Solemnity of the Epiphany, Conservations with Consequences Podcast, January 6, 2024

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for the Solemnity of the Epiphany, Vigil
January 6, 2024

To listen to an audio recording of the brief 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 Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, his “manifestation” to all the nations represented by the wisemen coming from afar.
• In recent days, the importance of wisdom has become even more obvious. We’ve had the presidents of two of our most prestigious universities resign because of their incapacity to see and state the obvious and condemn Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attacks, any and all calls for the genocide of Jews whatever the context, and anti-Semitism, blinded by modern Marxist ideologies that have infected many places of higher education. We’ve likewise had a senior Vatican official charged with defending and promoting the Catholic faith unbelievably release a declaration, the week before Christmas, on blessing same-sex couples and those in irregular situations, changing the focus from the good news of great joy for all the people to the obviously confusing headlines of whether the Church is changing her teaching on sexual sins and marriage. And in a presidential election year, many are more prone to see the evident lack of wisdom in those competing for our support and in their policies and ideas. All of these situations and others reveal the crucial importance of wisdom in an age in which political, cultural and even religious leaders are increasingly confused.
• That’s why it’s so important for us, on the Solemnity of the Epiphany, to learn from the men whom tradition has always called “wise,” to go on pilgrimage with them to Bethlehem, and to learn from them invaluable lessons not just about how we’re called to relate to the coming of God into the world but on how to grow wise. We can ponder five lessons.

• The first thing we learn from the wise men is the importance of seeking God.
  • To be wise, we must look at things from God’s perspective, and that requires effort. 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, in accordance with ancient Sybilline prophecies, was specifically heralding the birth of the newborn King in the east, who would be a universal king. 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 the creator of the heavens. When they saw the 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 trust in its supposed 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, they made the lengthy journey because they believed God was speaking to them through the star. Anyone seeking wisdom must be willing to make such a journey seeking God and the truth.
• The second thing the wise men show us is that the search for wisdom is a pilgrimage we’re called to make together.  
  • 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. But they grasped that this was an intellectual and existential journey they were not supposed to make alone. They knew that in order to make the destination, they needed each other, but more than that, they wanted to journey together. Likewise, the search for wisdom and the Catholic pilgrimage of faith are not do-it-yourself things. We need the help of others. 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. Parishioners and priests 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, in which we help each other find God, learn better who we are, and how we’re supposed to live.
• Third, the journey of the Magi shows us that we need to be guided on the path of wisdom and faith.
  • They got to Bethlehem because they 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, of course, in Sacred Scripture, which we should study more assiduously than the wise men studied the stars. God guides us through the Church, and hence the Catechism is a compass for our intellects and our conscience. A third guide is the witness of the saints, those who have made the journey, show us the way, and accompany us by their prayers. This guidance can often be surprising and opposed to “conventional wisdom,” which is often not wise at all. When the wise men found Jesus, he was far from what they must have been expecting. They naturally expected to find the newborn king in a palace, not in a stable; wrapped in royal purple, not in swaddling clothes; surrounded by courtiers, not by 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 try to fit God into their own categories. They had to change their ideas about God, man, wisdom, and power. Likewise throughout life, we must learn though God’s guidance that God’s ways are not as we imagine them or as we might wish them to be, and that we must learn 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.
• Fourth, the wise men teach us all about the importance of adoration.
  • The greatest gift they gave the Baby 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. It wasn’t enough to know about him or to meet him. They needed to love him with all their heart, mind, soul, strength, time and gifts. If the fear or awe of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, true sacrificial love of the Lord is the way wisdom grows. This truth leads us to the subject of prayer and adoration. The same Jesus before whom they prostrated themselves comes to our Churches on the altar and waits for us in the monstrance and tabernacle. He wants to fill us with his wisdom. Like the wise men, however, to grow in this gift, we must prostrate ourselves in humble homage before him, placing ourselves and our gifts in his service, as he seeks in his humility and majesty to bless us.
• Lastly, the wise men 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 many saints and scholars have said points to far more than a detour to evade Herod. It indicates, rather, that they returned changed, different than they arrived, converted more and more to the new King’s way and categories, to the way of wisdom, faith, and Christ-like love. The Lord similarly wants to change us. Every time we journey to Mass, every time we come together with others on pilgrimage to bring to him our gifts and sacrifices but especially the offering of our whole life, we’re supposed to leave changed, made wiser by the Word we heard, changed by our praying the collects and petitions, transformed 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. This is what the world most needs: as Christ transforms us, he sends us out to transform the Church, culture and the world. He fills us with his wisdom and wants us to help others come to know and live it. Our contemporaries desperately need us to be the “wise men” who show them how to live, who indicate to them how to become wise. We do this, above all, by pointing to the star of the tabernacle lamp and altar candles where the continuous epiphany of the Lord takes place and encouraging those we know to join us on the journey to find Christ and enter into life-changing communion with him. God is calling us to be the modern Melchiors, Balthasars, and Kaspars, and he wants to give us at Mass the wisdom, the grace, the help he knows we need to fulfill the mission! As we fall to our knees this Sunday before the same Lord before whom the wise men 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 and the road to peace on earth. Let us, therefore, go with haste to Bethlehem and adore him!

The Gospel passage on which the homily was based was: 

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