; unable to concentrate. He is neither surprised nor offended; He looks on with sympathetic eyes.

A great battle goes on when a person is torn between love of God and love of self. Satan attacks that heart and mind, while the Guardian Angel acts to restore that soul's peace. Someone like this desperately needs to pray in the name of Jesus.

When we ask Our Lady to intercede for us, God responds to her prayer by raising up the lost soul, out of the cloud which obscured the view, to show him a path, that leads to the main road to Heaven. It is always worthwhile to ask Our Lady, and to other Saints, and the Angels, for their prayers

As we pray to the Father in union with Jesus Christ our Saviour we are right to pray with confidence. Jesus' prayer is so powerful that it is as 'wide' as Heaven. Our prayers reach Heaven, united with His.

The sacrificial prayer of Christ at Mass, to which we unite out prayers and praises, infallibly pierces the cloud between earth and Heaven and arrives at the throne of the Father, Who delights in pleasing His obedient Son.

It is sensible to prepare and plan before Sunday arrives. Christ asks us to remember that Sunday is a day of rest. We should remember that it is the Lord's Day: the Christian Sabbath. Praise and thanks should be foremost in our minds, but we are wise to have some leisure, refreshment, celebration, and rest, to show out our gratitude and to fulfil God's plans for our lives. He wants us to enjoy good things, as well as to be conscientious at work during the week.

Even more important than action in the world, to abolish the evil of abortion, is prayer. People in monasteries, inspired to pray about this tragedy, should pray, as should people in the whole world, as well; the God Who loathes injustice, will overcome this evil in our society today.

All good people, whether in the world or cloistered, clerical or lay-persons or in Religious Life, should pray about the evil of abortion; then the Father, Who cannot abide injustice, will change things, so that unborn babies are no longer in such danger of being unjustly slaughtered in the womb.

St. Francis de Sales is in Heaven, full of the bright cloud of Divine Love which now surrounds him. He breathed out that love, to surround me with it, long ago, as I was reading his 'Introduction to the Devout Life'. By his prayer for me, Divine love enfolded and enlightened me as I was reading.

We sometimes receive special consolations in prayer as if bathed in a river of love, flowing over and around us like the torrent of graces I once painted in the 'Sanctus' picture on the Mass Poster.

No-one can enter Heaven by beating on the great doors, and demanding to be let in. Those who love God are willing to trust, to adore, and to wait in humility and repentance; then He lifts the patient soul over the gates, in prayer, to see the beauty of God's glory, and to prepare him for permanent union.

The Lord showed me the results of the Plenary Indulgence which I had gained, by His grace, through Mass and Holy Communion, special prayers, and a sincere Confession. All my sins had been forgiven, with no punishment due. It was as though I was clothed in an unspotted white Baptismal robe, and was like a carefree child in God's presence, like the people in white in the Last Judgement painting.

Christ pointed out two groups of people who are unlikely to go to Heaven: those who commit serious sin, yet have no fear of death, no desire to change, and are blithely determined to stay the same; and those who would like to go to Heaven but make no effort to co-operate with Christ, or to pray or do works of charity.

Christ wants people to reflect on my Last Judgement painting, and to ponder how they will feel when they come at last into the presence of God the Father, whose glory I have seen in prayer, and who is awesome in His holiness and beauty. Christ wants everyone to repent of their sins, while there is still time.

Through the Liturgy, if we are prayerful, contrite and obedient to Christ, the Father can lift us closer to Heaven

Christ urges us all to go to Him at the tabernacle and to ask for His help, in our fight against temptations. With His powerful graces, He can give us new hope and strength, and save us from Hell. With Him, we can do good and avoid evil.

How sadly we look upon a person now dead and buried. Yet a person living in mortal sin is like a dead man, in spiritual terms. With a dead soul, no longer in communion with Christ and the Church, he is in a pitiable state, deserving of the prayers of his neighbours.

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.