The Feast of the Epiphany: A Mini-Pentecost
Today’s feast of Epiphany is like a mini-Pentecost. At Pentecost, the disciples went out from the Upper Room filled with the Holy Spirit, proclaiming Jesus Christ in every language. On Epiphany, we recall the Magi’s journey from the ends of the earth to discover what God had done in Jesus, the newborn King.
The desire in the hearts of the Magi was answered by God sending out the Church to all the corners of the world. Christianity remains today the most ethnically diverse religion in the world. Our faith in Jesus Christ is not just a personal feeling or conviction that comforts us. It is a message for all the world, a light to the nations. And our faith in Jesus Christ has power to shed light on the questions and challenges of our world today.
Epiphany is also like a mini-Pentecost, because it manifests the healing of those divisions in our human family whose roots reach as far back as the Tower of Babel. There, human pride set over against God led to the confusion of languages. No one could understand another, and it was impossible to work together. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit empowered the Church to speak in every language, to gather our scattered human family into the redeemed and sanctified family of God.
Today we are again incapable of speaking to one another. It is not only our words that are confused – the meaning of our very bodies is thrown into question. We can hardly understand what God says to us in creating us, male and female, in his image and likeness.
Yet still, every person is searching for meaning and purpose. Everyone is looking for light that can help make sense of our life and experience in the world. Every person is like the Magi, seeking truth in love. This search is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
But the Magi don’t stay in the stable in Bethlehem. From their encounter with Jesus, they return “by a different route.” They are changed by their encounter with Jesus, and bring that changed life back to the corners of the world.
Next week we begin a Spanish Mass at 1 pm every Sunday. And in February we will have a Vietnamese Mass and celebration of the Lunar New Year. Even our little corner of southwest Florida is a place where people of “every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9, 7:9) are gathered in faith around Jesus Christ.
In this New Year, may every one of you take one step closer to Jesus in our journey of faith. (The Catechism in a Year podcast might be a great help – see page 4.) Like the Magi, may we learn to go forward “by a different route,” walking together in the light of Christ.
-Fr. Tom
