The Epiphany of the LORD.

Dear brothers and sisters,

Today in the liturgy of the Church we celebrate the Solemnity the Epiphany of the Lord. What does the Epiphany mean? It is a moment of sudden and great revelation. Yes today we celebrate the revelation of Christ to the World, the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi. Today we have a few essential things about our faith and salvation which Christ our Lord revealed us. We need to remember especially that the salvation of the Lord is for all people in the world, this is what today's gospel reminds us: "Some wise men came to Jerusalem from the east" and today's responsorial Psalm: "All nations shall fall prostrate before you, O Lord". Pope Benedict in book Jesus of Nazareth teaches  us:

"While the prophetic content of these text expands the provenance of the figures to include the extreme west, tradition has further developed this idea of universality by conceiving them as kings from all three known continents: Africa, Asia, and Europe. The black king is part and parcel of this: in the kingdom of Jesus Christ there are no distinctions of race and origin. In him and through dim, humanity is united, yet without losing any of the richness of variety".

Today we need to remember that all people can receive salvation which only Jesus can give us. In today's gospel the wise men ask: Where is the infant king of the Jews? They intend to say, where is our King? At this point we need to ask ourselves:

Where is the King of my life?

Who is the King of my life?

The wise man said in today's gospel: "We saw his star as it rose and have come to do him homage". Every Sunday in church and every day in our life we can to do Jesus homage. What means to do homage to Jesus? Today in our life we have a different way do a homage before Jesus. "The wise man do a homage before the royal child, that is to say they throw themselves onto the ground before him. This is the homage that is offered to a divine king. The gifts brought by the wise man may be explained in similar terms. They are not practical gifts, of a kind that the holy family might have had a use for at this moment. They acknowledge the royal dignity of him to whom they are offered. Gold and incense are also mentioned in Old Testament as gift of homage that the Gentiles will place before the God of Israel".
In the Church's tradition the three gifts have been thought to represent three aspects of the mystery of Christ: the gold points to Jesus' kingship the incense to his divine sonship, the myrrh to the mystery of his Passion". 

At this point we need ask to ourselves:

Where is my gift for Jesus and Holy Family, which one is my gift, how can my gift be explained?

The wise man offered gold, incense, myrrh. My gift can be the time which I offer in prayer. My gift can be time and talents which I can offer to all people. The wise men offered some very precious gifts, something special and they dedicated much of their time in the search for Jesus. They found Jesus in Bethlehem.  Sometimes we are disappointed about our faith. I think the wise men were disappointed when they found Jesus not in the palaces of King Herod but in a poor stable in Bethlehem. "Their mental picture of the infant King they were expecting to find must have been very different. The new King, to whom the wise man paid homage, was quite unlike what they were expecting. In this way they had to learn that God is not as we usually imagine him to be. This was where their inner journey began. It started at the very moment when they knelt down before this child and recognized him as the promised King. But they still had to assimilate these joyful gestures internally".

Today we are here because we want to kneel down before this child, Jesus Christ, king of our life. The wise men after they knelt down before Jesus and offered him their gifts they returned to their own country by a different way. ''Different way'' could mean that they changed something in their life. "The wise men had to change their ideas about power, about God and about man, and in so doing, they also had to change themselves. Now they were able to see that God's power is not like that of the powerful of this world. God's ways are not as we imagine them or as we might wish them to be".

Today we are called  to kneel down before Jesus and change our life. "This means that we are not constructing a private God, we are not constructing a private Jesus, but that we believe and worship the Jesus who is manifested to us by the Sacred Scriptures and who reveals himself to be alive in the great procession of the faithful called the Church, always alongside us and always before us". Jesus is present now as he was then in Bethlehem. He invites us to that inner pilgrimage which is called adoration. Let us set off on this pilgrimage of the spirit and let us ask him to be our guide.