If God called the Magi by means of the star, He calls us through His Church, with Her preaching, doctrine, government and liturgy. Epiphany, then, is the feast that invites us to thank the Lord, as well as to implore Him for the grace to be guided always and everywhere by His heavenly light.
Newsroom (02/01/2022 10:34, Gaudium Press) The Solemnity of the Epiphany was celebrated in the East before the fourth century. It is one of the most ancient Christian commemorations, along with the Resurrection of Our Lord.
We must not forget that the Incarnation of the Word became effective immediately after the Annunciation of the Angel; however, only Mary, Elizabeth, Joseph, and probably Zacharias were aware of the great mystery worked by the Holy Spirit. The rest of humanity was not aware of what was happening during the period of gestation of the humanized Son of God. The Revelation made by the prophets was shrouded in a certain mystery which only became evident after the witness of the Apostles.
Epiphany: the public recognition of the divinity of the Child Jesus
If, so to speak, at Christmas God manifests himself as Man, at the Epiphany this same Man reveals himself as God. Thus, on these two feasts, God willed that the great mystery of the Incarnation should be brightly revealed to Jews and Gentiles alike, given its universal character. In the West, from the beginning, Christmas was celebrated on 25 December, and in the East, the Epiphany on 6 January. It was the Church of Antioch, at the time of Saint John Chrysostom, which started considering both dates. It was not until the fifth century that the second festival began to be celebrated in the West.
In our current historical phase, the Liturgy commemorates the Adoration by the Magi of the Baby Jesus. On the other hand, some vestiges of the ancient Eastern tradition still remain, which included in the Epiphany, besides the Adoration of the Kings, the miracle of the Wedding at Cana and the Baptism of the Lord in the Jordan. Today, in our Liturgy, the Wedding at Cana is no longer contemplated, and the Baptism of the Lord is celebrated on the Sunday between the 9th and 13th of January.
In summary, we can affirm that the Epiphany, that is, the manifestation of the Incarnate Word, cannot be considered in isolation from the adoration that the Kings of the East rendered to Him. This scene involves a public recognition of the divinity of the Child Jesus united to His humanity.
The virtue of religion
Adoration, according to the Angelic Doctor, “is directed to the reverence of Him Who is adored“. This is a special virtue, called religion, to which “it is proper to pay reverence to God.”[1]
To understand it better, it is enough to say that religion has its foundation in who God is and what we are; in what He has given us and what we must give back to Him. God is Being by essence, Perfection, Goodness, Truth and Beauty, absolute and infinite; we, on the other hand, are contingent creatures: from Him we receive everything, and in our existence we need His support at every instant.
Antonio Royo Marin, OP, said well that if, by some absurdity, God were to doze off to sleep, all creatures would return to nothingness; to which Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira replied: “And in His omnipotence He would recreate everything again, as soon as He awoke.”
Therefore, the being of each and every creature is conferred by God, as well as the most varied goods that exist in the whole order of the universe. In the line of gifts there is nothing, therefore, that we do not receive from God. We are the eternal debtors of the Creator. From this point of view, even the most exalted of all creatures, Mary Most Holy, is so too, and She knew how to recognize this in Her canticle before Her cousin Elizabeth: “My soul magnifies the Lord … because He has looked upon the nothingness [humility] of His handmaid” (Lk 1:46-48).
The virtue of religion is the essence of worship that focuses on the recognition of these two realities: who is God, what are His rights and benefits; and who are we, our indigence, our nothingness. This is why religion is the chief among the moral virtues, St. Thomas Aquinas explains to us, “because it is closer to God than the others […], inasmuch as its actions are directly and immediately ordered to the divine honour. Consequently, religion is superior to the other moral virtues.”[2]
An invitation to be grateful to the Lord
Now, that which moved the depths of the Magi’s soul was the desire to render worshipful service to the One who had just been born. The significance of the movement of the Holy Spirit, which brought them to Bethlehem, can be seen in the universal call of all nations to salvation and to share in the goods of the Redemption.
Although the Prophets had made predictions about the universality of this vocation, the Jews considered it as an exclusive privilege of the Chosen People. It is curious to note how the Lord himself in His public life, despite praising the faith of the Roman centurion – “I tell you the truth, I have not found such faith in any one of Israel” (Mt 8:10) -, affirms having been sent by the Father only to take care of the “scattered sheep of the house of Israel” (Mt 15:24). That is, He did not wish to call Gentility directly; that task would be reserved for the Apostles, especially St. Paul.
But decades beforehand, the Holy Kings at the Saviour’s cradle were symbolic of His great desire to redeem us all from Gentility too, according to the words of the Prayer for the Day: “O God, you have revealed your Son today to the nations, guiding them by the star”;[3] and more clearly in the Preface: “You have revealed today the mystery of Your Son as a light to enlighten all peoples on the way to salvation”[4].
If God called the Wise Men through the star, He calls us through His Church, with Her preaching, doctrine, government and Liturgy. Therefore, Epiphany is the feast that invites us to thank the Lord, as well as to implore Him for the grace to be guided always and everywhere by His heavenly light, and to welcome with faith and live with love all the gifts that the Holy Church gives us.[5]
Excerpted with adaptations from:
CLÁ DIAS, João Scognamiglio. The unpublished on the Gospels: Commentaries on the Sunday Gospels. Città del Vaticano-São Paulo: LEV-Instituto Lumen Sapientiæ, 2012, v. 5, pp. 145-149.
[1] SAINT THOMAS DE AQUINAS. Summa Theologica. II-II, q. 84, a. 1.
[2] Idem, q. 81, a. 6.
[EPIPHANY OF THE LORD. Prayer of the day. In: ROMAN MISSAL. Portuguese translation. Portuguese translation of the second edition typical for Brazil, drawn up and published by the CNBB, with additions approved by the Apostolic See. 9. 9. ed. São Paulo: Paulus, 2004, p. 164.
[4] RITE OF MASS. Eucharistic Prayer: Preface of the Epiphany of the Lord, op. cit.
[Cf. EPIPHANY OF THE LORD. Prayer after Communion, op. cit.
Compiled by Sandra Chisholm
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