The Epiphany of the Lord (Year C)
 
Isa 60.1-6;  Ps 71;  Eph 3.2-3, 5-6;  Mt 2.1-12

God in Christ revealed to all nations and generations

1. When God became man, he did so in a particular place at a particular time.  The Incarnation took place in Bethlehem and the Word made flesh was laid in a manger.  Some of the Christmas cards in our homes reflect this intimacy with their scenes of the child, closely surrounded by Our Lady, Saint Joseph, the shepherds and the animals.  At times this moment, because it is so particular, can seem distant to us;  though the crib is a pleasant focus for devotion, we sometimes feel like mere onlookers.

2. However, today’s Solemnity of Epiphany turns this Christmas intimacy inside out.  Above the stable at Bethlehem shone a bright star in the heavens.  The local shepherds, marvelled at the star, but its brightness also attracted the attention of three stargazers in a far-off land.  These Wise Men were not Jews awaiting the Messiah, but Gentiles, followers of a pagan religion.  While the intimate scene is set in the stable, these foreigners have already set off for the Holy Land, inspired to make a long and difficult journey across the desert, because they believe something of cosmic importance is happening which they must see for themselves, and because “the sight of the star filled them with delight”.

3. The bright star in the sky raises our minds to heaven and reminds us that God’s omnipotent Word leaped down from heaven, and the power through Whom the world was created took human nature and is born of the Virgin.  The localised and intimate presence of the infant Jesus in Bethlehem is none other than God himself.  God reveals himself by taking human nature to himself in Christ.  This is the most momentous and far-reaching event in human history to date, which will change the course of world history and open up the way to salvation.  The Wise Men from the East, the first pagans to grasp this revelation.

4. Christianity is a religion rooted in revelation, in God’s self-disclosure.  Saint Paul reminded the Ephesians in today’s second reading “that it was by a revelation that I was given knowledge of the mystery.”  He reflects on the fact that “this mystery that has now been revealed through the Holy Spirit to his holy apostles and prophets was unknown to any men in past generations.”  And he explains that pagans now share the same inheritance as the Jews.  They have become inheritors of the promises made to Abraham.  Saint Paul grasps that when God become man in Christ Jesus, Christianity became a universal religion, open to every nation and relevant to every culture.

5. The Wise Men, journeying from the east, are the first to respond to this revelation.  The first reading from the prophet Isaiah draws our attention to the Holy City’s new and wider appeal.  Even centuries before Christ’s birth, he foretells that “the nations will come to your light, and kings to your dawning brightness.”  He expects camels and dromedaries to make their way to Jerusalem and gifts of gold and incense to be brought.   The psalm response set for today, says, “all nations shall fall prostrate before you, O Lord.”

6. Looking back, as we do today, over two Christian millennia, we can see the truth of these prophecies most wonderfully shown in the life of the Church.  The glory of the Catholic Church is that it extends throughout the world.  Wherever we might travel, to whichever continent or far-off island, we shall never be far from a Catholic Church where the Holy Sacrifice is being offered regularly.

7. In the early centuries the faith spread from Jerusalem throughout the Roman Empire, reaching north Africa, Asia Minor and Europe.  When the great explorers opened up the Americas and other lands, Christian missionaries went to spread the word.  International missionaries like Saint Francis Xavier in the Far East showed how the message of salvation in Christ transcends the boundaries of language and culture, while indigenous evangelists like Juan Diego in Guadalupe in Mexico demonstrated how firmly rooted the Church could quickly become in local communities.  The prophecy of Isaiah has been wonderfully fulfilled.  The great missionary Saint Paul would surely rejoice at how his heroic work has multiplied and continued through the labours of men and women in every century.

8. The gospel today describes how “going into the house they saw the child with His mother Mary, and falling to their knees they did him homage.”   Millions will have walked through the doors of Saint Peter’s, Rome in the past twelve months, from every tribe and tongue and people and nation; during the Christmas season they will have prayed before the crib.  There can be no more powerful image of how the intimate birth of the Son of God in a stable in Bethlehem on a particular night two millennia ago is of universal significance.

9. Christ is for everyone in every generation.  Every single person at Mass today is  called to join the missionary effort of the Church.  But few of us will have to learn new languages or travel to distant continents.  For sadly, our own society seems quickly to be losing its hold on the Christian Faith.  Even though the Catholic Church is not declining as fast as many other denominations, we cannot pretend that it is growing.  England is rapidly becoming a pagan nation.  We cannot leave it up to others to be the missionaries.  It is the vocation of every Catholic in this land to be a missionary, a sign of revelation to people around them, a witness to Christ in season and out of season.

10. May today’s feast lift our hearts to God and widen our horizons to see afresh how wonderful the Catholic Church is in its universal presence in the world.  And may it inspire us to be part of God’s ongoing revelation, signs of Christ’s presence, drawing others to the Lord in our own locality, so that they may fall to their knees and do Him homage