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Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons: Feast of the Epiphany


The Magi - James Tissot - Wiki image

The Magi - James Tissot - Wiki image

Have you ever experienced a sudden flash of insight when something that has puzzled you suddenly makes sense, that ‘eureka’ moment as all the bits fall into place? That’s what epiphany means, to make everything clear! So what is being shown in this feast, the last of the twelve days of Christmas?

We know Matthew’s Gospel story so well, the Magi travelling from lands afar in response to a quest for meaning and truth. It’s a story about discovery of a ‘star of wonder’ shining bright leading those wise characters to seek the one true king, bearing their gifts in homage to him. But as so often happens in the Gospels it is a story of contrasts, light and dark, joy and foreboding, happiness and jealousy, life and death!

The prophet Isaiah sets the scene as one in which the light and glory of God will shine over the world and be seen by everyone, an age to come in which all things will be united in love and peace, only as Matthew hints, not everyone will immediately see God’s glory or even understand what is happening.

It’s important that we use this feast to reflect on what Matthew is trying to show us. It’s not simply a children’s story, nor is it make believe, the tradition is too ancient and strong for that. The journey of the Magi tells us a lot about the Christ Child and how we too need to accept him into our lives and go on our own faith journey unafraid of what we might discover.

How? Look at the tensions in the story, the long search for meaning by people of science (astrology was a perfectly respectable occupation in ancient times), the Magi’s offering of three gifts which are not only ancient symbols of kingship and divinity but represent their test to see if the child is not only a king, but the true God and the healer of the nations. He passes that test by accepting all of them.

Look also at that terrible story of Herod, his deceit and jealousy, which will cause death for the innocent also means a total change of direction for the wise men.

Pope Gregory the Great, writing about this Gospel, reminds us that like the Magi, once we know Christ, we too cannot return back to the same old ways at all.

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