The Ascension of Our Lord marks the beginning of a new era for mankind. The Messiah has come, He has lived among men, He has offered the perfect sacrifice of reconciliation with the Father and has risen triumphant from the grave. Now He has departed in His earthly body so that the Holy Spirit may come.

The Holy Spirit is the “soul of the Church”, Who makes the Church to live with divine life for the sanctification of all creation. The Church feeds us with her teaching and with the sacred Liturgy so that we may believe and live as Christians, animated by the Holy Spirit.

The saints, raised up by God in every age, are examples for us of this Christian life in every place and time. In England, we recently celebrated the feast of our holy martyrs who shed their blood in witness to the life and teaching of the Church. St Edmund Campion, for example, a brilliant young scholar, gave up prospects of high office and trained abroad to return zealously as a priest to the mission in England.

Hunted down after just over a year, he was the most wanted man in England because he had put new heart into the persecuted Catholics by the confidence of his challenge to the authorities to enter into reasoned debate. After savage torture in the Tower of London, he courageously went to his execution at Tyburn in 1581 at the age of 41.

He and others of our country teach us to follow Christ faithfully on the way to that eternal life in which He gloriously reigns.