Everywhere you look people are behaving badly.

People who should be setting a good example don’t.

People who are paid to enforce the law often break it themselves.

People we elect to represent us turn out to have other loyalties that we weren’t told about.

People who talk most about “family” pass laws breaking down the concept of full-time motherhood.

Worse, some priests ordained to spread the gospel, molest and exploit those who trust them.

* * *

It has always been more or less like this.

Will it ever change?

Will people ever start doing what is right, simply because it is right?

They would if they believed in God.

Really believed.

If you believe that God is your judge, you will do his will all the time, without fail.

Do people who say they believe in God, yet keep falling into sin, really not believe?

We don’t seem to have the courage of our convictions.

We don’t seem to know how to change ourselves.

* * *

Perhaps a left-handed approach will be more understandable.

Start off by making yourself believe in hell.

If you believe in hell, the struggle to avoid it is worth any sacrifice and any effort.

If you don’t believe in hell, then whatever you do makes no difference to anything except, perhaps, your self-esteem.

Most modern so-called religious people seem to think that everybody will go to heaven.

Most non-religious people also believe that everybody will end up in the same place. In their case they think all will end up in non-existence.

The only people with whom God can work are believers in the traditional Faith who realise that not everybody is going to end up in the same place.

To them it is sensible to try very hard to please God.

And it makes sense to pray for the salvation of other people’s souls.

* * *

What your unbelieving friends and family need most, if they are ever to become obedient believers, is to be prayed for by somebody who is truly obedient.

Only such a person will God listen to. Like Blessed Mary MacKillop.

That is what you and I should spend the rest of our lives learning to become.