The Apostles, however, were conscious not only of his Presence with them but also of his power within them. They knew that they were animated by his Divine Spirit. As he was stronger than evil and death, so in his power were they. In Gethsemane they had quailed and broken in the face of temptation and mortal danger: but after Our Lord’s Resurrection, with his Spirit within them, they boldly fulfilled the promises they had made to go to prison and to death for his sake.

This new life of theirs was centred on his Presence in the Blessed Sacrament. “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them” he had told them, and those “who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day” (NRSV, John 6:56,54).

So week by week they met for the breaking of bread, the Sunday Eucharist, in memory of his Resurrection on the first day of the week. For the Eucharist does not centre on the memory of a dead Christ, but round the risen Presence of him who lives, and was dead, and is alive for ever and ever (see Revelation 1:18). It is in the Blessed Sacrament that we, like the Apostles, find the Risen Christ. It is there that he comes to his own. No wonder the early Christians risked their lives in order to make their Communions and receive the Risen and Ascended Body of their Divine Master and thus be united to him. And as they experienced in their own lives his superiority over temptation and sin, so also did they, like him, pass triumphantly through death into the glory of eternal life beyond.