The closer we get to God the more we shall do for other people and their salvation.   The more we pray and make sacrifices for other people, the closer we shall come to union with God.  Jesus is the Savior, and if we live in Him and He is us, we let Him use us to save souls.  Our Christian life is a very serious and important one, and a very rewarding one.  No one goes to heaven alone, and if, as we are confident that we shall, we reach heaven through the mercy of God and Our Lady’s help, we shall draw others there with us.
           
We were put on earth in order to become saints, and to live a thoroughly good and Christian life under modern conditions we must be saints.  We have to keep free from attachment to worldly things.  We have to keep free from worldly thoughts and judgments.  We have to keep a sense of the immense dignity of every man, woman, and child, in spite of the way many of them behave and the way many people regard themselves and others.  We have to be pure in heart in a very impure world.  We have to love all mankind.  We have to be concerned for the needy both those in material need and those in spiritual need.  We must pray for all men.
           
We take it for granted, I suppose, that a priest or a member of a religious order spends more time at prayer and in spiritual activities than an ordinary person.  It is true that priests and religious should spend all the time they can in such exercises, although they must be careful not to neglect any of their ordinary duties.  Lay people often have much less time for purely spiritual duties, and they are not called upon to spend so long in prayer and spiritual reading and apostolic work, since they have all the duties of their busy daily round.  But when a lay person retires, or has less to occupy him, and has more free time, then his vocation calls on him to spend much more time in prayer and spiritual works than he used to.
 
Many elderly people, after bringing up families, gradually lose their friends, and their families depart for distant places.  Instead of becoming lonely and sad, such people are invited to become much more prayerful and more religious in their manner of life.  They can then do as much or even more good than they did in their younger days.  They can find peace with God they never knew before, and they can do so much good that God sometimes asks them to live to a ripe old age after ordinary non-religious people consider them useless.
           
Let us keep a sense of the supernatural, the presence of God and His influence, the presence of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world and its Lord, Who is carrying out His plan despite all appearances.  Keep a sense of His presence in you and around you.  Keep a sense of reverence for holy things.  Value blessed objects and holy water.  And in order to keep these Catholic feelings and truths about things, keep close to Our Lady and show by your attitude toward Her, your love and obedience to Her, that you do believe the Church’s doctrine that She is your Mother.
           
And become the greatest benefactor of mankind that you can by increasing your prayers and your little sacrifices for the love of Jesus, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.  We can replace the evil in human life by good.  We can draw the goodness of God into hearts and into places from which that goodness has been banished.  If only we realized how much we can do by prayer and sacrifices, little prayers and little sacrifices, but lots of them!
           
Let us help Jesus and Mary to save sinners and bring about the promised renewal in the Church and in the world, which will come about when thousands of little souls consecrate themselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and through Her influence become Christ-like, and live lives of prayer and sacrifice cheerfully and confidently and with a deep sense of purpose and dignity and fulfillment.