Just
as the Baptism of the Lord brought about the revelation of the Holy
Trinity it can reveal to us a time of renewal and spiritual
revelation in our own lives. Through meditating on its significance
we can participate in the event perpetually. We are no bystanders but
are partakers in the love that permeates from his baptism. We become
cleansed and restored through Christ's example. He offers us this
opportunity to join with him in this celebration of love and
salvation. John the Baptist Promised that Jesus would come and
baptize in the Holy Spirit and fire. He is presented here fulfilling
that prophecy and everyone's salvation story. What an act of humility
for our God to kneel before John and receive what he did not need so
as to offer an ideal for all of us to follow. This ideal must then
becomes central to our lives. Christ cleanses us, Christ offers us
the true experience of creation and perfect love through the Trinity!
How glorious, wondrous, and beautiful our lives could be if just
embrace that vision and perfection of the Trinity!
Whatever
we are confronted with and whatever challenges we face in our faith
can be overcome by embracing Jesus Christ and acknowledging his
dominance over all things. For he created all things and through him
nothing can withstand his perfection. We have the opportunity to
bathe ourselves in the light of his love; transforming ourselves into
a conduit which will burst forth into the world. That light becomes
an intricate part of us when we recognize it and celebrate its
presence. Just as light naturally draws our attention, we can and
will be drawn to this spiritual light when its presence is
acknowledged. It cannot be avoided nor should it be. It is an
invitation to participate in something better and more glorious then
anything else we have experienced before.
Just
as the Baptism of the Lord brought the Trinity to the forefront of
everything, we are encouraged to do this in our lives. Proclaiming
the Divinity of God and making it the single most important thing in
our lives will put everything else in perspective. Through the
Trinity and the experience of it, our lives will take on a new
meaning. It will become more defined and understandable. The
possibilities become endless because we will have united ourselves
with the eternal.
Pursuing
our spirituality is essential to experiencing our faith. Too many
times we get lost in the physical and try to apply it to our
spirituality. This should be inverted. We must put our spirituality
first and apply it to the physical. In other words our relationship
with God should transform our lives here on this earth. The level of
influence that we permit God to have over us will dictate how happy
we will ultimately be. This is what one of the revelations of the
Trinity brings us. It is what brings everything together and causes
us to understand not only ourselves but our relationship to everyone
and everything.
What
we believe and what we understand to be true will ultimately
influence our decisions and understanding of the world around us.
Throughout our lifetime we will experience many things both negative
and positive. We should always put these in perspective with our
relationship with God. There will be successes and failures yet these
all take on new meaning when they are viewed within our relationship
with God who loves us with abandon. We should celebrate the negative
as much as the positive for with the negative comes an opportunity to
realize the good all the more. We see this throughout Sacred
Scripture where the failures of all of us are put on display when
they serve as an example of what happens when God is not realized and
we choose not to accept the gifts that he offers.
I met
with a very good friend of mine the other day. We spoke about some of
the challenges that we each were facing in our spiritual lives. There
were good experiences and ones that were very challenging. I
mentioned to him how there was one day where I surrendered everything
to God and it turned out to be a magnificent experience. This was
followed by a day where I tried to control everything and was met
with disastrous results. He laughed and explained that I should thank
God for both of the days. He told me that it is through the bad
experiences that we can appreciate the wonderful gifts from God all
the more. He said, “It is through that bad day that you realized
how great the other day was when you surrendered to God and did
things right.” How true those words truly were.
As we
journey forward to salvation, we should always focus on Christ's
Baptism as a sign of redemption, hope, love, and salvation. The
Trinity was revealed so we could recognize our God and become new
creations through him. As Father Don Fabio said,
“We
belong to God by virtue of the fact that in baptism he
has chosen us, he
has set us apart so that we can be extraordinary, he
has carried us away from our old selves and inserted us into the life
of the Trinity. Our Christian life and mission are utterly founded on
the fact of his unconditional love for us.”
Deacon
Tom