Epiphany of the Lord (See the Star, Adore Him)

The mysterious figures in today’s Gospel are described in a few different ways: Wise Men, Kings, and Magi. All three speak to some aspect of our understanding of them. St. Matthew specifically refers to them as Magi. He doesn’t specify how many were at the manger scene. Early tradition declared there were twelve, but eventually it was deduced that there were three, because three gifts were given to the child Jesus. Later medieval accounts filled in details about these men, regarded as representatives of all the nations: One named Melchior represented the Semitic peoples and was old, gray-haired and had a long beard. Another named Gaspar represented the other white races, was young and beardless. The third, Balthasar, represented the black races and had a small beard. To us of this age, this would not seem a complete representation of the world’s ethnic groups or races.

While there are a many curious aspects worthy of pondering regarding their encounter with the baby Jesus, I ask us to consider the star they saw, and which led them to the newborn King. To be sure, Matthew’s account is not intended to be an exercise of astronomy, but instead a theological narrative.

But still we wonder, What kind of star was it? Was there a star at all? Saint John Chrysostom (D. 407) said, “That this star was not of the common sort, or rather not a star at all, as it seems at least to me, but some invisible power transformed into this appearance, is in the first place evident from its very course. For there is … not any star that moves by this way” (In Matthaeum Homiliae, VI, 2: PG 57, 64).

Again, we don’t know for certain, although we call it a star. Perhaps it more properly was a supernatural vision. I’m okay with that. It would be in keeping with so many supernatural phenomena revealed to men and women, whether it’s St. Paul who was knocked to the ground by a brilliant light that spoke from the sky; St. Gertrude who saw Jesus before her, with a something like a ray of light coming from his wounded side; St. Clare who on the occasion of being too ill to attend Mass, was able to see a vision of it from her cell; St. Thomas Aquinas who saw something so inexplicably dumfounding from God that he couldn’t continue in his writings; or the children of Fatima, who on October 13, 1917, along with thousands of other people, saw the sun spin in the sky like a wheel of fire.

The list goes on and on: occasions in which God does something that defies the laws of science or speaks to us. And perhaps you know people who describe their own experiences of supernatural manifestations. From time to time, someone will ask me why they never experience such things. Does God have nothing to say or reveal to me, despite my desire for it? Am I doing something wrong? On some level, don’t we all desire to see such proof? Don’t we all desire to see God in the miraculous?

I want to suggest that he does reveal Himself and speak to us, even as most of us don’t experience it in the extraordinary, but instead in the ordinary. Just two weeks ago, we celebrated the fact that God came to us as a baby. Considering that everyone of us was once a baby, what’s more ordinary than that?

That’s at the very heart of our sacramental belief: that God comes to us in the ordinary: in bread, in wine in water; in the oil the bishop uses to anoint the candidate for Confirmation; in words the bride and groom speak to one another. All so ordinary, and yet supernatural.

With this in mind, consider what the Magi did upon finding the newborn King. These weren’t Jews, living in anticipation of a Messiah, yet they prostrated themselves and did him homage. And though no length of time is mentioned, I imagine it was more than just a perfunctory gesture. I imagine that they gazed in awe at the baby held by his mother—a stillness and silence seizing the extended period, as though for the Magi, the earth stopped spinning in that moment, as they saw something every bit as dumfounding as the mysterious star itself.

What they beheld, you and I receive from this altar. What they adored, you and I have the chance to gaze upon in Eucharistic Adoration—through a monstrance that resembles a brilliant star. The extraordinary comes to us, to be seen and adored by us—that is, if we have eyes to see and to contemplate.

The Maji traveled great distances to behold him. Too few of us can be bothered in the course of our week, commuting here and there, to come and be with him, even for a few minutes—despite our doors being open so many hours of each day. Maybe you say, “I’m too busy, I have too much to do. I can’t focus. I can’t see the connection of how that’s Jesus in the crib.” Work at it.

Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk, who died in 1968, was once asked, “What is the best thing I can do to improve my prayer life?” He answered, “Take the time.” The same Jesus who told us we must take up our crosses and follow him, I believe would also invite us to simply gaze upon him, to adore him…to bask in the light of the Son.