The Epiphany 2015

             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 makes them not only largely meaningless but even conducive to spiritual indifference for ordinary Catholics.  And yet, because such doctrinal terminology has been finely tuned over many centuries by some of the greatest minds and the deepest hearts among the disciples of Christ, in many cases it most subtly articulates supremely beautiful truths about God and His great goodness toward men, truths well able to kindle ardent flames of divine 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 worldly worries and the multitudinous noises and distractions of society around them long enough for them to dispassionately listen to, thoughtfully appreciate, and gratefully learn from the teaching of Mother Church.
 

Our God is unique and transcendent in all His perfections, such is the teaching of both Christian philosophy and Catholic dogma: He cannot be contained within any limits because He is infinite, and infinity is limitless: He is the Almighty and the All Holy, whose sovereign Power sublimely expresses and sustains His incomparable Wisdom and supreme Goodness. 

In line with such appreciations of God we find in today’s Gospel reading that the Magi first became aware of the proximate birth of the Christ through the appearance of an extraordinarily bright star in the heavens, whereupon and without delay, they set out to follow its lead, bearing as their first gift, incense for the most holy Being announced by this new heavenly phenomenon.  Their high expectations were to be abundantly confirmed by certain shepherds – mentioned by Saint Luke -- who reported that, as they were watching over their sheep in the fields during the night, an angel from heaven appeared to them proclaiming the birth of One most Holy, and that a veritable multitude of the heavenly host thereupon joined the angel, singing the praises of God and the glory of the Child Whom the Magi had been so diligently seeking, with the words:
 

            Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth.
 

The Magi, having long followed the lead of the star from heaven, had expected to find the One they were seeking among the highest on earth, that is, in Jerusalem, the city where the great God of Israel had chosen to dwell; perhaps, indeed, at the court of him who was the present Rome-favoured king of this Chosen People and builder of their glorious Temple which was one of the wonders of the Roman world.  Consequently, in line with this expectancy, they had brought with them a second gift; this time, one of royal gold.
 

They had been well received by Israel’s king, Herod, who, after having summoned and enquired of his most learned scribes and scholars, priests and sages, encouraged the Magi in their search for the Child with an oracle taken from the age-old Jewish scriptures:
 

You, Bethlehem, 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 star of great beauty in accordance with the ancient oracle, taking grateful advantage of the royal encouragement given them in the holy city of Jerusalem where the One to come was clearly foreknown, expected, and -- it would seem -- reverently desired.
 

However, since no limits can be set to God’s perfections, though God is indeed limitlessly in majesty, He is also limitless in humility: He is greater than all, yet there is none more lowly than He.  Therefore, when the Magi eventually arrived at the spot over which their guiding star seemed to have stopped, they saw -- to their surprise indeed, but not to their dismay -- that there was little more to be seen than a house or shelter containing a manger, in which:
 

They saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshipped Him.

This was not what they had expected to find, and yet, turning to take up and offer their gifts, they realized how wondrously wise had been the Power that had brought them thus far; for, bringing forth their gifts, they found – as intended -- not only frankincense for the holy and gold for the great, but also myrrh, essential indeed -- and again intended -- for the anointing of high priests and kings, and also – and this was quite unintentional -- much appreciated for the weak who need to be embalmed in death, and for the lowly and rejected who need succour and comfort in their pain and distress:
 

Nicodemus came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. Then they 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 celebration of the glory and majesty of Jesus.  However, I hope that, having come to some appreciation of the rich content 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 all His perfections, in no way excludes you, because those perfections extend down as well as up, so to speak: God is the greatest, He is also the least; supremely majestic, and yet there is none so humble.  In the Eucharist here at Mass He offers Himself as bread and wine to be our spiritual food, and yet His power is such that He supports the earthly being of all that is around us, while His eternal majesty is worshipped by myriads of angels in heaven.  He reigns in glory and bliss, and yet none -- be they brought ever so low in the bitterness of their sufferings – endure any torment or degradation that He, their Lord and Master, will not take upon Himself and share with them for their comfort and salvation.  In His omnipotent power He is the first and the last, the beginning and the end of all; in His wisdom He pervades the heights and the depths as He surveys all times and seasons, past, present, and to come.  Above all, He knows our minds and hearts in all their twists and turns wherein even we ourselves are so frequently and disastrously at a loss.  This He can do because of His great love: the love that originally led Him to make us in His own likeness, and the love whereby He remade us when -- having sacrificed Himself in our flesh for our redemption -- He 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 myriad perfections; and yet all His perfections can be summed up by these three words of St. John: God is love.  All the divine perfections are varied manifestations of His essential love, and so, divine charity and Jesus’ love for humankind is the key that gently opens for our understanding and gratitude all God’s wondrous doings and awesome plans.
 

For those still daunted and somewhat put-off by the technological scholarship required for the doctrinal expression and defence of God-given truth as well as its theological understanding and development, let love explain all: because love sustains all, love inspires all.  Love, and love alone – divine love, that is – embraces and supports all that Mother Church teaches, all the saving and inspiring wisdom that her Holy Scriptures contain, and all that the human mind can ever rise to understand and come to appreciate about Jesus our Saviour – Son of God and Son of man -- under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and for the glory of Him Who is the God and Father of us all.

                     

Mary, the Mother of God 2015

Mary, the Mother of God  

(Numbers 6:22-27; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21)

St. Paul who, being totally fascinated by the Risen Christ Who called and commissioned him, hardly even mentions Our Lady, nevertheless gives us a few words in her regard that reveal to us something of the innermost ‘secret’ of Mary:

God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, to ransom those under the Law.

‘God sent His Son to ransom those under the Law’.  However, His Son was born of a woman under the Law St. Paul tells us … could she, then, have been a woman yet ‘to be ransomed’?  Obviously not!  Therefore, Paul is assuming as known the forestalling ransom of Mary, that is the prevenient grace of her Immaculate Conception, enabling her to fittingly bear and give birth to the Son of God come ‘to ransom those under the Law’.

God did ‘great things’ for Mary as she would not just humbly acknowledge but exultantly proclaim to her cousin Elisabeth; but He dld not -- could not because He would not – do them without her co-operation: implicit, as regards her intellectual appreciation of what was happening to her and planned for her -- such as her Immaculate Conception and the strict Personal Divinity of the Son to be born of her, but totally explicit in her absolute moral self-commitment to the supremely holy and incomprehensibly majestic (above and beyond human comprehension) God of Israel, necessarily involving her relinquishing control of, indeed, embracing total abnegation of, self.  God, I say, would not do such great things for her without her most radical and utterly simple self-commitment in love.  Now, such self-emptiness before Him, such total openness, such absolute selflessness for Him, His purposes and His glory; that indeed, is the secret of Mary:

Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me according to Your Will.

So absolute -- so complete and unreserved -- was the response of Mary to God’s initial words delivered to her by the angel Gabriel, that Jesus openly praised her for that above all else (Luke 11:27-28):

A certain woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, "Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You!"  But He said, "More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!"

Blessed are those who hear the word of God, who like Mary let that word freely -- like a threaded needle -- introduce the Spirit of God into their lives, enabling Him to  commence His work in them.  Blessed indeed are those who then, turning neither heart nor head to right or to left, but always, simply and solely, walking in the way of God’s (W)ord and allowing God’s Spirit to lead them where He will.

We can recall here another Mary of whom the New Testament speaks most clearly in this same vein, for she is able to help us learn something more about Our Lady’s ‘secret’:

Jesus entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed Him.  She had a sister named Mary, who sat beside the Lord at His feet listening to Him speak.  Martha, burdened with much serving came to Him and said, ‘Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me by myself to do all the serving?  The Lord said to her in reply, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.  There is need of only one thing, Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her. (Luke 10:38-42)

Clearly, important choices have to be made, perhaps friends offended and opposition provoked; at times, even good, very good things left aside and behind, for what is better and best in the way of God:  ‘Secretum meum, mihi.’

For further guidance we can also recall the experience of Elijah of old:

At the mountain of God, Horeb, Elijah came to a cave where he took shelter.   The word of the Lord came to him, ‘Go outside and stand on the mountain before the Lord, the Lord will be passing by.’  A strong and heavy wind was rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind.  After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.  After the earthquake there was fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.  After the fire, there was a tiny whispering sound.  When he heard this, Elijah hid his face in his cloak and went and stood at the entrance of the cave.  A voice said to him, ‘Elijah, why are you here? ... ‘Go take the road back to the desert near Damascus.  When you arrive you shall anoint Hazael as king of Aram... Then Jehu, as king of Israel, and Elisha, son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah, as prophet to succeed you.’  (1 Kings 9, 11-16)

The voice of God had been ardently desired, long awaited, and carefully listened for, by the prophet in his great need.  Ultimately he recognized it by its unearthly calm and peace-enshrining quiet which bespoke of holiness and led him to hide his face in his cloak before it, that thus he might listen more closely and understand most clearly what the Lord would have him do to achieve his destiny: Peace to those who are loved of God.

In our Gospel reading we learnt that those who searched for the Child found:

            Mary and Joseph, and the Infant lying in a manger.

So it is for all those disciples whom Jesus has told to take Mary to their hearts as their own Mother: in our search for Jesus, we will find Him, most easily and most surely, with the help and comfort of Mary’s prayerful presence in our lives.  Mary is no mere addition, certainly no complication, for Catholic spirituality.  Indeed, we can readily appreciate the privilege of Mary that enables her to lead each and every one of us to Jesus when we recall that she is not simply the model of the Church, but that, during her pregnancy she was, in all literal truth, the original Church itself, the unique dwelling place on earth of Jesus, God’s Son made flesh, the New Testament Ark of God’s presence among His People; and that she still is the purest essence of the Church, without spot or wrinkle of any sort.  Only in Mother Church can each and every one of us find Jesus truly and love Him fully, and that we will do most surely with Mary’s inestimable help.

St. Paul is quite explicit: it is the Spirit within us Who cries out Abba, Father!

As proof that you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into you hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”

It is not that, initially, He authorises us, permits us, or even, enables us to cry ‘Abba, Father!’  It is the Spirit Himself, first coming to us as God’s gracious and most gloriously mysterious GIFT -- the sublimely precious fruit of Christ’s sacrifice -- Who thus speaks in us and for us to the Father.  Thus is Jesus, Mary’s Son, born anew in each of us for the Father.   After that, everything depends on just how much ‘room’ – so to speak -- we give the Spirit of Jesus to work freely and fruitfully in us; and that means that we must appreciate, learn from, and develop in our own lives, something of the ‘secret’ of Mary our mother: for that will ultimately determine our human and Christian development as children of God.

We should recognise that Mary is our model and inspiration for our deepest and most personal relationship with Jesus, and in Jesus, with the Father, in so far as she was always most sublimely one with her Son:

Mary kept all these things (that she had experienced and heard concerning Jesus) and pondered them in her heart.

She is the supreme example and the surest guide for anyone seeking salvation, for anyone hoping and longing to find God as our true Father, in and with Jesus.

First and foremost, we should Imitate Mary in her total commitment of trust, and confidence in God the incomprehensible and supremely loving Father:

            Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me according to Your Will.

And then, by pondering in our heart -- in the power of the Spirit -- the Good News of Jesus handed down to us by Mother Church in her Scriptures and teaching which form us as His disciples, and which, indeed, together with her sacraments, mediate His very presence in our midst as members of His Church, and in our individual hearts, as His true disciples today.

Dear People of God, let us close our considerations with heartfelt words of gratitude and praise for Mary, the Immaculate Mother of Our Lord and Saviour and – ‘thanks be to God’ -- our most beautiful and gracious Queen:

You are the glory of Jerusalem, the surpassing joy (and) splendid boast of (all reborn in Christ). You have done good and God is pleased with what you have wrought.  May you be blessed by the Lord Almighty forever and ever!  And all the people answered, “Amen!”  (Judith 15:9-10)

So be it today: Amen, amen!  Deo gratias!