Epiphany of the Lord (A), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, January 4, 2020

January 4, 20209 min read

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord (A), Vigil
January 4, 2020

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below:

The following text guided the homily:

This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy to have a chance to ponder with you the consequential conversation God wants to have with us this Sunday, as the Church celebrates the Feast of the Epiphany of the Lord, his “manifestation” to all the Gentiles in the persons of the Magi coming from afar.
The Lord’s epiphany was also an epiphany of the men whom tradition has always called “wise,” as essential aspects of their true character was revealed. It’s key for us to ponder the response of the wise men, go on pilgrimage with them to Bethlehem, and learn from them invaluable lessons about how we’re called to relate to the coming of God into the world. This Sunday we can ponder seven lessons.
The first thing we learn from the wise men is the importance of seeking God.
- When they saw the star at its rising, they not only interpreted that God was trying to communicate something to them in general, but that God was specifically heralding the birth of the newborn King in the east, who would be a universal king. The stars as we know were incredibly important to ancients. 2000 years ago, in the deserts of the Middle East and on the seas, people were highly dependent on the fixed stars in the sky as references for their direction. They firmly believed that God had made them this way for that reason. Whenever anything happened in the sky that was new — like the appearance of a comet, or meteor shower, or a planet’s or star’s shining more brightly — the ancients thought that it had to bear some message from God, the creator of the heavens and the earth. When they saw a star at its rising, they didn’t respond as curious astrologers but as those who hungered to find what they sought. Led by the star, and their simple faith in its meaning, the wise men went on a journey toward the Holy Land. We don’t know how long their pilgrimage took, but the Gospel gives us indications that it wasn’t brief. After Herod asked them the exact time of the appearance of the star, and then, a short time later, after they did not return to him, he proceeded to kill every boy in Bethlehem under two years of age. So the time of their preparation and the journey to get there probably took 18-24 months. Whether they walked or had the help of animals, we don’t know, but they came. The made a journey of many months each way because they believed God was speaking to them through the star.
- Do we search for God as ardently as they did? .
The second thing the wise men show us is that the life of faith is a pilgrimage.
- - The wise men were ready to move. Even though they must have had good lives where they were since they could afford a long journey and precious gifts at their arrival, they accounted being with the newborn universal king more important than staying where they were. They were willing to leave everything behind and make a long, difficult journey, following the star they had seen in the East.
  - Are we ready to make the continuous journey of faith, a spiritual pilgrimage?
Third, they show us that this pilgrimage of life is not one that we’re supposed to make alone.
- - The wise men didn’t journey solo. They walked together. They knew that it order to make the destination they needed each other, but more than that, they wanted to journey together. Likewise, the Catholic pilgrimage of faith is not a do-it-yourself thing. We need the help of others on the search for God, to pass through the various deserts of life. Just as much as pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago, we need fellow travelers. Spouses need each other. Children need their parents. We all need our friends and spiritual siblings. Priests need their brother priests and parishioners need each other. The Church’s pilgrimage is a family journey, one done in communion, trying not to leave anyone behind, but getting everyone moving.
  - Are we grateful for those whom God has placed with us to make this journey?
Fourth, the journey of the Magi shows us that we need to be guided on the path of faith.
- - They got to Bethlehem because they had allowed themselves to be guided by the star. They were attentive and obedient to the guidance God had given them. Likewise, we all need to be guided.
  - God guides us in Sacred Scripture, which we should study like the wise men studied the stars. Another guide is the Church. A third guide is the saints.
  - How well do we allow ourselves to be guided?
Fifth, the wise men show us how to be willing to accept God on his terms, not on ours.
- - When the wise men found Jesus, he was far from what they must have been expecting. They likely expected to find the newborn king in a palace, not in a stable; wrapped in royal silk, not in swaddling clothes; surrounded by courtiers, not animals and shepherds. Yet when they found him as he was, they didn’t turn back. They were willing to let their own categories be changed by God rather than to fit God into their own categories. They needed to change their ideas about power, about God, about man — in short, they had to change themselves and see that God’s power is not like that of the powerful of this world. God’s ways are not as we imagine them or as we might wish them to be. God is different. Likewise throughout life, we must learn God’s ways and how to conform our ways to his, especially when he asks us to model our life on the mystery of his self-giving love on the Cross.
  - Do we accept God as he comes?
Sixth, the Magi teach us all about true adoration.
- - The greatest gift they gave the Lord Jesus was not gold, frankincense and myrrh, but themselves. St. Matthew tells us that they prostrated themselves and did him homage. They adored him.
  - That’s what we’re called to do as well. The same Jesus before whom they prostrated themselves comes to our Churches on the altar. We are called to prostrate ourselves in humble homage before him, lay ourselves and our gifts, and at the same time receive the blessing that Christ wants to give us by himself coming to meet us in humility, to lift us up and to help us continue on the journey.
Lastly, the Magi show us how the encounter with Christ is meant to change us.
- - St. Matthew says that the wise men returned home “by another route,” which the great saints of the Church have always said points to far more than a detour to evade Herod. It points to the fact that they returned change, the returned differently than they arrived, converted more and more to the new King’s way and categories, to the way of faith, to the way of Christ-like love.
  - Similarly every time we come to journey to Mass, every time we come together with others on pilgrimage to bring him our gifts and sacrifices but especially the offering of our whole life in prayerful homage, we’re supposed to leave changed, changed by the word we heard, changed by our truly praying the collections and petitions of the Mass, changed by becoming one with the Lord on the inside. Every Mass is meant to change our life forever and send us back by different, transformed for the better, following no longer our own way but following Jesus’ own path up close.
As we’ll have a chance to ponder on Sunday, the Mass is Christ’s continuous epiphany, but our contemporaries need us, once again, to be the “wise men” who show where the star of the tabernacle lamp and altar candles still burn to help and encourage those we know to join us on the journey to find Christ and come into a life-changing communion with him. God is calling us, you and me, to be those modern Melchiors, Balhasars, and Kaspars. And he wants to give us at Mass all the help he knows we need to fulfill this mission! As we fall to our knees Tonhis Sunday before the same Lord before whom they prostrated themselves as a small, poor, vulnerable infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, God wants us, like them, to discover the glory of God in the highest. Let us go with haste to Bethlehem! Come, let us adore him!