Follow His Star
Wow! I had a most fantastic experience when I prayed with this reading. After years in and out of the convent, spending my life with the scriptures, I had a brand new revelation.
Today we celebrate the Epiphany. The word Epiphany means the manifestation or showing of something. So the Shepherd and Kings at the Epiphany represent the Savior as revealed to all people. Okay, so that is the understanding of the feast. But what does it mean?
My revelation or Epiphany came from a single line at the beginning of the reading. The scripture reading says that the Magi asked, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews?” The Magi came seeking the Lord. If they were Wise Men and Kings, they were probably not children or even young. They were older men who had earned the grey hair of age and the wrinkled faces of those who knew both joy and sorrow. They did not arrive in Jerusalem knowing where to find Jesus. They came searching for Him.
When we think we have found something, we stop looking. That is a catastrophic mistake. The Kings teach us that no matter how old we are or how life has touched us, we must always be searchers. There is more to be found, more to be revealed. The Epiphany of the Lord is not a commemoration. It is a command to keep seeking; there is more to discover.
Our faith, like our God, is meant to be dynamic. It is intended to be active, zestful, changing, and vigorous. We cannot allow our faith to stop growing, no matter our age. We cannot allow ourselves to become comfortable with our understanding of God. God does not stand still, so we must continue to seek Him.
Often we talk about the reality that many people have moved away from practicing their faith. They no longer see it as relevant. We know they are good spiritual people, but church and the way we speak of faith just doesn’t cut it for them. They are like the wise men still seeking the Christ child. They do not find Him boxed up inside our tabernacles or churches. So we can lament the loss of those who wander from the faith, or we can follow their lead.
No, I am not suggesting that we close down our churches and stop celebrating mass and the other sacraments. Instead, I suggest that we take on the attitude of the Magi. We are called to become constant seekers of the Lord. If God is dynamic, powerful, and outrageous love, we cannot be satisfied with trying to contain Him. We cannot allow our faith to become rote. We will always come up short.
Perhaps the question we should ask ourselves is, “Is what I believe and how I experience God from my past or my present?” So many people have allowed their faith experience to stop at Confirmation. They are 45, 50, or even 70, and their faith is stuck in adolescence. The prayers are rote, the tenets of the faith are accepted as they were learned in childhood. Faith is stale. Some continue to come to mass because it is a mortal sin not to.
Perhaps the actual mortal sin is to continue to come to mass without seeking God. Putting in the time and following the rules because we were told to as children is not enough. We found Jesus, and then we stopped searching. We become 70-year-old people who pray and believe like we are 12. We become stuck in the mud of faith. The dynamism of our faith dies and we go through the motions.
In any other loving relationship in our lives, we learn and discover the mysteries of our beloved more and more with each passing day. That is what keeps love strong. Delving into the mysteries of the other is what keeps love vibrant. Love changes us.
So too, with our God — Love changes us. There is always a more profound experience of His love we are being called to. We are called to emulate the Magi seeking the Lord and bringing our finest gift to Him. Epiphany is constantly seeking our loving God and placing the gift of ourselves before him. It allows God to reveal himself day after day in more profound and new ways. Epiphany is being willing to travel into the unknown depths of God’s continuing revelation. Epiphany is all day, every day following His star.
In God’s Unending Love,
Gwen
