The principal object of Our Lord’s ministry of teaching was that people might learn to honour God by their character and conduct and in so doing to save their souls.  He was not specifically concerned to make life easier for people.  It was not easy for him and it was not easy for his Apostles, most of whom ended up by being martyred.

Indeed the whole purpose of Our Lord’s life, death and resurrection was to save the souls of men and women from that eternal separation from God which we call Hell.  And the Gospel – the good news – ultimately is concerned solely with that central fact of human salvation and with the means whereby each individual may grasp it.

Many today take Christ’s social teaching and isolate it from the rest of the Gospel as though it alone were the Christian religion.  They do not see that what is called practical Christianity, meaning good works, is a Christian activity and not Christianity itself.