May Jesus Christ be praised and may his holy Mother pray for
us.
Today we celebrate the feast of the Epiphany of the
Lord. With the celebration of this feast
we bring to conclusion the twelve days of Christmas. During the season of Advent, we joined with
John the Baptist as we prepared to welcome the Lord Jesus. On the feast of Christmas, the shepherds and
the angels guided us to manger at Bethlehem.
Today we join with the magi from the east as we encounter the Child
Jesus and as we present our gifts to him.
Led by a star in the heavens, the magi provide for us a
pattern for living our faith and joining in praise of the Son of God. The magi, the wise men, seek the Lord, they
worship him, the give their gifts to him, and they go forth from him. With the magi, we seek, we worship, we give,
and we go.
Guided by a star, these magi set out from their native
land. The magi were not Jews. They were not members of the chosen people of
God. Yet, they are the first to show us
that the Lord Jesus had come into the world for all people and all
nations. The mission and message of the
Lord Jesus would be for the whole world.
The magi followed the star in response to the call of God to a deeper
and more intimate relationship with him.
We come, dear brothers and sisters, to the celebration of the Eucharist
responding to the same invitation. We,
like the magi, seek the Lord and come to be fed by the Word of God and the
Bread of Life.
When the magi found the child Jesus in the arms of his mother
Mary, they fell down in worship. They
recognized their own unworthiness and they recognized the majesty and the
goodness of God. The magi had come to
worship because they now saw the one whom they had been seeking. As we enter the Church, we bend our knee and
bow our heads to Christ truly present in the Blessed Sacrament. We reverence the image of Mary, our Lord’s
dear Mother, for she always desires to draw us closer to her son. At the beginning of each Mass, we call to
mind our sins. We recognize our own
unworthiness and we beg the mercy of God Most High. Like the wise men, we come to worship the one
who loves us and the one who has come to save us.
Having sought him and worshiped him, the magi presented their
gifts to the newborn king. The three
gifts that were presented show at the beginning of our Lord’s life on earth
both who he is and what he had come to do.
The magi present to this child the gold that is appropriate for one who
is a king. They present to him
frankincense because he is the High Priest of the heavenly temple. And they bring him a gift of myrrh, because
this child was born to die for the sins of the world. We will not hear again of myrrh in the
gospel, until the holy women bring myrrh and other spices to the tomb very
early in the morning on the first day of the week. Truly brothers and sisters, the cross of
Calvary casts its shadow even unto Bethlehem.
In these three gifts we see that the Christ child is indeed King, and
God, and Sacrifice.
In every celebration of the Eucharist, we are invited to
present our gifts to the Lord Jesus. In
our baptism, we were each anointed priest prophet and king. In every celebration of the Mass, we bring
the gold of our joys and thanksgivings, the frankincense of our prayers, and
the myrrh of our sorrows and sufferings.
As the bread and the wine are brought to the altar, each of us, like the
magi, bring our gifts and offerings.
And when we have presented our gifts, and after the Lord
Jesus has given us the true gift of himself in Holy Communion, our lives cannot
be the same. The magi, having
encountered the child Jesus, departed for their country by another way. They had seen God face to face and life could
never be the same again. They could not
walk the same road, at least not in the same way, for they had now seen the one
who is at the end of the journey. We beg
our Lord for the grace to be transformed by his body and blood, and to truly
become what we receive in Holy Communion.
And then, perhaps dear brothers and sisters, having sought
the Lord, worshiped him, presented our gifts to him, and been sent forth from
him, our lives will be for someone else, a star that lights the way to Jesus. Amen.
Preached at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic
Church, Monroe, NC
