Dear friends in Christ

This Sunday is the Day we celebrate the return of Jesus to Heaven in the Ascension (transferred from last Thursday). According to the Gospel, the parting gesture of Our Lord to the Apostles, is one of blessing. After the forty days since Easter, spent enjoying His presence, He is finally taken from their sight. It is a moment tinged with both joy and sorrow: we rejoice that He has gone to the Father, so that the Advocate - the Holy Spirit - may be sent to us, but we miss His physical presence.

The Ascension strengthens and nourishes our hope of attaining Heaven. It invites us to lift up our hearts, as we are invited to do at Mass, and seek the things that are above, where Christ is now dwelling at the right hand of the Father. Jesus has departed, but remains with us in the Tabernacle where we find Him whenever we come into church. It is there that we find Him in His Person. The month of June celebrates this abiding love in the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In the Eucharist we encounter the entire Christ: Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. During this month we could make some more effort perhaps, to visit Jesus present in the Tabernacle, enter more into His Sacred Heart, and so discover more and more on earth, the joys that await us in Heaven where He has gone before us.

God bless you all!
Fr Kevin Hale