Deacon Tom Anthony

The most important thing in our lives is our spirituality and our relationship with God. He created us, he loves us, and he is our God. We need to acknowledge this in the most stark terms in comparison to everything else in our lives. The graces that God gives us through his love have the ability to overwhelm us in the most wonderful ways. His presence can influence all of our actions and transform our outlook on this life and this world. This can only happen if we allow it. Having a relationship with God takes a lot of hard word. It is a process of knowing and understanding that will never end. Even though God may seem distance at times and can appear to have no impact on our lives, this is only because we tend to focus on the material aspect of our lives and ignore our spiritual side. This is related to the stain of Original Sin and our fallen nature. Because of it, we tend to put ourselves and our physical desires above God and our spiritual necessities. As the Book of Wisdom says, “For the corruptible body burdens the soul ...” We are weighed down continuously. To get closer to God we must break free from the very chains that we put around ourselves. This is part of the spiritual battle we are engaged in. We are constantly at war with ourselves. When we acknowledge this, then we can approach our spiritual life with more of an understanding of what we have to do to achieve fulfillment and happiness.

So much of our lives is spent planning. We naturally plan days, months, even years ahead of our schedule in order to accomplish our goals and be successful. If our faith in God is supposed to be one of the most important things in our life, shouldn't we spend just as much time developing it and preparing ourselves for it? How are we to have a successful relationship with God if we do not treat it as seriously as other things in our lives? This should become all the more important question to answer especially when we consider how much time we are to spend on this earth and how much time we are to spend with God when we our earthy time comes to an end. Furthermore, if we are indeed engaged in a constant spiritual battle, shouldn't we plan for this conflict instead of approaching it blindly? We are taught from an early age to arrange our time and efforts according to what is more important to us and our lives. What can be more important than our relationship with our God who loves us completely?

Our relationship with God has the ability to affect everything else in our lives from our other relationships to what we deem important. Happiness begins with a fruitful, positive relationship with God. He is the one person who will never abandon us in our time of need and is the one person that we all turn to when we find ourselves burdened with hopelessness. Yet, even though this is the case, we are always tempted to ignore him for something as trivial as a football game. This is the type of approach that all of us need to overcome. Christ himself challenges us by saying that if we do not carry our burdens with him then we are undeserving of his love and cannot be his disciples. As Christians, we are obligated to turn to Christ and beg for his help in our time of need. When we are not in a time of need or desperation then we are further challenged to prepare for that time through a rich and loving relationship with him. Preparation is the key to success as we all know. Happiness can then be found during crisis and during relative calm.

Christ should be first and central in our lives continuously. We should awaken every day and thank him for our life regardless of our situation, for whatever we find ourselves face with will not be forever while he is. As we progress throughout the day, prayer should never be far from our thoughts. As best friends and lovers do, we should communicate constantly with our Lord and Savior. When we fade off to sleep, we need to thank him for everything. Christ is the top of the mountain. Christ is the goal. Christ is always waiting at the finish line.

Deacon Tom