Deacon Tom Anthony

 

 

I was given a great gift the other day which I did no expect. It came from an unlikely source and demonstrated to me how the Holy Spirit works throughout our Christian Family and keeps us close together. A funeral director that I know called me and asked if I could do him a favor. He needed a member of the clergy to perform a Final Committal at a grave site. The funeral was done the previous week and the body was cremated. The deceased was named Tom and he was 62 years old. He was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer and died 14 days later. The death was unexpected and the family was distraught, especially his wife.

I arrived at the grave site early and was able to talk privately with the wife. She spoke proudly about her husband and mentioned an Honor Guard at the funeral. I asked her what kind of honor guard was it. She told me it was from the Department of Corrections and that her husband was a retired Corrections Officer. I then asked her from what prison and she said MCI Concord. I was performing the committal for a brother from the same institution I was assigned to! I informed her of the connection and how I knew many of the officers that he was still friends with. This brought tears to both of our eyes and joy to our hearts. What was going to be the ending rites to the funeral now became something special and memorable to all of us present because we all discovered a common bond that made it all the more beautiful. I was no longer a stranger to them and them to me. It demonstrated just how small and personable our Christian Family can be.

The wife hugged me afterward and thanked me profusely. She said that the committal was made so very special by my relation to her and her husband; one that was unknown moments before my arrival but one that was now going to be remembered forever because of Tom's faith and his career of sacrifice and public service. I was humbled to be a part of that moment and grateful to God.

Christ knows each of us in that same way. It is definitely the Holy Spirit that moves us forward to be in particular places at certain times to strengthen our faith and to help those in need. He knows when we are hurting and need his help. He will never ignore us and will always make his presence known. We just need to recognize him and permit him to work in our lives. The way to do this is through a strong faith life developed and created through a close relationship with him. We must act on our spirituality and live it. We cannot ignore our God and expect him to reveal himself only in times of crisis or need. Christ has the ability to reveal himself all the time in the smallest and greatest of ways. When this occurs, we need to be ready to see it.

How many strangers do we walk past every day of our lives? How many people do we have interactions with that we then forget about as soon as the event is over? We forget about these occurrences because they are not important to us In fact, they are important to us and our well-being. As we are Children of God so are all those people whom we relate to in our lives. If we not take time to acknowledge them we might not take the time to acknowledge God when he manifests himself in our lives. We make conscious decisions about what type of relationship we are going to have with different people. We have that same capability regarding our relationship with God. We can choose to ignore him as we do with many of those strangers we pass each day or we can take time to become familiar with him.

Becoming familiar with God causes us to become more familiar with ourselves and his creation. We need to enjoy the beauty of the world that surrounds us including as those who dwell in it. When we become familiar with it we can then appreciate it all the more and not take it for granted. Taking things for granted is something we naturally do from those things that we encounter and use within our daily routine to relationships that we think are going to be there all the time.

We must ask ourselves:

“Do we really want to take our Creator and Eternal Father for granted?”

Deacon Tom