This Sunday we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord. This Feast was celebrated from the earliest days of the Church. A quote from St. Maximus of Turin (380 AD-423 AD) helps to illustrate this fact, “Someone might ask, ‘Why would a holy man desire baptism?’ Listen to the answer: Christ is baptized, not to be made holy by the water, but to make the water holy, and by his cleansing to purify the waters which he touched. For the consecration of Christ involves a more significant consecration of the water. For when the Saviour is washed all water for our baptism is made clean, purified at its source for the dispensing of baptismal grace to the people of future ages. Christ is the first to be baptized, then, so that Christians will follow after him with confidence” (Sermon 100 on Holy Epiphany). As baptized Catholics we are called to follow the Lord ‘with confidence’. We can do this because we receive the grace of the sacraments; we have been baptized. In the Second Reading from Acts, we are told that Jesus could do so much good and healing because “God was with him.” In the Gospel, after Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit descended upon Him and the Father stated, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” God is with us because we have received the Holy Spirit. When we follow the example of Christ, the Father is also pleased with us. In the First Reading, the prophet Isaiah states what is required of all the baptized: “I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you: I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.” On this Feast, let us remember our own baptism, the day that we were sacramentally configured to Christ. With confidence let us follow Him and bring His healing and light to a broken world that at times prefers the darkness.