Epiphany

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Christ Child, discovery, Emmanuel, epiphany, essential nature, gifts, intuitive, light, Magi, manifestation, Matthew, message, perception, presence of God, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

“What gift will you bring to the Christ Child?” we were always asked in Catholic school when we were young. Our answers were all about ways in which we could be “good boys and girls” – behaviors that would make the Christ Child smile and our parents happy. There was certainly a devotional value to that practice, a teachable moment that gave us a sweet and kind image of God “in flesh” to whom we could easily relate. Of course there was still the hope that we might get the gifts for which we were so longing, usually in those days rather simple and less expensive gifts than what is “expected” in today’s society.

The story of the gifts brought by the Magi from far away lands perhaps factored in to the consideration of what our gifts to the Baby Jesus would be. We needed to give him our best. Reading the gospel this morning for this feast of Epiphany (MT 2:1-12) brought back those memories as well as songs about the little drummer boy (with his drumming) and the shepherd boy (with his lamb). Importantly, in the end, the child who had nothing to give determined to give Jesus his heart.

The dictionary meaning of the word epiphany is a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something, an intuitive grasp of reality through something (as an event) usually simple and striking, or an illuminating discovery, realization or disclosure: a revealing scene or moment. We think of the Magi’s search for and meeting with God-come-to-earth as indicative of the world-wide importance of the Incarnation. Their recognition of Emmanuel (God-with-us) was intuitive and clear.

It is for us in our day, I believe, to recognize the presence of God – however we perceive this presence – and to spread the message of that presence in deeper and broader ways. May each of us be open to on-going epiphanies in our lives so that we move toward the light that we are seeking and share that light with the world.

Epiphany

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chain of light, Christ, Ephesians, epiphany, link, manifestation, Matthew, Paul, responsibility, stewardship of God's grace, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton

Today Christians the world over celebrate the feast of the Epiphany, a Greek word that means manifestation and symbolizes the day when Christ was manifested to the “world” as represented by the visit of the Magi (MT 2:1-12). In a larger sense, the word has come to mean the sudden realization or comprehension of the (larger) essence or meaning of something (Urban Dictionary).

In the second reading for today’s feast Paul writes to the Ephesians: You have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for your benefit, namely that the mystery was made known to me by revelation. (EPH 3: 2-3A). The phrase “stewardship of God’s grace” amplified for me the meaning of epiphany by adding to it an element of responsibility. Paul had a private revelation of Christ, certainly a powerful and sudden realization of the meaning of Christ to the world. What it caused in him, however, was the necessity of spreading the news of what he had come to know, spreading it as far and wide as he was able with the passion engendered by that one moment of recognition.

Just before I began to write this reflection, I read a passage from Thomas Merton’s Book of Hours that came originally from his book Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander. Merton is offering morning praise to the God of creation and gives another perspective, I think, on the vastness of an “epiphany” of God’s presence.

Today, Father. the blue sky lauds you. The delicate green and orange flowers of the tulip poplar tree praise you. The distant blue hills praise you, together with the sweet-smelling air that is full of brilliant light. The bickering flycatchers praise you with the lowing cattle and the quails that whistle over there. I, too, Father, praise you, with all these, my brothers, and they give voice to my own heart and my own silence. We are all one silence, and a diversity of voices. You have made us together, you have made us one and many, you have placed me here in the midst as witness, as awareness, and as joy. Here I am. In me the world is present, and you are present. I am a link in the chain of light and of presence.

If we are also links in the chain of God’s presence to the world, how do we, how will we in this new year perhaps, manifest that presence in our own unique way that will help to spread that recognition to someone somewhere who is ready and in need of the light?