THE JOURNEY

 

I first posted this reflection 11 years ago, but it still seems fresh.

In his second chapter the evangelist Matthew treats us to a charming story full of oriental color

and rich with mystery: the story of the wise men that follow a star in search of the infant Christ. We commemorate this story this Sunday on the feast of the Epiphany.

In celebrating this feast the church celebrates the belief that God has expressed and revealed himself totally in Christ. Christ is the “epiphany” (“showing forth”) of God. From now on we have a path to follow in our search for God: Christ.

The search for God is an adventure that starts very early in life, with our first steps as babies. St. Augustine says that we’re created for God and our hearts are restless until they rest in God. And so we find ourselves drawn to the journey, like the magi, following a star.

It’s a long voyage in which grace and human effort are mysteriously united. The star, we might say, is grace, God showing the path and offering us hope. The walking, the doubts and the questions, they’re all part of the human effort.

Seeking God can be a difficult journey at times, and it lasts our whole life. Sometimes the star gets hidden behind a layer of clouds, at other times we feel too tired to continue. Although the journey of the wise men is filled with a sense of gospel joy, it must have been a difficult one just the same. T.S. Eliot captures this difficult aspect in the first half of his poem, “The Journey of the Magi.”

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The was deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires gong out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty, and charging high prices.:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

May the Lord give us the strength to follow the star, and to help one another on the journey especially during difficult times, when the star is behind the clouds. Le me end with the second half of Eliot’s poem:

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we lead all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

ON SHINING FORTH

 

The Solemnity of the Epiphany (January 6, or in many dioceses Sunday, January 8) celebrates God's showing forth His Son, the newborn Emmanuel, to the nations, represented by the magi "from the East." In many countries this feast has become a major festival, a time for gift-giving, joyous processions, and solemn liturgical ceremonies. 

Shortly after this celebration, within a week at most (in 2023 the period is only one day) the Christmas season comes to an end with the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, and the church calendar returns us to "ordinary time" until Ash Wednesday at the beginning of Lent. 

In this post I want to take a closer look at the meaning of the mystery of the Epiphany. What can the Epiphany mean for me? Of course preachers have been mining the rich symbolism in Matthew's story for 2,000 years and have found countless answers to this question. (You can connect with my former posts on the Epiphany by using the column to the left of this post.) Right now I'd like to share a reflection that came to me yesterday.

If the coming of the wise men symbolizes all the nations of the earth coming to recognize and adore the Divine infant, we'd have to admit that it has remained just a pretty symbol. Even in so-called Christian countries we see little evidence of people's paying homage to Jesus Christ and His mission to save the world from sin and death. So, after we read the charming story of the three wise men in the Gospel of Matthew, we have to ask ourselves, "Was the Epiphany a flop? Just a charming fantasy that some Christians celebrate each year with processions and parties?"

To help us answer this question I offer the following poem by T.S. Eliot. We monks reflect on it at Vespers of the Epiphany every year. I invite you to read it slowly and let the images draw you in.

"The Journey of the Magi" -- T.S. Eliot

A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year

For a journey, and such a long journey:

The was deep and the weather sharp,

The very dead of winter.

And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,

Lying down in the melting snow.

There were times we regretted

The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,

And the silken girls bringing sherbet.

Then the camel men cursing and grumbling

And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,

And the night-fires gong out, and the lack of shelters,

And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly

And the villages dirty, and charging high prices.:

A hard time we had of it.

At the end we preferred to travel all night,

Sleeping in snatches,

With the voices singing in our ears, saying

That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,

Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;

With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,

And three trees on the low sky,

And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.

Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,

Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,

And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.

But there was no information, and so we continued

And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon

Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,

And I would do it again, but set down

This set down

This: were we led all that way for

Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,

We had evide

But had thought they were different; this Birth was

Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,

But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,

With an alien people clutching their gods.

I should be glad of another death.        

I am struck every year by what happens, or more to the point, what does not happen in the final lines of

the poem: "We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation," Whatever the event of the Epiphany meant for these magi, it was interior, and personal. The pagan kingdoms were left unchanged by the coming of the infant King of the Jews.

What change might I expect to experience from my own visit to the Infant King this year? That's the question I've been reflecting on. The Greek word that underlies "epiphany" means "showing forth" or even "shining forth." So, it seems to me, that the Epiphany is a challenge to me to "show forth" and "shine forth" the saving presence of Christ to the people I live with and work with, and to the hundreds of kids I encounter every day.

What does this "shining forth" look like? Jesus himself taught us by his example how to show God's saving presence in the world: through humble self-giving service, meeknmess, gentleness, openness to outcasts and sinners, kindness to the poor and the weak, and on and on.

Let us pray, as the Christmas season draws to a close, for the grace to recognize and respond to the countless opportunities we are given every day, to be a shining forth of Jesus' loving presence in the world.

A LIGHT TO THE NATIONS

 

.
A NEW PERSPECTIVE

Appropriately enough, it was on Christmas morning that the James Webb Telescope was launched, to take up its position one million miles from the earth, with the mission of gathering the infrared light emanating from the earliest galaxies close to the time of the big bang. You may remember my post of Dec. 11, 2021, concerning the title "Christ" as referring to the Word through whom the whole universe came into being. Well, I recently came across a post that shows I've been thinking for some years about the "Cosmic Christ," including on the feast of the Epiphany a few years ago. So I would like to offer that same post again, from January 6, 2018. Here it is. 

 

I mentioned in a previous post that I’m reading a book entitled The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation, by Richard Rohr. I’m taking my time, trying to digest the ideas and their implications. Rohr presents a whole different way of looking at the mystery of the Trinity, a different perspective on the Father, the Sound and the Holy Spirit at work in the world and in me. Every couple of pages I highlight a sentence and say to myself, “Ah! That makes so much sense!” I highly recommend the book. There’s a website you might like to visit.

EPIPHANY GIFT

This morning I began reflecting on the readings for tomorrow’s solemnity of the Epiphany using some of the ideas in Rohr’s book. One of the points he makes is that when we start from the point of Trinitarian theology, we find a great foundation for interfaith dialogue and friendship. Intelligent dialogue with other religions is much easier when we are not using Jesus as our only “trump card.”

Up to now, we’ve generally used Jesus in a competitive way instead of a cosmic way, and thus others hear our belief at a tribal “Come join us -- or else” level. A far cry from the Universal Christ of Colossians “who reconciles all things to himself in heaven and on earth.” In short, we made Jesus Christ into an exclusive savior instead of the totally inclusive savior he was meant to be. ….

Once Christians learn to honor the Cosmic Christ as a larger ontological identity than the historical Jesus, then Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and spiritual-but-not-religious people have no reason to be afraid of us. They can easily recognize that our take on such an Incarnation includes and honors all of creation, and themselves, too.

This passage from page 210 of the book assumes the premises set out in the first 200 pages, of course, but maybe you can see that it was a perfect prelude to reading the story of the visit of “magi from the east” who came to worship the infant king of the Jews. From one point of view you’d have to say that they are intruders, pagans, who are out of place in the middle of this story of how Christ came to earth to save us Christians. Fortunately they return home right away, so we don’t have to think about how they fit into the plot. But from the perspective of Trinitarian theology, which includes the notion of a “cosmic Christ,” it makes perfect sense that people from all around the world would be attracted to the incarnate One “who reconciles all things to himself in heaven and on earth.”    

I enjoyed reflecting on the Epiphany story from this different perspective. The wise men from the east were welcome guests who had as much right as any human being to seek, find, and honor their newborn Savior.   

The magi seemed to bring with them this morning not just the three famous gifts, but also a challenge for all us Christians to see Christ not as the exclusive Savior sent for us Christians, but as God’s gift to the entire universe and all those who dwell in it.

THE RIGHT KIND OF KING?

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In the gospel this morning (Saturday) John gives us the scene in which Jesus is calling his first disciples:

Jesus decided to go to Galilee, and he found Philip. And Jesus said to him, "Follow me." 

Philip found Nathanael and told him, "We have found the one about whom Moses wrote in the law, and also the prophets, Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth." But Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see." 

Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him,"Here is a true child of Israel. There is no duplicity in him." Nathanael said to him, "How do you know me?" Jesus answered and said to him, "Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree." Nathanael answered him, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel." Jesus answered and said to him, "Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?  You will see greater things than this." And he said to him, "Amen, amen, I say to you, you will see the sky opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man" (Jn 1:43-51).

Notice that Jesus challenges Nathanael, who has just called him" the Son of God, the King of Israel." At that time in First Century Palestine, these were messianic titles, and most Jews were impatiently awaiting the arrival to the Messiah, a military leader who would forcefully expel the occupying forces of the Romans. Over the years, the figure of the coming Messiah had bee combined with the notion of a new King David.

No wonder Jesus challenges Nathanael's titles, and invites him instead to look beyond the idea of an earthly king (a military, political leader) by saying "you will see the sky opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man." At the end of John's gospel Jesus assures a worried Pilate, "my kingdom is not of this world" (Jn 18:36). So, John presents us with a very different sort of King.

The feast of the Epiphany (this Sunday January 6) celebrates the arrival of three magoi (astrologers who dealt with the occult) from the East. They are looking for "the newborn king of the Jews." They, too, will quickly learn that this king is not what they were expecting. They find a helpless baby in a simple house (Matthew calls it a house, while Luke has a stable). Did they feel strange offering their rich treasures to this tiny king? Matthew certainly offers us a very different sort of King.

We're all familiar with Luke's portrayal of Jesus' birth in a stable, with a feeding trough for a cradle, a clear sign that this newborn babe is hardly what the world would call a king. Luke offers us a very different sort of king.

Jesus, the "King of Israel" who called Nathaniel, the "newborn king of the Jews" sought by the Magi in Matthew's gospel and adored by shepherds in a stable in Luke's account, our King challenges us, as his followers, to establish his kingdom on earth. Not a kingdom of power, wealth and prestige, but a kingdom of humility, service, openness to others, and boundless love that imitates the Father's love for all of humankind.

So, when we sing our Christmas songs about little King Jesus, let us hear those words as a challenge to imitate our Lord in his humble service and boundless love.

THE GIFT OF THE MAGI

.
A NEW PERSPECTIVE

I mentioned in a previous post that I’m reading a book entitled The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation, by Richard Rohr. I’m taking my time, trying to digest the ideas and their implications. Rohr presents a whole different way of looking at the mystery of the Trinity, a different perspective on the Father, the Sound and the Holy Spirit at work in the world and in me. Every couple of pages I highlight a sentence and say to myself, “Ah! That makes so much sense!” I highly recommend the book. There’s a website you might like to visit.

EPIPHANY GIFT

This morning I began reflecting on the readings for tomorrow’s solemnity of the Epiphany using some of the ideas in Rohr’s book. One of the points he makes is that when we start from the point of Trinitarian theology, we find a great foundation for interfaith dialogue and friendship. Intelligent dialogue with other religions is much easier when we are not using Jesus as our only “trump card.”

Up to now, we’ve generally used Jesus in a competitive way instead of a cosmic way, and thus others hear our belief at a tribal “Come join us -- or else” level. A far cry from the Universal Christ of Colossians “who reconciles all things to himself in heaven and on earth.” In short, we made Jesus Christ into an exclusive savior instead of the totally inclusive savior he was meant to be. ….

Once Christians learn to honor the Cosmic Christ as a larger ontological identity than the historical Jesus, then Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and spiritual-but-not-religious people have no reason to be afraid of us. They can easily recognize that our take on such an Incarnation includes and honors all of creation, and themselves, too.

This passage from page 210 of the book assumes the premises set out in the first 200 pages, of course, but maybe you can see that it was a perfect prelude to reading the story of the visit of “magi from the east” who came to worship the infant king of the Jews. From one point of view you’d have to say that they are intruders, pagans, who are out of place in the middle of this story of how Christ came to earth to save us Christians. Fortunately they return home right away, so we don’t have to think about how they fit into the plot. But from the perspective of Trinitarian theology, which includes the notion of a “cosmic Christ,” it makes perfect sense that people from all around the world would be attracted to the incarnate One “who reconciles all things to himself in heaven and on earth.”    

I enjoyed reflecting on the Epiphany story from this different perspective. The wise men from the east were welcome guests who had as much right as any human being to seek, find, and honor their newborn Savior.   

The magi seemed to bring with them this morning not just the three famous gifts, but also a challenge for all us Christians to see Christ not as the exclusive savior sent for us Christians, but as God’s gift to the entire universe and all those who dwell in it.

EPIPHANY GIFT

.

.

UPON YOU THE LORD SHINES

Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem! Your light has come,

the glory of the Lord shines upon you.

See, darkness covers the earth,

and thick clouds cover the peoples;

but upon you the LORD shines,

and over you appears his glory...(Is 60:1-2)

I was sitting in church early this morning, reflecting on this text from Isaiah, from the first reading for tomorrow’s Solemnity of the Epiphany, when I recalled an encounter I had with a student on Thursday. I’ll call him Jay.

I was going over his semester report card with him, asking him to explain the F and a couple of C-’s. His monosyllabic responses and complete lack of emotion were getting on my nerves. When he complained that his History teacher had written that Jay had been late several times, I stood up and said, “Well, let’s go next door and ask him what the story is.”

Jay and I walked a few steps to the next classroom to talk to the History teacher. The conversation between him and Jay was nothing unusual, until suddenly the teacher looked him in the eye and said, “Jay, when are you going to start dealing with all the personal issues you have inside you that are keeping you from doing your school work?”

It was as if a bright light suddenly shone through the window out of the dreary winter sky. I brought the conversation to a close and, thanking the teacher, stepped into the hallway and asked, “Do you agree with Mr. Riley that there’s stuff going on that’s keeping you from doing your work?”

I was surprised and relieved when Jay answered in a barely audible voice, “Yeah. He’s right. I went for counseling once last year, but then I stopped.”

So I asked him, “Well, do you think maybe it’s worth another shot now, before your grades get so bad that you won’t be able to get into college?”

He agreed to let me give his name to someone in our school’s Counselling Center, which I did half an hour later. (Our students are fortunate to have this resource so easily available.) I’ll check on Monday to see if he’s started counselling sessions or group meetings yet.

This was the incident that I thought of this morning during my meditation time.

The Christ event has already happened, but the God who delivered the Israelites through the Red Sea, the God who came in person to save us, is still on the move today in our lives. The “good news” involves not just some past event, not just the unveiling of a new future that lies ahead, but what N.T. Wright calls “a transformation of the present moment, sitting between the event that has already happened and a further event that therefore will happen.”

All of us are being called to let ourselves be transformed by the newborn Messiah into a light for the world around us. My self-centeredness is supposed to be transformed into a generous concern for others, my fears are to be transformed into trust, and the parts of me that are darkness are to be transformed into light. I caught a glimpse of that transforming action of God working in Jay’s life Thursday afternoon in the form of a challenge from a teacher to take a risk and go for help in dealing with his problems.

Then I started thinking about myself. My own transformation is part of the Good News, it is God’s plan for me. Am I able to let go and allow God to transform me? This grace-filled season is the perfect time to ask the Lord for that gift, the gift of letting go and allowing God to transform me into light for my students (like Jay), for my brothers in the monastery, and for everyone else the Lord puts into my life.

That little encounter with Jay took less than ten minutes, but I believe that, with God’s help, its effects may last for years.

Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem! Your light has come,

the glory of the Lord shines upon you.

See, darkness covers the earth,

and thick clouds cover the peoples;

but upon you the LORD shines,

and over you appears his glory.

HAPPY EPIPHANY!

THE JOURNEY

In his second chapter the evangelist Matthew treats us to a charming story full of oriental color

and rich with mystery: the story of the wise men that follow a star in search of the infant Christ. We commemorate this story this Sunday on the feast of the Epiphany.

In celebrating this feast the church celebrates the belief that God has expressed and revealed himself totally in Christ. Christ is the “epiphany” (“showing forth”) of God. From now on we have a path to follow in our search for God: Christ.

The search for God is an adventure that starts very early in life, with our first steps as babies. St. Augustine says that we’re created for God and our hearts are restless until they rest in God. And so we find ourselves drawn to the journey, like the magi, following a star.

It’s a long voyage in which grace and human effort are mysteriously united. The star, we might say, is grace, God showing the path and offering us hope. The walking, the doubts and the questions, they’re all part of the human effort.

Seeking God can be a difficult journey at times, and it lasts our whole life. Sometimes the star gets hidden behind a layer of clouds, at other times we feel too tired to continue. Although the journey of the wise men is filled with a sense of gospel joy, it must have been a difficult one just the same. T.S. Eliot captures this difficult aspect in the first half of his poem, “The Journey of the Magi.”

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The was deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires gong out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty, and charging high prices.:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

May the Lord give us the strength to follow the star, and to help one another on the journey especially during difficult times, when the star is behind the clouds. Le me end with the second half of Eliot’s poem:

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we lead all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.