To the Band of Brothers: Epiphany Edition

Welcome back to the second semester. After what seemed to be a longer-than-usual break, we are back in the swing of things and having to get our academic motors running again. Not easy after spending a couple of weeks far removed from studying or doing homework. Most of us were so occupied with opening presents, skiing down slopes, or binging on Netflix that to reorder our lives to schedules set by bells and ninety-minute blocks is never easy. But, you will notice we will slip right into it, and before you know it, summer is knocking on the door, and we will be more than happy to let it in.

I especially want to warn the seniors as they walk into their last semester at Belen. While it may seem like the goal line while standing at midfield in the fourth quarter of what so far has been the most important game of your life is still pretty far away, it’s not. Even though there are still great things to come like Tombola, the baccalaureate Mass, senior-parent-faculty banquet, senior prom, and grad bash, you are simply a few plays away from scoring. What’s the best advice I can give you? That’s easy… don’t fumble.

Yesterday we celebrated the feast of the Epiphany. We basically brought Christmas to a close. Technically, it is January 6th that makes the twelfth day of Christmas and is usually the feast day, but the Church wisely pushes it back to Sunday so we can all go to Mass and experience the celebration together as a community in church. We read the story from the gospel of St. Matthew, where he tells us of the magi who come from the east following a star to visit the baby Jesus in his manger in Bethlehem. Most people don’t realize it is one of the oldest celebrations in the Church. Even while we were still trying to determine the actual day to celebrate the Nativity (a.k.a Christmas), already the Church had set the liturgical scene for the Epiphany.

There are a lot of things that contribute to the great allure of the Epiphany. It’s mysterious. Notice Matthew really doesn’t give too much information. These strange men from the east are shrouded in mystery. There is nothing to say how many there are (at one point someone came up with three, maybe because like Schoolhouse Rock tells us, “three is a magic number… yes it is, it’s a magic number”), we don’t know what countries they are from, we don’t know their actual professions (astronomers, kings, wisemen, scientists… what?)… nothing. All we know is they’re open to growth, intellectually competent, religious, loving, and committed to doing the right thing. Interestingly enough, you will notice these are the characteristics of the grad at grad of all Jesuit schools (shameless plug by Fr. Willie).

But even in the midst of the mystery, there is so much we can learn from this event. First, the word epiphany comes from the Greek: epi means “upon,” and phainein means “manifestation.” It is, for this reason, you can use the word epiphany (with a little “e”) in your regular, day-to-day conversations. When you are sitting in class and suddenly something you learn or the teacher says sinks in and seems to unlock a clear understanding of the material, you can say you have had an epiphany. When you realize Tua has had three concussions in one season and has not been able to play a whole season without getting injured, you can say you have had an epiphany that maybe he is not the franchise quarterback the Miami Dolphins thought he would be. That being said, Epiphany (with a capital “E”) specifically refers to the feast day.

For us as Catholics, the Epiphany is an opportunity to think about the times in our own personal lives we have had the experience of God manifesting Himself in unexpected ways and places. I remember one time being in a little village in the Dominican Republic, high in the mountains, two hours away from Santiago. It was a Belen Youth Mission trip and we had turned their little chapel into a makeshift medical clinic. Our doctors were tending to the villagers and taking care of their typical medical needs such as high blood pressure, diabetes, infected cuts and scrapes. I was usually not there, spending most of my time at the site where the Belen kids were helping to build a bridge. One morning I happened to be visiting the doctors when they brought in an unconscious woman who had gone into labor. She was severely dehydrated. They cleared a space and began to help deliver the baby. Because there was no one else, they asked me to assist in the delivery. Never in a million years did I expect to be in this situation. I wasn’t a doctor, so deliveries were not in my professional realm and I wasn’t a husband so I was not going to ever be in a delivery room.

As I stood there holding the IV bag, I saw this little baby being delivered. I saw him come out into the world and take his first breath. I heard as he cried, being moved from the comfort of his mother’s womb into what must have seemed to him a strange and cold place. I felt the warmth of his body as the doctors cleaned him up, wrapped him in a towel, and placed him in my arms as they went back to attend to his mother. As I gazed at this newborn child, I began to cry, knowing I had witnessed firsthand the miracle of birth. There was no doubt in my mind this had been an incredible manifestation of God. All I could do was praise God for such an extraordinary gift.

This epiphany was totally unexpected. It was in the most unlikely of places, in the most unlikely of moments, and in the most unlikely of situations. If I had been given the opportunity to write the script of a manifestation of God, it would not have looked like that. My script would have looked too boring, too cliché, too common. This is why we have to be open to the great mystery of God. We can’t be so self-centered that we set the conditions of when and how God manifests Himself to us. We have to allow God to be God and choose the moments and ways He wants to reveal Himself to us. What we have to do is keep our eyes, minds, and hearts open. We have to be ready to receive the epiphany when and where and how He wants.

The beauty of these three (or two, or four, or whatever) mysterious magi, the reason they can truly be considered “wise” is because although they were learned and apparently wealthy and well-traveled, they were open to the great mystery of God. They were able to keep, not simply their coffers, but their hearts and their minds open to the great and unexpected manifestation of God. These guys knew a lot, but they didn’t know everything… only God knows that. And this is the reason why two thousand years later, the Church continues to celebrate the visit of these great men to the Christ child. We celebrate their great epiphany.