The Feast of the Epiphany

APOLOGETICS
Let the celebration continue! After Epiphany, our celebration continues until the Baptism of the Lord, the first Sunday after January 6 (usually). But, if you want to be really traditional, you can celebrate what the faithful called “Christmastide” before the liturgical reforms that followed the Second Vatican Council. In the old rite, or what we today call the Extraordinary Form, Christmastide lasted for 40 days to correspond with the 40 days of Lent and the 40 days from Easter to Ascension Thursday. It ended on February 2, the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also called Candlemas Day, and now called the Presentation of the Lord. On this day, the faithful take candles that they will use throughout the year in their homes to Mass to have them blessed.

A 40-day party? Gloria in Excelsis!
 
Here is how the brilliant Benedictine Abbot Dom Prosper Guéranger helps us understand the totality of the mystery of Christmastide:

It is a period, which forms a distinct portion of the Liturgical Year, as distinct, by its own special spirit, from every other, as are Advent, Lent, Easter or Pentecost. One same Mystery is celebrated and kept in view the whole 40 days. Neither the Feasts of the Saints, which so abound during this Season; nor the time of Septuagesima, with its mournful Purple, which often begins before Christmastide is over, seem able to distract our Holy Mother the Church from the immense joy with which She received the glad tidings from the Angels (Luke 2:10) on that glorious Night for which the world had been longing for 4000 years. The custom of celebrating the Solemnity of Our Savior’s Nativity by a Feast of 40 days’ duration is founded on the Holy Gospel itself; for it tells us that the Blessed Virgin Mary, after spending 40 days in the contemplation of the Divine Fruit of Her glorious Maternity, went to the Temple, there to fulfill, in most perfect humility, the ceremonies which the Law demanded of the daughters of Israel when they became mothers. The Feast of Mary’s Purification is, therefore, part of that of Jesus’ Birth; and the custom of keeping this holy and glorious period of 40 days as one continued Festival has every appearance of being a very ancient one in the Catholic Church.

So this year, if you really want to be a “sign of contradiction” do as they did in ages past and keep your tree and your decorations up until Candlemas!

CATECHESIS
The Feast of the Epiphany is powerful event in the discovery of the mission of Jesus. The Catholic Church celebrates the appearance of the Christ Child to the world, which happens in the lowly manger in Bethlehem to the Magi (wise men, or magicians). These men of the East would have heard the prophecies of the Lord through the writings of Isaiah, along with other writings of the preceding periods. Prophecy was big business in those days for those practicing the occult, as they wanted the power to foretell the future. The Magi would have been students of the prophecies, but would have been deeply involved in the dark arts of astrology, divination and other related and forbidden arts.

The Magi brought some very symbolic gifts to the Holy Family that night, after following the Bethlehem Star: gold, frankincense and myrrh, which are some pretty strange gifts to bring a baby! These gifts have a symbolic reference to them. Gold would have been recognized as the tribute for a conquering King. Frankincense was a symbol that they recognized his role as High Priest. The myrrh indicated that they understood the prophecies, that Jesus would be the Suffering Servant, Who would die for His people. 
 
These gifts have a double meaning for the careful reader. Knowing that these were men of “Magic” they would have used these things as tools in their esoteric world. The “gifting” of these items to Jesus and His Holy Family can also be read as a  surrender of their former ways. The Magi would be no more, but adorers of the Christ Child and friends of His Holy Family. This example should resound within us, as we continue in the Christmas season. What else must I surrender to the Lord to become a true disciple of Jesus? What good can I offer and what sins can I lay at the foot of His Cross for healing and reparation?
 
This time of “epiphany” is one of great importance, so that we can reaffirm Jesus is the King of every part of our lives.
 
THEOLOGY: Theological Principles of Love and Action based on the Epiphany of our Lord:
God came down from heaven and was made into flesh and dwelt among us. This simple yet extremely profound statement is what is known as the Incarnation. The Epiphany of our Lord is not only talking about this very revelation to the Magi, but what it means for the God of the universe to now be known to the Gentiles. The Old Testament speaks many times to the coming of our Lord but what is more incredible is that the Magi knew that the Messiah’s coming meant that he was going to redeem the world!  It is out of this love God has for us that I would like to focus on what it can mean for us in day to day life and how we can experience and live out this very same revelation each and every day in action and love.
 
Human action finds its purest source in the love that God gives us in Christ. This gift of love, however, in no way suppresses the human element of action. It transforms it, sustaining it, since love does not suppress anything of the beloved. It follows that persons, in their friendship with Christ, must be intelligent. Love uses the virtue of prudence in order to find actions that truly express and achieve that which it loves most.
 
Asserting that God’s love is at the origin of human action means asserting that it is God himself who moves us to communion with him. It is God who calls all of us to be joined to him in a very intimate way. This is why the fullness of Christian prudence ( literally the perfected ability to do what is right) consists in meekness to the Spirit, who attracts us precisely through the beauty of human action, in which the communion among us is announced.
 
But how can we all be united to God in our daily lives, when we are so full of troubles and difficulties?  Can all our daily acts perhaps ultimately be directed toward God? Would our neighbor then be just a pretext for loving God? “The friends of my friends are my friends”—God’s friends become my friends because I love them with a new love, with the love with which God himself loves them and which allows me to participate in the gift of his Spirit. By virtue of this love, the desire that orients me toward my neighbors is transformed, since what I now desire for them is their true destiny, communion with God. My action, in establishing communion, will allow both of us to be in communion with God. Friendship with Christ thus finds its fulfillment in the Church: “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Mt 18:20).
 
So as you focus on what and how you are acting, make sure that you take time to remember that by living out your love of Christ to others you are imitating the very thing he came here to do in the Incarnation; to dwell with us. We are the hands, feet and voice of Jesus to the world. Never forget that he came here so that you might become rich. He came here so that you might inherit eternal life. He came here to die so that the wages of sin and death would not be put upon you. BE LIKE CHRIST. LOVE LIKE CHRIST.