The Epiphany (Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:2-3, 5-6; Matthew 2:1-12)
It is commonly thought that the technical terminology of some Church documents and theological writings is not only devoid of meaning for ordinary Catholics, but also conducive to their spiritual aridity. And yet, because that terminology has been finely tuned over many, many centuries, by some of the greatest minds and the deepest hearts among the disciples of Christ, it expresses, most subtly, beautiful truths about God. Those well-honed and beautifully polished truths are well able to kindle ardent flames of heavenly love and glowing words of divine praise from faithful men and women still to be found who, in even these most modern times, are able to quieten their multitudinous thoughts and distractions long enough for them to dispassionately listen to, thoughtfully appreciate, and, gradually and most gratefully, learn to love, the teaching of Mother Church.
Our God is unique and transcendent in all perfections, such
is the teaching of both Christian philosophy and Catholic dogma: He cannot be
contained within any limits because He is infinite: He is the Almighty, the All
Holy, whose sovereign Power sublimely expresses His incomparable Wisdom and
sustains His supreme Goodness.
In line with such appreciations of God we find in the
Gospel reading today that the Magi first became aware of the proximate birth of
the Christ through the appearance of an extraordinarily bright star in the
heavens. They set out to follow its lead
bearing incense for the heavenly and most holy Being announced by this
phenomenon, and their scholarly expectations and spiritual appreciation of the
Child they were seeking were to be confirmed by a chorus of angels singing to Bethlehem
shepherds of humbler degree:
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.
The Magi expected to find the One they were seeking among the highest on earth in Jerusalem, the city where the great God of Israel had chosen to dwell, and at the court of him who was the present Rome-favoured king of this Chosen People and builder of the Temple which was one of the wonders of the Roman world. In line with this expectancy, they had also brought with them a second gift: royal gold.
The Magi were well received by Israel’s king -- Herod was
his name -- and he, after having summoned and enquired of his most learned priests
and sages, encouraged the Magi in their search for the Child with an oracle taken
from the age-old Jewish scriptures:
You, Bethlehem, in the land
of Judah, are not the least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you shall
come a Ruler Who will shepherd My people Israel.
The Magi therefore confidently proceeded in their search
for the Child by continuing to follow the heavenly star of great beauty in
accordance with the ancient oracle and royal encouragement given them in the
holy city of Jerusalem where the One to come was foreknown and, it would seem,
reverently desired and eagerly expected.
However, since no limits can be set to God’s perfections, although
He is indeed limitlessly great in majesty, He is also limitlessly lowly in humility. Therefore, when the Magi eventually arrived at
the spot over which the star itself seemed to have stopped, they saw, to their
surprise, that it was nothing more than a cattle shelter containing a manger,
in which:
They saw the young Child with
Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him.
This was not what they had expected to find, and yet, taking
up and offering their gifts, they found them wonderfully providential: frankincense
for the holy, and gold for the great, but also myrrh for the weak who need to
be embalmed in death, and for the lowly and rejected who need to be succoured
and comforted in their pain:
Nicodemus took the body of
Jesus, and bound It in strips of linen with the spices, as the custom of the
Jews is to bury. (John 19:39-40)
They brought Jesus to the
place Golgotha, which is translated, Place of a Skull. Then they gave Him wine mingled with myrrh to
drink, but He did not take it; and then they crucified Him. (Mark 15:22-24)
People of God, today we celebrate the Epiphany, the
manifestation of something of the glory and majesty of Jesus. However, I hope that, having come to some
appreciation of the technical terminology used in the Church’s teaching at
times, you are now aware that the glory and the power, the majesty and the
beauty, of Jesus in His perfect humanity, in no way excludes you, because those
perfections extend, so to speak, down as well as up: as God He is the greatest,
but He can also make Himself the least; supremely majestic, and yet there is
none so humble. In the Eucharist here at
Mass, as man He offers Himself to be our food, and yet on every hand as God He
supports the whole of creation and is worshiped by myriads of angels in heaven;
He now reigns in majesty and bliss and yet none suffers what He Himself has not
experienced, what He is not willing to compassionately share and spiritually
succour now. In His omnipotent power, He
is the first and the last, the beginning and the end of all things; in His
wisdom He pervades the heights and the depths, He surveys all times and seasons,
past, present, and to come, and, above all, He knows our minds and hearts in
all their twists and turns wherein even we ourselves can be at a loss. All this
He can do because of His great love, the love whereby He originally made us in
His own likeness, the love whereby He remade us when He sacrificed His only-begotten
Son for our salvation, and endowed us with His own most Holy Spirit.
People of God, let us understand aright the essence of this
divine celebration and manifestation which is the Epiphany; our God is unique,
infinite, and transcendent, in His perfections; and yet all His perfections are
able to be summed up by these three words of St. John: GOD IS LOVE. Words which we alone on earth can appreciate.
For those still daunted and somewhat put-off by the scholarship
required for the doctrinal expression and defence of God-given truth as well as
its theological understanding and development, let love -- rightly appreciated
and understood -- explain all: because the mutual embrace of love between
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is LIFE ETERNAL, which supports the total grandeur
of cosmic creation, all life and being here on earth, the heavenly powers, and which,
above all -- through Jesus born of Mary -- inspires all beautiful human love, spiritual aspirations, heavenly hopes, experience, and expectations.
Divine love alone embraces all that Mother Church teaches, all that the Scriptures contain, and all that the human mind can learn from Jesus and -- under the gift and grace of His most Holy Spirit – all that we can become, for the glory of Him Who is the God and Father of us all.
