Following the star of faith we come in body and soul before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in order to adore His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity

Solemnity of the Epiphany. January 8th, 2012

Today we celebrate the feast of Epiphany. The day the three wise men came from a far to Bethlehem to adore the newborn King. Epiphany means manifestation. This great solemnity is the Church’s way to commemorate the first manifestation of the Son of God to the Gentile or pagan world. Every since the fall of mankind, God the Father has desired that all of mankind would return back to communion with Him, back into His Family, a Communion of Love.

The Father’s plan was to begin to reveal the truth to the Israelites and then use them as an example to lead all the nations (the gentiles) back to Him. The gentiles were of course all the people who were not Jews or Israelites. The wise men coming to Bethlehem signify the Father moving beyond just the Israelites to all mankind. He wants to reveal to all men of good will the fullness of the Truth, found in the Divine Person of His only begotten Son-Jesus.

The Wise-men were probably astrologers and philosophers before they were converted to the Christ Child. The Wise-men, in their wisdom followed the star, which led them to adore God become man, who was before them as a little child in great silence and simplicity. The Wise-men, who were seeking the truth, open to the truth, prostrated themselves to the ground, worshiping and adoring the infant Child Jesus.

Today, the Father wants us to understand that to reach the truth we must imitate the Wise-men and adore with our body and soul in great simplicity and littleness, the Child Jesus. We must be humble because God doesn’t manifest Himself in the way we might expect or in the way the world might expect. When we are seeking the Truth, we must like the Wise-men, end in adoration of Jesus, the Jesus who came and who continues to come to us not in riches, fanfare or sensationalism, but in poverty, silence and simplicity.

The star that lead the Wise-men safely to Jesus was itself a gift given by the Heavenly Father to safely lead all those who desire with their whole heart the one thing that would fill the ultimate desire of every human heart—Jesus Christ, Truth Incarnate, Truth Itself in the flesh. It was the Father Who placed in the open hearts of the Wise-men the desire to follow the star in search for the Truth. Those, such as Herod, who didn’t follow the star by listening to the Father in humbleness and purity and in the silence of their hearts didn’t find the Truth, Who was Jesus. Sadly like so many today, Herod lacked wisdom, and so only saw in Jesus a threat to his way of life, a threat to his so-called “freedom;” He had closed his heart to the Truth-Jesus.

What about us today, what star is there to manifest to us the truth about Jesus Christ, and the Truth Who is Jesus Christ? The Father also desires us to be lead safely to His Son, the Incarnate Jesus. He wants us to come to know Jesus even more intimately than ever. He may not give us a large star in the sky; nevertheless, God wants to give us, interiorly, that is, in the silence of our hearts, the star of His grace and wisdom in order to point us to the true Jesus. Not to who the Herod’s of this world think Jesus is, or not to who we think Jesus is or who we think He should be. The Father wants to manifest to us who Jesus really is, the fullness of Father’s Revelation about Himself, the fullness of the truth about God and man; and I would add the truth about each one of us, for we can only truly discover ourselves in the light of Christ.

The star given to us today from our Heavenly Father is the gift of faith--faith in His Church and faith in the truths God gives us through the Catholic Church and her teachings, which we faithfully live out in our daily lives with the help of God’s grace, given to us throught the Sacraments. For the star given to us today, ultimately points us to the Sacraments, especially that Most Blessed of All Sacraments, the Holy Eucharist, the source of all grace, because it is Jesus himself-Truth Incarnate.

Holy Mother the Church has always seen in the adoration of the Wise-men, an example of the adoration that we must show before the Blessed Sacrament. We must come before Him just like the wise men- bowing down and offering every treasure of ours to him; thus, making an act of faith in His Incarnation; that is, and act of faith that He is still truly bodily present, and so still truly with us in the Holy Eucharist-God with us!

Following the star of faith we come in body and soul before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in order to adore His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. We come before Jesus who manifests himself to us in even greater humility and silence than His manifestation to the three Wise-men. Before the Blessed Sacrament we come to adore the same Jesus--Incarnate, in the same body that lay before the three wise men in the crib. And in our adoration of Him we come to share in the divinity of Him who humbled Himself to share in our humanity--Jesus the way to union with Father. Adoration of the Holy Eucharist more and more opens our hearts to God!

Holy Mary, stella Maris, stella orientis, ora pro nobis—Holy Mary, star of the sea, star of the east, pray for us; you are our star that points us to the divine Child-Jesus, the God-Man who is still with us in the Holy Eucharist. Obtain for us an increase of faith that the Holy Mass is that privledge place where the Holy Exchange of God with men continues to take place, where heaven and earth continues to unite, where the divinity of God cointinues to stoops down to take on our humanity that we may be taken up to share in His divinity in order to become one with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and with one another, in a union of eternal love. Amen.