Browsing The Seed

A Light of Revelation to the Nations

epiphany adoration of the magi

The feast of the Epiphany ends our Christmas season this year, and on this day the Church commemorates not just one event in Jesus’ infancy, but three: The adoration of the magi from the East; the Baptism of the Lord in the river Jordan; and the Wedding Feast at Cana. Liturgically, the Church has always linked these events together, though in former times they were celebrated individually during Epiphany-tide. Today, with the shortening of the Christmas season following the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, these three riches of Jesus’ life, which once lay dispersed, are now contracted into a span. The reason we bring these feasts together, even though they occurred decades apart in the life of our Lord, is because the feast of Epiphany is the major feast of Jesus’ manifestation to the whole world as Messiah of Israel, but also as the Savior of the whole world.  These three moments – adoration, baptism, and the miracle at Cana – are the three principle moments when Jesus was revealed by His Father to be the “light of the nations” (Lumen Gentium). The Church teaches that, “in the magi, representatives of the neighboring pagan religions, the Gospel sees the first-fruits of the nations, who welcome the good news of salvation through the Incarnation” (Catechism 528). This event was a foretaste of the two later events of Jesus’ baptism – in which the Father reveals Him as His “beloved Son” in whom the Father is well-pleased (Matthew 3:17) – and the Wedding at Cana, where Jesus performs the very first of His public miracles, revealing the power of God at work in Him, and inaugurating the final stage of His mission, which would end in His glorious Passion, Death, and Resurrection.  

For the majority of Christians, this is feast is personal, because many of us are numbered from “among the Gentiles”, those nations who waited in darkness for the great light of Jesus to dawn on earth. There is a great joy in the Epiphany because God, who for so long had been preparing a Chosen People to be the nation through whom His light in Christ would dawn, has now chosen to reveal Himself to the full number of peoples, such that everyone  – “Jew or Greek, slave or freeman, man or woman” (Galatians 3:28) -  is now called by God to become a member of His holy people. In Christ, God has extended salvation to the whole world, as He always intended to do, and in the magi the whole world, as it were, have approached the infant to offer adoration and homage to the one who was born to die so that in Him we may all live forever. “The magi's coming to Jerusalem in order to pay homage to the king of the Jews shows that they seek in Israel…the one who will be king of the nations. Their coming means that pagans can discover Jesus and worship him as Son of God and Savior of the world only by turning towards the Jews and receiving from them the messianic promise as contained in the Old Testament. The Epiphany shows that ‘the full number of the nations’ now takes its ‘place in the family of the patriarchs’ and acquires the dignity of Israel” (Catechism 528). 

Christ is the light that dispels the darkness of the pagans. Yet in our own culture, among our fellow Christians, there is a kind of paganism again at work. I want to share an observation from the late Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, from early in his years as a priest. In an article from that time, he wrote: “The outward shape of the modern Church is determined essentially by the fact that, in a totally new way, she has become the Church of pagans, and is constantly becoming even more so. She is no longer, as she once was, a Church composed of pagans who have become Christians, but a Church of pagans, who still call themselves Christians, but actually have become pagans.” This assessment is challenging, and yet, is it that far off? Do not many of us know personally friends, family members, colleagues, and neighbors who claim the title of Christian but who, in the concrete manner in which they live their lives, look no different from those who don’t believe anything at all, save for a few lifestyle choices vaguely influenced by Christianity? And what of ourselves? Can we honestly say that, amid this post-Christian world in which we live, we have not been influenced, perhaps unwittingly, by the pagan tides of a culture that has largely abandoned faith in the God who reveals Himself once and for all in the light of Christ? To live in practice more aligned to the ways of the world than the ways of God is a temptation for all of us who dwell among the nations and strive to be faithful to the Lord in their midst, to be a light to the world, as we are called to be. This feast can be a bit of a renewal for us, calling us to consider how, in our own lives, we may find ourselves walking in some obscure darkness of sin or error, and the perennial call of the Lord to approach His light and to be illumined by His grace, towards deeper holiness and more fervent attentiveness to His presence in our lives and the truth He brings and the peace He gives. May God bless you in the week ahead and may Mother Mary lead you more deeply into the Sacred and Merciful Heart of Jesus.

Affectionately yours in Christ,

Fr. Hess

Grow in Faith Resources

Subscribe

RSS Feed

Archive


Access all blogs

Subscribe to all of our blogs