Two days ago, on 6 January, the Church celebrated the Epiphany of our Lord. The Greek root of the word ‘epiphany’ means ‘manifestation’ and the feast of the Epiphany celebrates the revelation of Jesus, the Son of God Incarnate, to the gentiles, as represented by the Magi.
Thus, God’s love is not merely addressed to the Jews – as shown earlier on in the nativity narratives, thanks to the active involvement of the shepherds of Bethlehem – but is universal.
The Magi – the ‘three wise men from the East’ – represent humanity’s craving and insatiable search for objective truth. Upon their arrival in Jerusalem, the Holy City, they asked the pertinent question that we still ask today: “Where is he who has been born King of the Jews?” (Matt 2, 2). We, too, continually ask the same question: “Where is God when an earthquake strikes? When other natural disasters befall us? When poverty and human misery seem to have no end? When millions of people, especially the young, are unemployed? When a loving family member dies unexpectedly?
Reflecting on the coming New Year at the Te Deum and First Vespers of the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, celebrated on New Year’s Eve, Pope Benedict XVI said: “We are continually astonished by how ultimately short and ephemeral life is. So we often find ourselves asking: what meaning can we give to our days? What meaning, in particular, can we give to the days of toil and grief?
“This is a question that permeates history, indeed it runs through the heart of every generation and every individual. But there is an answer: it is written on the face of a Child who was born in Bethlehem two thousand years ago, and is today the Living One, risen for ever from the dead. From within the fabric of humanity, rent asunder by so much injustice, wickedness and violence, there bursts forth in an unforeseen way the joyful and liberating novelty of Christ our Saviour, who leads us to contemplate the goodness and tenderness of God through the mystery of his Incarnation and Birth. The everlasting God has entered our history and he remains present in a unique way in the person of Jesus, his incarnate Son, our Saviour, who came down to earth to renew humanity radically and to free us from sin and death, to raise us to the dignity of God’s children. Christmas not only recalls the historical fulfilment of this truth that concerns us directly, but in a mysterious and real way, gives it to us afresh.”
Epiphany is the divine reply to our existential riddles and complexities. It concretely answers humanity’s quest for a life fully pervaded by the presence of the divine. In the characters of the three wise men, God is clearly showing that what stops his grace from transforming the human person is not academic expertise. Indeed, the Magi were learned people but with a difference: they knew they were limited. They humbly acknowledged that in order to arrive at the place where the King of Kings was, they desperately needed help from above – the star. In last year’s Epiphany homily, the Holy Father explained that “they were probably wise men who scrutinised the sky but not to try to ‘read’ the future in the stars, eventually to extract some gain; rather, they were men ‘in search’ of something more, in search of the true light, which would be able to indicate the way to follow in life. They were persons who were certain that in creation there is what we could define as the ‘signature’ of God, a signature that man can and must try to discover and decipher”.
Can the world of science and technology ever admit that its successes, although significant, are the direct result of the innate ability in the human person to be able to communicate with and in return receive God’s guidance? Does the global manifestation of the Son of God in the guise of a Babe show that by meeting God, humanity recovers its original status, that of serving rather than dominating creation?
Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap
San Gwann