I hope the beginning of the New Year is going well for you and you can make some time for this reflection and homily.

God Bless

When one is hiking out in the wilderness, at some time before evening falls, one has to make a decision where one is going to pitch one's tent; we have to decide where we will spend the evening. When one is in the wilderness, most often we will decide on a single place to spend several days, and we will make that our home base. From home base we will go out from this to several parts in the wilderness. Indeed, when we choose a location, we usually choose the best location for our stay in the wild --where we will be close to water but too close in case of floods, not too shaded and not too sunny, a little of all the above so you can rely on this home base for multiple days.

Today we celebrate the feast day of the Baptism of the Lord. If you are like me, we wonder why the Lord, the sinless Son of God, had to be baptized by John the Baptist. Why did he have to have a Baptism of Repentance if he himself was sinless? Today's gospel gives us the reason - it was to fulfill all righteousness. In other words, it was God's will that Jesus would be fully immersed in humanity. If you would-that he made his home base with humanity. He pitched his tent here in humanity so that we would all know that he was here in fullness of humanity. Even though he was the Son of God, he immersed himself completely in his human condition and then showed us the way, the way back to the Lord.

When we, in turn, receive our immersion in the waters of baptism, we mirror what he did. We make our home with the Lord in the same way he made his home with us. We, if you would, pitch our tent in the field of Our Lord and we promised to make that place our home base from which we will go out into the wilderness of the world.

For most of us that baptism happened a long time ago and that there are a lot of temptations and things, distractions in our life that have pulled us away from that homestead of the Lord's field. In our journey through the wilderness of our lives, we have been tempted into other fields: to go into the field of pride, the field of power, and yes, maybe even into the field of lust. And all sorts of other sins that take us away from the primary work of the Lord, the primary conviction that we have made our home, we have pitched our tent in the field of our Lord.

This field is not just another field. This field is a good field. This field is full of potential; full of opportunities; full of things that we have yet to discover because we are so busy going out and doing all the other things in our lives. Seeking to have the best job, the best house, the best this and the best that. None of those things are wrong, but if they take us away from our homestead, from the field of our Lord, then they have become a distraction to us.

You see, when we were in the waters of Baptism, we made our promises that we would follow Christ and now we have the responsibility to live according to that. So, what does that mean? That means that when we pitch our tent in the Lord's field, we must use the field including all its gifts. The field is full of potential, and that potential includes the gifts that God has given you and me. Each one of us, every single one of us, has been given gifts by God and our role, our responsibility, according to our Baptismal promise, is to till that soil, to discover those gifts and then to work the soil. We will work on those gifts; we will cherish and develop those gifts; and then we will share the fruit of the soil, our gifts, for the good of all. For those gifts were not just given to you and me, they were given to you and me, for the good of everyone in our community, the common good of all.

So our promise today as we celebrate this feast day of our Lord is to turn around and make sure we promise to till the soil. Yes we have pitched our tent in the field of our Lord. But now we must till the soil, discover those gifts, work on them, and really turn them towards the good of all our community.

If we are truly honest, there will be plenty of distractions, and there will continue to be lots of distractions. But our commitment every Sunday is to come to the Lord and renew together to working our land, this land that we called the field of the Lord where we have pitched our tent with the Lord and to use what we have been given, not just for us, me and my, but for all of us so that the greater community, the common good can be served, that the Lord's work is done in our time.

So today as we go forth from here, may we recommit to our own Baptismal promises of making our home, to making our homestead, to pitching our tent in the Lord's field, but not only that to discover our gifts, to cherish them, to work on them, and then to use the fruit of the labor as invitation to all our community to pitch their tents in the field of the Lord. Today, we recommit to pitching our tent to the Lord's field.

The Baptism of the Lord

Reading 1
Is 42:1-4, 6-7

Thus says the LORD:
Here is my servant whom I uphold,
my chosen one with whom I am pleased,
upon whom I have put my spirit;
he shall bring forth justice to the nations,
not crying out, not shouting,
not making his voice heard in the street.
a bruised reed he shall not break,
and a smoldering wick he shall not quench,
until he establishes justice on the earth;
the coastlands will wait for his teaching.

I, the LORD, have called you for the victory of justice,
I have grasped you by the hand;
I formed you, and set you
as a covenant of the people,
a light for the nations,
to open the eyes of the blind,
to bring out prisoners from confinement,
and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness.


Responsorial Psalm
Ps 29:1-2, 3-4, 3, 9-10

R. (11b) The Lord will bless his people with peace.
Give to the LORD, you sons of God,
give to the LORD glory and praise,
Give to the LORD the glory due his name;
adore the LORD in holy attire.
R. The Lord will bless his people with peace.
The voice of the LORD is over the waters,
the LORD, over vast waters.
The voice of the LORD is mighty;
the voice of the LORD is majestic.
R. The Lord will bless his people with peace.
The God of glory thunders,
and in his temple all say, "Glory!"
The LORD is enthroned above the flood;
the LORD is enthroned as king forever.
R. The Lord will bless his people with peace.

Reading II
Acts 10:34- 38

Peter proceeded to speak to those gathered
in the house of Cornelius, saying:
"In truth, I see that God shows no partiality.
Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly
is acceptable to him.
You know the word that he sent to the Israelites
as he proclaimed peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all,
what has happened all over Judea,
beginning in Galilee after the baptism
that John preached,
how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth
with the Holy Spirit and power.
He went about doing good
and healing all those oppressed by the devil,
for God was with him."

Gospel
Mt 3:13-17

Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan
to be baptized by him.
John tried to prevent him, saying,
"I need to be baptized by you,
and yet you are coming to me?"
Jesus said to him in reply,
"Allow it now, for thus it is fitting for us
to fulfill all righteousness."
Then he allowed him.
After Jesus was baptized,
he came up from the water and behold,
the heavens were opened for him,
and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove
and coming upon him.
And a voice came from the heavens, saying,
"This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."

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