Dear Friends in Christ,
Happy New Year! Hopefully, your twelve days of Christmas have been filled with light and joy. Today, we celebrate one of the Church’s great feasts, the Solemnity of the Epiphany.
As you might know, I grew up in Epiphany of Our Lord Parish in South Philadelphia. I was baptized, confirmed, and received my first holy communion in that church. I worked as a sacristan there in high school and celebrated a Mass of Thanksgiving the day after I was ordained a priest. Behind the altar is a fresco of the arrival of the Magi to the stable at Bethlehem, with the star shining brightly in the sky. I grew up looking at that image. As a work of art, it’s probably not all that great. I don’t think crowds will line up to look at it in 100 years. But it formed an important part of my youth—that image of the Holy Family huddled under the stable, with the three tall, kingly-looking men carrying their gifts.
In our own day, there are many like the Magi: many who are seeking after something, some real meaning and purpose in life. Let’s be honest with ourselves: career success, money, houses, fame—all of these things leave us wanting more. All of that comes and goes in the blink of an eye. We have to be those who are seeking after those permanent things that don’t depreciate or rust. In the God-made-man, we find the goal of our wanderings and the answer to our questions. And like the Magi, once we have discovered this extraordinary work of God, we have to put everything aside to go to him, to bring him the best of what we have, and, as they did, to “return to their home by another way.”
That “other way” is the way of humility, smallness, and simplicity. God shatters our categories about what matters in life by sending his Son to be born in an animal stall in the family of an obscure laborer. If we want to be his disciples—and I know you do! Then, we have to manifest his love to others, so often in small and unnoticed ways. May those who are wise still seek Him in these days, that the newborn King of the Jews may reign in our hearts and in our world.
Merry Christmas!
—Father Eric Banecker
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