'And they knelt down and paid him homage.' Sunday Reflections. The Epiphany

The Adoration of the Magi, Velázquez, 1619

Museo del Prado, Madrid [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings for the Solemnity of the Epiphany

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) 

The readings above are used both at the Vigil Mass and at the Mass during the Day. Each Mass has its own set of prayers and antiphons.

In countries where the Epiphany is observed as a Holyday of Obligation on 6 January, eg, Ireland, the Mass of the Second Sunday after the Nativity is celebrated. The same readings are used in Years A, B, C:

Readings (Jerusalem Bible)

Alleluia and Gospel for the Epiphany

Alleluia, alleluia!

Vidimus stellam eius in Oriente,

We have seen his star in the East,

et venimus cum muneribus adorare Dominum.

and have come with gifts to adore the Lord.

Alleluia, alleluia!

The same text (cf. Matthew 2:2), without 'Alleluia, alleluia,' is used as the Communion Antiphon at the Mass during the Day.

Gospel Matthew 2:1-12 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada)

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem,  asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.”  When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:

‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
    are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
    who is to shepherd my people Israel.’”

Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared.  Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

Adoration of the Magi (detail), Filippino Lipi, 1496

Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence [Web Gallery of Art]

While based in Britain from 2000 till 2002 I was able to spend Christmas with my brother and his family in Dublin, a short flight from England, in 2000 and 2001. During the holiday in 2001 I saw a documentary on RTÉ, Ireland's national broadcasting service, about Filipino nurses in Ireland. These began to arrive in 2000, initially at the invitation of the Irish government to work in government hospitals. Very quickly there was an 'invasion' of Filipino nurses and carers, now to be found in hospitals and nursing homes in every part of the country.

One of the nurses interviewed told how many Filipinos, knowing that the Irish celebrate Christmas on the 25th, unlike the Philippines where the culmination of the feast is on the night of the 24th, offered to work on Christmas Day so that their Irish companions could be with their families. This also helped to dull the pain of being away from their own families.

I was moved to tears at the testimony of one nurse, from Mindanao as I recall, speaking about her job and her first Christmas in Ireland in 2000. She spoke very highly of her employers, of her working conditions and of her accommodation, which she compared with that of the Holy Family on the first Christmas night. She spoke of Jesus, Mary and Joseph in this situation as if they were members of her own family, as in a very deep sense they are, or we of their family.

Here was a young woman from the East powerfully proclaiming, without being aware of it, that the Word became flesh and lived among us. The fact that she wasn't aware of it, that she was speaking about her 'next door neighbours', made her proclamation of faith all the more powerful. She would have known many in her own place, and very likely knew from her own experience, something of what Joseph and Mary went through in Bethlehem. Her faith in the Word who became flesh and lived among us wasn't something in her head but part of her very being.

For much of the last century thousands of Catholic priests, religious Sisters and Brothers left Europe and North America to preach and live the Gospel in the nations of Africa, Asia and South America. Some of the countries and regions from which they left, eg, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Quebec, have to a great extent lost or even rejected the Catholic Christian faith. The Jewish people had, in faith, awaited the coming of the Messiah for many centuries. But when He came it was uneducated shepherds who first recognised him and later Simeon and Anna, two devout and elderly Jews who spent lengthy periods in prayer in the Temple.

Today's feast highlights wise men from the east, not 'believers' in the Jewish sense, led by God's special grace to Bethlehem to bring gifts in response to that grace, explaining, We . . . have come to pay him homage.They reveal to us that God calls people from every part of the world to do the same and to bring others with them.

Will nurses from the Philippines and from Kerala in India, migrants from Korea and Vietnam, from the east, bring the gift of faith in Jesus Christ once again to the many people in Western Europe and North America who no longer know him in any real sense? Will they by the lives they lead as working immigrants gently invite those in the West who have lost the precious gift of our Catholic Christian faith to once again come to pay him homage?

An arrangement by John Rutter of the old carol

'They saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage.' Sunday Reflections, Epiphany

Adoration of the Magi, Murillo, 1655-60 [Web Gallery of Art]

THE EPIPHANY OF THE LORD

In countries where this is a holyday of obligation, eg, Ireland, the solemnity is celebrated on the traditional date, 6 January. Where it is not a holyday of obligation, eg, the Philippines, it is observed on this Sunday.

The Epiphany has two different Mass formularies, At the Vigil Mass, celebrated on Saturday evening, and At the Mass during the Day. While the prayers and chants are different, the same readings are used at both Masses.

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)                                  

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

SECOND SUNDAY AFTER THE NATIVITY (Years A, B, C)

Readings (Jerusalem Bible) 

THE EPIPHANY OF THE LORD

Gospel Matthew 2:1-12 (New RevisedStandard Version, Catholic Edition, Canada) 

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born.  They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:

 ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
    are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
    who is to shepherd my people Israel.’”

Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

The Adoration of the Magi, Velásquez, 1619

When I entered St Columban's seminary in Ireland in 1961 the vast majority of Catholic missionaries were Westerners. We Columbans were predominantly Irish, with a good number of Americans, Australians, New Zealanders and a few from England and Scotland. There were many seminaries in Ireland preparing men to be priests overseas. And the vast majority of missionaries were priests and religious. That was before Vatican II.

The Council, the first to have a significant number of bishops from outside the Western world, called on the Church in each country to be a sending and receiving Church. 

When I came to the Philippines in 1971 most of the bishops and priests in Mindanao were foreign missionaries. Now the Philippine hierarchy is totally Filipino and a number of the bishops have themselves worked overseas as missionaries. The first bishop in the history of Mongolia is a Filipino, Bishop Wenceslao Padilla CICM. Most of the missionaries there are Asians and Africans and have included lay missionaries from Japan, a country where fewer than one in 200 is a Catholic.

This new reality in the Church was unimaginable to me when I joined the Columbans. I could not foresee that in less than 50 years there would be priests from countries such as India and Nigeria working in my native Dublin, including a Nigerian ordained for the Archdiocese.

The Solemnity of the Epiphany celebrates the fact that Jesus came into the world for everyone. I'm not sure how the convention developed, but many of the great artists, such as Murillo and Velásquez (above) have depicted one of the Wise Men / Kings as a black African, representing the peoples outside of Europe.

Three or four years ago when I was celebrating Sunday Mass in St Brigid's, Blanchardstown, a village outside of Dublin when I was a child but now a built-up area with many immigrants and the place I go home to in Ireland, I saw a young family arrive late. I smiled inwardly when I saw that they were Filipinos. But I felt a great sense of joy when I saw them come right up to the front pew, the father carrying his infant. I felt a surge of hope that immigrant Catholics from the Philippines, India, Nigeria, Poland and other countries would bring a renewal of Christian faith to an Ireland that has to a great extent lost that faith after 1,500 years.

One element of the Christian faith that has remained very strong in Ireland is generosity, especially to people in countries devastated by wars and natural calamities such as Supertyphoon Haiyan/Yolanda in the Philippines in November, as the video above shows. The Filipinos who have migrated to Ireland in the last 14 years or so have been a tremendous gift from God to the Irish people. Nurses and caregivers from the Philippines and Kerala, India, in particular, have been the 'Wise Men and Women from the East' whose 'gold, frankincense and myrrh' is their strong Catholic faith and their professional competence with genuine care for those they are looking after. Filipino nurses held a birthday party for a friend of mine who was in a coma in hospital in Dublin just a few months before she died, something that was of enormous help to her husband and adult sons. A Filipino nurse who works in a large government hospital in Dublin used to visit a gravely ill Columban priest there  when she was off-duty - he wasn't one of her patients - because he had spent most of his life in the Philippines and was a friend of mine. She texted me when he died.

The Magi, when they saw the child with Mary his mother, they knelt down and paid him homage. Today's feast invites us to see Mary and her Child present among immigrants to our native countries and invites us to pay homage to that Child in our celebrations of the Holy Mass, in our daily prayer and through the joyful way we try to live our Christian faith, with a profound sense of gratitude for the priceless gift that it is.

Antiphona at introitum

Ecce advenit

Dominator Dominus:

et regnum in manu ejus, 
et potestas, et imperium.

Psalm 71 [72]:1) Deus, judicium tuum regi da:

et justitiam tuam Filio regis.

Gloria Patri . . .

Entrance Antiphon

Behold, the Lord,

the Mighty One, has come,

And kingship is in his grasp,

And power and dominion.

Psalm 71 [72]:1) Give the king your justice, O God,
    and your righteousness to a king’s son.

Glory . . .

The words in italics are sung when the longer form of the Entrance Antiphon is used, as it is in the Extraordinary Form of the Mass.

The Vatican Council's Sacrosantum Concilium tells us in No 36.1 that the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites. The same document says in No 116, The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services.

Sacrosanctum Concilium also brought in a much wider use of the mother tongue in the liturgy. Here is a setting of the Kyrie (the only part of the Latin Mass in Greek), Gloria  and Sanctus-Benedictus in Japanese by Saburo Takada (1913-2000).