Our baptismal identity is to lay claim always to God's unending love for us, and it is in our love for one another that we become more aware that God remains in us.

BAPTISM OF THE LORD   C  2019

The baptism of the Lord clearly marks his identity and his mission.  The baptism of Jesus is a decisive turning point in his life as he begins his public ministry.  By this event Jesus accepts his mission that will ultimately lead to his cross and resurrection, and God the Father pronounces Jesus as his beloved Son.

This feast invites us to see the connection between the Baptism of Jesus and our own baptism.  In our Baptism, we too become God’s beloved son and God’s beloved daughter in whom the Father is well pleased.  Such an incredible grace we receive in Baptism, and the grace of Baptism is lifelong.  In the spiritual journey of each of us, we need to ask ourselves the question:  Do we claim our own baptismal identity as a beloved child of God?   When I am stressed out, when I am fearful and a bit anxious, am I claiming my baptismal identity as God’s beloved?   The words spoken to Jesus are words that are spoken to us as part of our baptismal identity.

May you hear this day and every day these words spoken to you by our loving God: “This is my beloved son, this is my beloved daughter in whom I am well pleased.”  These are spoken not because of our worthiness; rather these words are spoken because of God’s unconditional love for us.  May you always be able to recognize this voice of God in your life.

Now it is true that throughout all our lives, a cacophony of voices will attempt to drown our attentiveness to the voice of God.  There’s the voice of Wall Street calling us to find our security in stocks, bonds and mutual funds.  There’s the voice of Madison Avenue alerting us to unnecessary needs and undue desires.  There’s the voice of Rodeo Drive warning us not to be out of style, and the voice of Broadway luring us to the superficial aspects of contemporary entertainment.  For me, it can be the voice of busyness, so many things on the calendar, that distracts from the true North Star of our lives.

Amid the clamor of all these voices, it may be difficult to hear the voice of God and grasp the hand of God.  Nevertheless, that voice and that hand are ever near, and God’s grace is ever at the ready to keep our hearing acute and our understanding full and clear.  The question for our prayerful reflection this day is: Whose voice will you listen to?  Whose is the hand you will grasp?

How do you hear the voice of God in your life?  Your baptismal identity is to lay claim always to God’s unending love for you.  May we pay attention to both our baptismal identity and to our baptismal mission.  What is our baptismal mission.  Your baptismal mission is to serve the needs of one another.   It is in our love for one another that we become more aware that God remains in us.

As the community of the baptized, we claim our baptismal identity as God’s beloved, and we embrace our baptismal mission to reach out in the service and love of another.  This baptismal mission very much embraces a life and spirituality of stewardship.

In a spirituality of stewardship, we are to share of our time, of our talent, and or out treasure in carrying the mission of the Church – in our love for one another, in our service of people, and in leading all people to encounter Christ more deeply in their lives.

Next weekend is our stewardship commitment Sunday relative to the stewardship of treasure.  You will receive in the mail this week a brochure and a stewardship commitment card.  We ask that you pray over your tithing commitment to the parish in 2019.  Then there will a special collection next weekend in which we ask you to return your commitment card.  I intend to use this opportunity to increase my tithing to the parish.  If you are able to increase your tithing, your generosity will be greatly blessed.  Equally, if you are not able to increase your tithing, you will still be very much blessed as God’s beloved.  No matter at what level you are able to give, we ask that you return the commitment card as we seek 100% commitment from our parish.

As long as we are the generous recipients of the many blessings of our loving God, we are to participate in a spirituality of stewardship.

I will tell you quite personally whenever I have been asked to be generous in going beyond my comfort zone, I have never regretted being generous.  When asked by the Bishop to be the pastor of Holy Spirit while I was already the pastor of St Joseph’s, at first I thought that this was going to be too much to take on.  But the bishop is a difficult person to say no to, as a result, my life has been blessed in my ministry as your pastor.

In October, there was a group of us that went to an extremely poor region of Tanzania to support the educational mission of St Mary’s School in Mazinde Juu.   In contributing financially to this mission, I have been blessed in knowing that I am making a difference in the lives of 1,000 high school girls in Tanzania.

These are my stories of generosity.  I invite you to be in touch with your stories of generosity and to participate in next week’s stewardship commitment Sunday.

At his baptism, Jesus experienced divine love with new intensity; he responded to that gift with such fierce passion that his subsequent life and death transformed the world.  At our Baptism, perhaps many moons ago, we too experienced divine love – a grace that goes with us to this day and always.  May we too embrace our baptismal mission and a spirituality of stewardship that transforms the vibrancy of our parish life.

Have a blessed Day.