The Epiphany of Our Lord
(Isaiah
60:1-6; Ephesians 3:2-3, 5-6; Matthew 2:1-12)
As you heard in the Gospel reading, this humble Lord of
majesty, glory, and power, is the One to Whom the heavens themselves --
nature’s primeval powers -- gave obedient witness by means of the guiding star;
the One Whom the inspired prophets and the ancient scriptures had
foretold would come, even disclosing the very place of His birth, Bethlehem in
the land of Judah; the One recognized and worshipped by the Magi -- the
first-fruits of the Gentiles -- as supreme King, Prophet, and Priest. Yes indeed, we worshipping People of God are
in tune with creation itself, and are united with our ancient fathers and with all
who, throughout the ages, have humbly searched for God to the best of their
abilities; and, being endowed with such a privilege, we have very, very good
reason to rejoice on this most holy day.
Our Blessed Lord and Saviour does not reserve this His
glory to Himself, as a right understanding of our first reading shows:
Rise up in splendour, Jerusalem
(Mother Church)! Your light has come, the glory of the Lord shines upon
you. See, darkness covers the earth,
and thick clouds cover the peoples; but upon you the Lord shines, and over you
appears His glory. Nations shall walk by your light, and kings by your shining
radiance.
In these days of scandals, contradiction and rejection, we
must never forget the truth of Isaiah’s prophecy, for Mother Church is -- even
-- today supremely privileged as the spouse of Christ: for her proclamation of
Jesus’ Gospel still enables whole peoples surrounded by the darkness of this
world to walk safely and surely by the Holy Spirit along the way of Jesus’
teaching.
Let us consider those prophetic words a little more
closely:
Nations shall walk by your light,
and kings by your shining radiance.
Mother Church can, and does, enrich the world with her
proclamation of the truth of Jesus; nevertheless, besides the light of
Mother Church’s teaching, the shining
radiance of her people’s lives is required that the nations may be brought
to walk with confidence and joy in the footsteps of the Lord. That means, that all of us, each and every
ordinary member of the Church. has a necessary role to play in enabling her to
fulfil the commission given her by the Lord Jesus to continue in our world of
today the work of salvation that He started by His own life, death, and
resurrection. How are we to rise to such
a calling?
Jesus once told a Samaritan woman asking Him for the water
of life:
Salvation is from the Jews.
And, in that respect, St. Paul teaches (cf. Romans 2:28s):
One is not a Jew outwardly. True
circumcision is not outward, in the flesh.
Rather, one is a Jew inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart, in the
spirit, not the letter.
Jesus went on to tell us how we can show forth the shining radiance of Mother Church:
The hour is coming, and is now
here, when true worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed,
the Father seeks such people to worship Him.
And St. Paul again (Philippians 3:3) took up Jesus’ teaching most faithfully:
We are the true circumcision, we
who worship through the Spirit of God, who boast in Christ Jesus, and do not
put our confidence in flesh.
That is the only, worthy programme we can set before
ourselves as disciples of Jesus in the world of today: to worship the Father in Spirit and Truth, that is, to worship the
Father, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and according to the Truth of
Jesus’ Good News.
The Word of God, the Good News of Jesus’ proclamation made
during His time on earth and continuing in His Church through all ages and all
lands, is a Word that does not return empty to God (Isaiah 55:11):
The
word that goes forth from My mouth shall not return to Me void, but shall do My
will, achieving the end for which I sent it.
That means, that if we hear and embrace the truth of Jesus’
Good News in sincerity -- trying to understand, wanting to love and serve Him,
and thus come to knowledge of the Father Who sent Him -- that is, if we sincerely seek Jesus, then that Word,
that Truth, will achieve the end for which It has been passed down for our
hearing, thanks to the Spirit of Jesus at work in us: the Spirit of prayer Who
supplies for our inability to pray at times, the Spirit of power Who enables us
to do what is beyond our merely natural powers.
Having found Jesus and worshipped Him in Spirit and in
Truth, the Magi did not find it hard to leave without meeting Herod again. There was, indeed, much splendour in Herod’s
palace, there were many gifts awaiting them
on his tables and flattery a-plenty from his own lips and those of his
courtiers, but what was that in comparison with the peace and joy they had just
experienced in the cave at Bethlehem?
Could those who there had been so privileged to hear, or hear of, the
angels’ chorus, ever want to hear, let alone be seduced by, the siren music of
Herod’s dancers and the lascivious pleasures of scents and cushions,
voluptuousness and wine?
But, as you all well know dear People of God, not all presumed
members of Mother Church are like the Magi; far too many priests in our times
have allowed themselves to be seduced by pleasures of the flesh, and what is yet
worse, there are far too many seeking to justify such scandals by pseudo-Christian
talk of love and fellowship, freedom, and joy in the Lord!
And then, delighting in such betrayal from within the Church,
the world’s information media try to make sure that all young people from their
earliest years hear all about such lasciviousness: hypocritically, most loudly and
profusely, decried by the treacherous, and most joyfully lapped-up by the lecherous.
However, for all who have made the Magi’s trip to Bethlehem
and have begun to worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth, the following
words of St. Paul (Philippians 3:13s.) express all that is necessary and
desirable:
Forgetting what lies behind but
straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal,
the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.
However, today, it is essential for us in Mother Church to
realize just what we are meant to be fighting against … what programme of Jesus
we are called to give our lives (and deaths!) to furthering.
The stark challenge of Jesus to the world of today is the
same as that which He made abundantly clear to the leaders and people of the
Jewish theocracy at the beginning of His public ministry: He had come to
destroy sin in God’s Chosen People’s practice of their divinely-covenanted
faith, and to eradicate sin from the hearts and minds of His authentic
disciples by His own Good News, by the Gift of His own most Holy Spirit, and by
the solemn promise of eternal life as truly adopted, and well-loved, Children
of God, fit to have a place at His festive table in His heavenly Kingdom.
That challenge of Jesus is Mother Church’s commission, her
work in and for the world of today. She
must seek to destroy sin in the religious, social, political, and economic
world man has created, and to do that she must, first of all, seek to destroy
sin in individual men, and above all in each and every one of us who profess
ourselves proud to have received our Catholic inheritance.
Mother Church’s task today is not to re-convert peoples who
have tasted and rejected Christianity, by making things easier, cosier, more
natural (not so super-natural!), for their practice. Her task now
is to propose to all men and women of good will the glory of Jesus proclaimed
by the Apostles and maintained throughout the ages by her dogmatic (rock of
ages!) Tradition and her grateful and disciplined obedience. Thus may she help
men and women of today to look humbly
at Jesus and -- glimpsing something of His Personal goodness, beauty, and truth
-- to recognize the fact of their own sinfulness by joyfully embracing
the Christian hope for the peace and joy of eternal life in the Father’s heavenly
home, purified by the Blood of the Lamb and renewed by the Gift of the Spirit.
As we too seek in all sincerity to keep fresh in our hearts,
and hear ever-anew in our minds, Mother Church’s proclamation of the Word of
God, may that leading-light draw us to worship Jesus whole-heartedly as the
Father expects of each of us personally; and may we gradually discover our true selves by being gradually trans-formed into a unique likeness of
the Son, by the Holy Spirit, as a personal gift for the Father of us all.
