A Commentary and Reflection on the Feast of the Epiphany. The Liturgical Sense of the Scriptures Podcast, by Catholic Author and Theologian David L. Gray. READINGS: Isaiah 60:1-6, Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6, Matthew 2:1-12.
The Liturgy of the Holy Mass is the Epiphany Event
Epiphany (or Theophany, as it is known in the Eastern Rite Catholic Church), also known as Three Kings’ Day, is a Christian feast day that celebrates the revealing of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, as fully and fully divine who dwelt among us as Jesus of Nazareth. The word epiphany comes from the Greek word meaning “manifestation.” The feast also commemorates the visit of the Magi to the Christ child, and thus Jesus’ physical manifestation to the Gentiles.
In consideration of the Gospel of Matthew’s narrative of the Epiphany event found in 2:1-12, I have always been fascinated with the reality that a number of magi (wise persons by another name) from the East saw a star rising and followed it so that they could pay homage to the newborn King of the Jews. What an audacious response to a rare event. How long did they plan this journey? How large was the retinue? Where else did they stop along the way, and what did they tell people who asked them where they were headed? Did others come to believe in the coming of Jesus based on their witness along the way? We do not know whether these magi were Jews themselves or how many of them there were, or even whether all of them were men. There are many questions that we will never have answers to about the Magi, but what we do know is that these people were able to discern the importance of the hour and acted on the knowledge that came from their discernment.
They traveled to meet the child, who would one day call Himself the Bread of Life, in a little town called Bethlehem, which literally means ‘House of Bread.’ After they entered the house upon which the star had rested, they saw the child with His mother, Mary, and paid Him homage and offered Him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. …………….. It is something powerful to consider how people so far off knew that the newborn King of the Jews had been born and traveled a great distance to pay Him homage and offer Him gifts, while Herod, working with the same knowledge as them, desired to kill the child who threatened his power, position, and prestige.
The unconventional message of the difference between the magi’s and Herod’s response is this: The near proximity to light has no bearing upon the reception of light. In other words, God is always the same – He never changes, but what does change is how our heart receives Him. What changes is the thing that is most inconsistent about the human species; that God reveals Himself and God manifests Himself to us, yet, our response to the light, revelation, and manifestation is oftentimes lacking and inconsistent, and within that lack of interest, man has in rightly responding to God in love it is there that man finds space to respond to this own base and carnal desires to sin. This is the dichotomy we are faced with; we either pursue God or we pursue sin. There is no third path.
Again, the near proximity to light has no bearing on the reception of light. A child who has holy parents and even a saintly priest as a close brother can grow up to do great, unrepentant evil, and a child who has the firstborn of Satan as his mother and father can grow up to be a saint. In the same way, if I put an egg and a stick of butter in the same pot of boiling water, each of them will react differently to the conditions around them. The egg will become hard, and the butter will melt, not because the water has decided to do anything different to the butter than the egg, but rather because both of them reacted differently to the environment they were placed in.
I know parents who struggle with this reality – how one of their children can be perfect in their eyes while their other child is unruly for no reason. It could have been the case that if Herod lived to see Jesus come into His ministry, that he may have believed. He could have been the first Saint Paul. Who knows? All that each of us can be is who we are at that instant moment. And we are always going to react to the conditions around us to the best of our ability.
Jesus is the light of the world; He is the eastern star; He is the truth; He is the bread of life, and people will always react differently to those realities. There will always be people who love Him, hate Him, and are indifferent to Him, but there will also be people who are looking for Him as well. Even if they don’t know His name, such as the magi – they will still be looking for the light and truth. Humanity has always and will always be in search of these things, and we, as children of the Light, are obligated to let our light shine so that they might see the light in us (Christ Jesus) and follow us to the source, as I hope many had followed the Magi.
In fact, the liturgy of the Holy Mass, a type of epiphany itself, a manifestation of Christ Jesus, the Holy Eucharist, and we are a type of magi processing to meet our King and to bring to Him our gifts, our offerings, our work of human hands, is one of the most incredible things about the Divine Symphony. We get to be the magi; we get to travel to see our King; we get to present to Him the gifts that He has given us. Yet, we are even more blessed than the Magi; the Blessed Mother Mary may have just let them hold our Lord for a brief while, but we get to consume Him into our bodies; His body and blood comes into our body and blood. For this, we prostrate just as the magi did. While the Magi left Bethlehem and returned home with only a memory of their visit to see the newborn King of the Universe, we not only leave the Mass with Him and the indwelling of God Himself – the Holy Spirit, but also have the opportunity to experience this liturgical epiphany event every day of the year, except on Good Friday. Moreover, what did the Magi hear from Jesus the day they visited? A silent baby – not saying or mumbling a thing or perhaps a crying babe in swaddling cloth? Again, here we are more blessed than the Magi, for we will hear the words of Jesus through the scriptures and in His words of consecration through which He comes to meet us, the adopted sons and daughters of His Eternal Father. Moments like this make the liturgy of the Holy Mass the greatest, the most timeless, and the most renewing event in the Universe. Thanks be to God
This is just one way how the readings at Mass this Sunday connect to the liturgy and how the liturgy is forming us in how to live our lives in the world. Be in the world what you have received through the liturgy
