And this new life is made available for us through the Church.  In Confirmation, when we are made full members of the Church, we receive the Holy Spirit of God, the Spirit of that boldness and joy which were so prominent a feature of the life of the Early Christians.

And through the Church, too, we receive in Holy Communion the Risen Christ himself in his glorified Body, enabling us – provided we come prepared with penitence and trustful love – to become as he is, attaining in St Paul’s words, “…to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ” (NRSV, Ephesians 4:13).