On the Feast of the Epiphany

 

Our celebration of Christmas, and especially the birth and gift of Jesus Christ to believing hearts, continues with the feasts of the Holy Family; Mary, Mother of God (1 January);and with the feast of Epiphany. In the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, we are given these two weeks of Christmas celebrations in order to meditate on the mystery of the Incarnation of God in Christ; and the Church would have us not only meditate or think about this divine event, but respond with faith, love, thanksgiving, adoration. The Gift given must be lovingly received.

The opening 18 verses of the Gospel of St. John remain, to the best of my knowledge, the most profound brief meditation on the mystery of God taking our human nature to Himself:“”In the Beginning was the Word,” who is both God and with God. “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we have beheld His glory… The true light, who enlightens every soul, was coming into the world….The only begotten God, who is ever in the bosom of the Father,” has “interpreted God to us.” We who trust in God-in-Christ, who respond with “faith working through love,” gradually become like the One we behold in faith.

I often wonder how men and women—and children—can live with minds closed to the reality of God. “If the light is dark within you, how great is the darkness,” said Jesus. Some of us may have experienced a period in our lives when we lived without genuine faith that opens us to divine Presence. If you had such an episode, you know how utterly dark, miserable, painful it is. Without awareness of presence of the living God in a human soul, one is driven to find substitutes: over-work, over-drink, over-play, constant “relaxing” to escape the sheer boredom and mental emptiness of the human life apart from the Light of God dwelling within. All the burdens of existence, of human life in this world, bear down very heavily on the man, woman, or child who has lost contact with the living God. It is truly tragic and horrible to see the unraveling of a life in this condition.

On the Feast of Epiphany, we thank God for the ever-renewing, ever-invigorating gift of faith, of “Christ in us, the hope of glory.” To the human being living Christ, living “I-in-you and you-in-me,” all of our burdens are bearable, and darkness gradually yields to the penetrating light. 

Beginning of a Christmas Message

Dear Friend,

I have fairly often told folks in homilies that every Eucharistic celebration is essentially one, because we are sharing in the same divine mystery, from different perspectives: different gospel stories, different feasts, different saints, but each pointing to, and incarnating, the Oneness of God in a unique way.

I turned to God in prayer this morning, wanting both to sit in silence, and yet needing a message for Christmas. I cannot say well what happened. It just happened. It is all one. The oneness, wisdom, love, power, and sheer humility of God are one. Creation-Incarnation-Resurrection, is all one.
 
I cannot put it into words. But just think of the sheer humility of our God visible in Jesus, born of the Virgin. It is all one, so simple, and beautiful beyond words.

The End of Advent and Christmas

The Church’s liturgical observation of Advent ends with the celebration of Christmas Masses, the feast of the birth of Christ.  

What we may overlook is that Advent has no end in time, and in its essence, does not end with Christmas. The act of dropping our illusions, of letting God be God, of waiting in hope for God to act as God wills, ought not to be let go, and surely not for the cultural celebration of Christmas. Openness to God as God must ever be foundational in our spiritual life, although few of us, perhaps, wish to risk all for this basic attitude. A Christian Christmas, a genuine Christmas, continues Advent; cultural Christmas is a substitute, another chance to hide from divine reality, before which we either dread or hope. Cultural Christmas adverts our gaze from God’s Advent.

As we have explained, all of our Catholic celebrations are one in that God is one, but each uniquely highlights some aspect of God-in-Christ, the mystery of God in humankind. Advent is the season that, if understood properly, is true to God in this sense: to keep Advent, one must keep surrendering all that is not God, and long for the truth of God beyond our beliefs and expectations. The limitations of even the prophets and apostles show up when their imaginations outstrip naked faith. Isaiah, John the Baptist, the Apostle Paul are best in pointing towards the God who is, and who ever comes; but when they imagine what form God presence among us will take, or what that Coming looks like, they fall short. In her sheer humility, Mary achieved what no prophet did: “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” not as anyone expected or predicted, but as God willed. Divine wisdom ever surpasses our human understanding. Genuine Christmas provokes wonder, and ever humbles us.  

For a human being living open to the truth of God, all of our life is in tension between divine Presence experienced through faith and love, and the divine ever beyond human experience. Living in the tension of truth keeps us wondering at the action of the God who “is, who was, who is to come.” Even as we gratefully receive the gift given—Christ—we acknowledge our limited receptivity, our misunderstandings, sometimes our neglect or abuse of the Gift. But “even if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts.”