Dear All,
In different churches the feast of the Epiphany was celebrated on different days – some anticipated it last weekend, others on the 6th, and we are focusing on it today. We hope you will find something encouraging here as we come towards the end of the Christmas season.
Our blessing this week is ‘Deep Peace’. It is a Gaelic blessing & comes on a Libera CD. Hope it is a good one for you!
Love to each of you – have a good week!
The Feast of the Epiphany:
This feast tells us that for God there are no foreigners, no strangers, no aliens, no outsiders. We all belong to our God no matter what external physical or cultural differences there may be between us. We all belong to God no matter what religious convictions or lifestyle differences there may be between us. Our God is inclusive, unpredictable, imaginative, compassionate, forgiving, & God desires a personal encounter with us.
This feast means that we are called to be ‘epiphany people’. There is no turning back – just an on-going commitment to ‘shine forth’ with courage, compassion, vision, & to hope & to seek again & to live with a restless spirit, so as to be intensely engaged with humanity each in our own unique way.
What this feast tells is that although most religious discourse begins with a notion of a transcendent God up there in heaven, & then we try to explain everything down here in relationship to that transcendent God, in fact, as Jesus taught us, it is something more akin to ‘from the bottom up’. In other words, Jesus taught us to find God incarnate in this world, in our neighbour, in the eucharist – that is, in the ordinary elements of this earth. That is a very different notion of religion. It turns everything on its head. That is why this week we have celebrated three kings paying homage to a poor baby in a feeding trough.
Help me to Journey to You.
The Wise Men set out to seek you.
Lord, help me in my life’s journey;
help me to have the courage
to step out in faith, to leave behind
what hinders, to go in search of you.
They follow the light of the star.
Lord, help me to follow your light,
your inspirations in my life,
to look beyond the daily routine,
and to keep my heart open
to the promptings of your Spirit.
There was a star in front of them.
Lord, if I lose sight
of you for a while
in the rush of life,
please place your
guiding light in
front of me where
I can’t miss it!
And their hearts are
filled with joy.
Wise women also came.
The fire burned in their wombs long before
they saw
the flaming star in the sky.
They walked in shadows, trusting the path
would open under the light of the moon.
Wise women also came,
seeking no directions,
no permission from any king.
They came by their own authority,
their own desire,
their own longing.
They came in quiet, spreading no rumours,
sparking no fears to lead to innocents’ slaughter,
to their sister Rachel’s inconsolable lamentations.
Wise women also came,
and they brought useful gifts:
water for labour’s washing,
fire for warm illumination,
a blanket for swaddling.
Wise women also came,
at least three of them,
holding Mary in the labour,
crying out with her in the birth pangs,
breathing ancient blessings into her ear.
Wise women also came,
and they went,
as wise women always do,
home a different way.
– Jan Richardson
Reading: from Cardinal Hume.
Epiphany: If you follow the star of Bethlehem you will find just a child in a manager, or so it might seem. But it is faith which enables us to know that this child is truly God as well as truly man; not that we can see it clearly, Faith is a lesser light, but enough & it is a light given by God, a special gift, his most important gift to us. So as we travel through life we have the star to guide us, & we look for God & the will of God in everyday things, in persons & events & in many things. We might just have seen the child in the manger & missed the point – that he is also God. Equally we can only see with our physical eyes, so we have to let that little light that is faith lead us to God, who is in some wonderful manner, within all things. If we look for him every day in our present situation in this life we will almost certainly find him. All the time our eyes are being trained to see him in the full glare of vision. That is our ultimate expectation.