Deacon Tom Anthony

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