As most of you know, the season of Christmas lingers through to the celebration of the Epiphany. I love that word because an epiphany is a “new insight” or an “awakening.” What was the epiphany of the Three Kings from the East? Upon seeing the Christ Child, they saw the Child’s divinity shining through His humanity and so with great humility and generosity these men paid homage to the Child.
What is the message for us?
I hope that, like the Magi, we are:
- Attentive to following God’s Light (as they followed the star)
- Open to see God’s Light (this was the work of Advent for us, preparing our hearts so that we could more clearly “see” and “receive” God’s Truth once it was before us)
- Respond to God’s Light wherever we find it shining forth (just as the Three Kings responded even though they found God’s Light shining in an unlikely place).
May we experience our own epiphany as we look at each other, as we look at our children and as we look at anyone in our world, especially those most in need.
The epiphany to which I hope we awaken is, that shining through OUR humanity and shining through the humanity of those before us, IS a participation in God’s Divinity. The Body of Christ was not just in that manger in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago (though it was so in a very unique and special way), but the Body of Christ is within us, between us and among us NOW.
If we could actually engage with ourselves and with each person before us with this insight (this ephiphany), we, too, like the Magi, would respond to life and to all people with humility and generosity.
Just as importantly—and the reason I am so passionate about Sacred Heart education—our education is meant, more than anything else, to awaken our students to this truth. One could say that our education is meant to be an ongoing epiphany!
May it be so!
