An Epiphany
Eileen Grant on this weeks Feast of the Epiphany, a Profile of a the Apostolic Sisters of St John and John Woodside is back with his reflection on St Nathalan. Welcome and Happy New Year!
Ethiopic Images of the Magi visiting the Holy Family. From 16th Century Ethiopian Manuscripts. Great article HERE about it. Also includes other Nativity scenes.
Arise, shine out, Jerusalem, for your light has come,
the glory of the Lord is rising on you!
‘The Lord and ruler is coming; kingship is his, and government and power’:[1] God’s glory is manifested; it shines out in the incarnate Son and the nations will see ‘his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father’ (Jn 1:14). ‘The Lord will be your everlasting light/your God will be your splendour’ (Is 60: 20). ‘Your rays shall light the Gentiles on their path; kings shall walk in the splendour of your sunrise.’ ‘O Light of all light, reveal yourself this day!’[2]
The star of grace shines in heaven, and in every nation the three Magi, summoned by the brilliant light of the gospel, hasten to adore the power of the supreme King… Keep the lamps of your souls ever burning, and let no darkness dwell in your hearts, for … ‘once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of the light.’ Make real in yourselves what you see in the figures of the Magi, and ‘thus let your light shine before men, so that … they may glorify your heavenly Father’ (St Leo the Great).
A light dawned at Christmas; some two thousand years ago a light dawned in a little corner of the Roman Empire. At Epiphany that light blazed forth and shone out into the darkest corners of a dark world. At Christmas, the Son of God was born in human form to give a voice to the poorest of God’s people and we heard how the shepherds – the lowliest of the low – were the first to receive the Good News. Christmas is really the feast of the Jews who accepted Jesus as the Messiah; Epiphany is the feast of the nations, of the Gentiles to whom the Good News was then offered. Epiphany is our feast, the feast at which all are called to the light.
Beloved, let us recognise in the Magi who adored Christ, our forerunners in calling and in faith, and with great joy let us celebrate in them the blessed beginnings of our own hope, for it was at that time that we began to enter into our everlasting inheritance (St Leo).
Epiphany means ‘a shining forth’, a shining forth of God. The star which led the Wise Men to the Child in the manger was to the ancients a sign of divinity: ‘a star shall come forth out of Jacob’ (Num 24:17); and there are several prophecies in Scripture of kings coming from afar to kneel before Jesus. The coming of the Magi fulfils these prophecies that the nations will acknowledge the God of Israel. These kings have, far more than even the shepherds, caught the imagination of people ever since, providing inspiration for stories, paintings and songs. We are not told how many there were, but tradition has decided there were three, for there were three gifts, strange gifts to give a baby perhaps, but gifts which signified his role in the history of salvation: incense for God, myrrh for the man, gold for the King, for, St Leo tells us, ‘they were conscious of honouring the divine nature and the human nature as united in a single being.’
Much ink has been spent by scientists, astronomers, astrologers etc, as well as theologians, concerning this bright star which led three ‘wise men’ to travel far from their own lands, facing dangers and hardships in the process – ‘A hard time we had of it … With the voices ringing in our ears, saying/That this was all folly.’[3]. The Magi were seekers of the truth, seekers who were willing to risk all that they knew and possessed in order to discover that truth and when they found it they immediately knelt down and worshipped it in the infant person of the Word made flesh.
Above you the Lord now rises
and above you his glory appears,
the nations come to your light
and kings to your dawning brightness (Is 7:14).
The Church teaches us that the whole world had already been enlightened by three manifestations of the glory of the Lord even before he began to preach. We hear in the Prayer of the Church on this feast of three ‘epiphanies’, three events in the life of our Lord in which his glory shone forth to enlighten a world that was yearning for light, searching for truth:
Three wonders mark this day we celebrate: today the star led the Magi to the manger; today water was changed into wine at the marriage feast; today Christ desired to be baptised by John in the river Jordan to bring us salvation, alleluia![4]
The Incarnation, when the ‘sun of righteousness’ arose upon our fallen world, brought a new and radiant dawn for humankind; the rays of that rising sun spread out across the sky at the Epiphany of the Lord to make bright the whole world when all peoples were called into God’s light, into His everlasting today. We should not get bogged down in trivial details, such as the number and names of the Magi or the nature of the star etc; what is important is that the manifestation of Christ the Lord to the whole world and that world’s adoration of the infant King – here and now, today – should lead all peoples to worship him and acknowledge the truth of his glory.
Today you revealed in Christ your eternal plan of salvation and showed him as the light of all peoples. Now that his glory has shone among us you have renewed humanity in his immortal image (Preface).
We are all journeying towards that time when God will be ‘all in all’, when He will reveal His glory in an even greater light; when we will be enabled to adore that glory in a perfect way ‘with unveiled faces’ in the heavenly Jerusalem where all nations will be made one and her scattered children will be gathered into a loving embrace.
At this sight you will grow radiant,
your heart throbbing and full (Is 60: 5).
We are all called to be ‘wise men’, to seek out the light and to allow ourselves to be guided by it on our journey of faith, leading the ‘nations’ in our wake. We should ‘shine as children of the light’, St Leo urges us, lighting the way to the Lord for unbelievers and for those who are seeking light in the darkness of their lives. Are we really Magi for today? Do we really let our light shine out to illuminate the way for others? If we do not have a shining belief in our role as Christians, as ‘wise men’, we will cease to be lights in the darkness of the world. We are called continually to shine, to point to the bright star, so that all peoples may find their way to the manger, to fall on their knees in adoration before the true King.
[1] Entrance Antiphon, Feast of the Epiphany [2]The Divine Office for Epiphany [3] T. S. Eliot, ‘Journey of the Magi’ from Complete Poems and Plays (Faber & Faber, London 1969), p. 103 [4]Magnificat Antiphon, Vespers of Epiphany
The Profile: Apostolic Sisters of St John
In the footsteps of the Apostle Saint John, also known as the Beloved Disciple, the Sisters seek to bear witness in today’s world, to the Love of Jesus for the Father and for all men. (cf. Constitutions #1).
You might be wondering…who are those nuns in grey walking down the streets of Aberdeen? The Apostolic Sisters of St John were founded in 1984 in France. We seek to live of the spirit of the apostle John and help others to have this same relationship with Christ. Each one of us is called to be a beloved disciple of Christ, just like St John, and to let this love permeate every aspect of our lives and transform us.
New Year - New Bible Plan by Julie Knight
Fired up by Fr. Domenico's enthusiastic promotion, I took home one of his "Read the Bible in a Year" sheets. I decided I should, and I could do this! The next morning, in the cold light of day I began to have my doubts and realised, actually, this is some commitment, how on earth am I going to find the time? The usual head battle ensued about why I couldn’t!
The Baptism of the Lord:
Tomorrow is the Feast Day of the Baptism of our Lord. But what did the Early Church believe about Baptism? Why is it relevant now? Catholic Answers responds.
The Holy Face of Jesus:
This is the month of the Holy Face of Jesus, but I thought that it would be interesting to look at the Holy Face of Jesus in Manoppello, which isn’t connected with the month officially but I think is a good addition to it.
St Nathalan d. 678 AD, Feast Day 8th January
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God Bless from Eric and Team