Abbot Michael Brunner offered this homily at the Evening Mass for the School on the feast of the Epiphany (Sunday, January 7).

Adoration of the Magi (monastery collection)

The gospel today is the story of today’s liturgical celebration, a story of an epiphany to the wise men, the magi, the three kings. Epiphany means manifestation, revealing, appearance and recognition, in this case the appearance and recognition of the reality of Jesus’ real nature, i.e., he is God. It is also his recognition by the whole world, the world outside Israel and the Jewish people, by the Gentiles… us. So, this day is often called Little Christmas, and in some places is celebrated more than December 25th.

Forty-nine years ago, on my first trip to Puerto Rico, I saw a wonderful sight. My hotel was in between Old San Juan and the Condado, and my room looked out on a sprawling park along the bay. Looking out the window on the morning of January 6, the traditional date of the Feast of Epiphany, I saw the park packed with families and children come to celebrate the visit of the Magi, the Three Kings to the child Jesus. When I first visited my cousin in southern Germany, I noticed the inscription over her front door, 2001 followed by “C+M+B.” It’s the custom there each year to use blessed chalk to inscribe the year and the initials of the three kings over your door on the feast of the Epiphany to bless your home for health and good fortune. Prior to the visit of the Magi, the child Jesus had only been seen by some poor shepherds but now he is seen by wise, scholarly, perhaps royal persons. This child who had only been seen by his fellow Jews is now seen by persons of a foreign religion, persons who seek, find and see this child, the son of God, because all good people do seek God in some way.

Who were these three wise men – magi – kings who attended the first Epiphany? They are often depicted as representing the three races of humanity. The Bible simply says they came from the East, because really wise people were believed to live there. One tradition has their names as Balthasar king of Arabia, Caspar king of India, and Melchior king of Persia. The pictures of Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar represent all of us: young, middle aged and old, Caucasian, African and Asian, rich, poor and middle class. Jesus Christ is Lord of us all. The more accurate tradition says they were not actually kings but “Magi.” The Magi were a priest caste of the Persian Empire, roughly the same area that Abraham came from. They were not Jewish, but followers of the great prophet Zarathustra, the first who taught there was one God alone. And their religion said that a great Savior would come into the world and establish the reign of the One Wise Lord by destroying all evil. Their culture was very skilled in astronomy and believed that the positions of stars and planets manifested the God's will and indicated events in their lives.

Adoration of the Magi
(monastery collection, detail)

Apparently in about 5 B.C. there was a most unusual conjunction of planets that indicated to them the good news that this Savior was about to be born in that strange land to the West, near Jerusalem, the Holy City of the Jewish people, many of whom were still living in Babylon, now part of the Persian empire. And so, they undertook a long journey, following basically the very same route that Abraham took 1800 years before when he left Ur in Babylonia for Palestine. They couldn't take the short route over the vast expanse of desert. They had to go up the Tigris and Euphrates river valley to Anatolia (today’s Turkey) and then down through Syria and the Jordan Valley to Jerusalem, and then to Bethlehem to pay homage to this Saviour of their world. They, strangers-gentiles-unbelievers, recognized who Jesus was. They recognized in a helpless baby what most of his own people could not recognize in an adult miracle-working Jesus who demonstrated to them his divine power over nature, demons and disease. What a surprise that is. The hard-hearted people of Jesus’ time saw only what they wanted to see, and they got what they wanted in short-term healings, disregarding the vision and messages of the prophets. Fortunately, the apostles and other disciples were not hard-hearted; they came along over time. And so can we. They learned that following Jesus, that belonging to the Chosen people, the true faith did not mean that God was going to live up to their expectations and be and do what they thought they had been taught. God was full of surprises and did the unexpected. He still is. Are you ready for it? Will you recognize Him?

Adoration of the Magi (monastery collection, detail)

Every day has an Epiphany – a concrete manifestation of God, somewhere, somehow, in someone. Every day has an Epiphany. But that’s too easy, you say. Well, let’s face it. God is not going to come down with Hollywood theme music and part the Red Sea in front of you and then drown all your enemies as they pursue you. The lesson of Christmas – God becoming man in Jesus Christ, as a helpless baby in Bethlehem – is that God works through and appears in the mundane everyday situations in our lives. Every day has an Epiphany: will you recognize it? Are you like Jesus’ contemporaries, who could only see the conventional, the usual, what they wanted, what they were conditioned to see? Or are you like the Magi who could see the signs of God’s will and presence around them? As the Psalm today said: Lord, every nation on earth will adore you. For he shall rescue the poor when he cries out, and the afflicted when he has no one to help him. He shall have pity for the lowly and the poor; the lives of the poor he shall save. The Gospels tell us: Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened. Let us be like the three kings, the three magi, and seek. Let us have faith in God’s promises. Let us have the courage to keep that faith throughout the journey of our lives. Let us be alert to the work of the Spirit who warns us of the schemes of the hostile Herods around us. Those magi must have been confused when the angel told them to take a different route back home. But they listened to the warning. Let us see what God reveals to us and disregard what would distract us. God has promised us that if we seek we will find Him waiting to welcome us and save us. But above all, let us have faith.