'There were three wise men from afar directed by a glorious star.' Sunday Reflections, The Epiphany

 

Adoration of the Magi

Blessed Fra Angelico [Web Gallery of Art]

In most countries where English is widely used The Epiphany is celebrated on this Sunday, 7 January 2024. However, in Ireland, where it is a holy day of obligation, the feast is observed on its traditional date, 6 January, Saturday.

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland)

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Matthew 2:1-12 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India)

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he enquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:

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

Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.” After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Adoration of the Magi

Murillo [Web Gallery of Art]

I have used the story below quite a few times for the feast of the Epiphany. It is one that continues to move me, probably for two reasons. One is that I spent most of my life as a priest in the Philippines. The other is that the nurse from the Philippines proclaiming the Gospel was totally unaware that she was doing so - as are so many 'ordinary' Catholics and other Christians.

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 1999 as I recall, initially at the invitation of the Irish government to work in government hospitals. Very quickly large numbers of Filipino nurses and carers came to Ireland and are now in hospitals and nursing homes in every part of the country.  For many Irish people when they hear the Philippines mentioned what first comes to their mind is nurses.

One of the nurses interviewed told how many Filipinos offered to work on Christmas Day. They knew that in Ireland the family celebration of Christmas is on the 25th and so their Irish companions could be with their families. In the Philippines the culmination of the feast for families is on the night of the 24th after Mass. This also helped to dull their 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. She spoke very highly of her employers, of her working conditions and of her accommodation, which she contrasted with that of the Holy Family on the first Christmas night. She spoke of Jesus, Mary and Joseph in their situation as if they were members of her own family, as in a very deep sense they are, and as we are of the Holy Family.

Here was a young woman from the East powerfully proclaiming, without being aware of it, that the Word became flesh and dwelt 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 dwelt 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 worship him. 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 worship him?

Vidimus stellam

St Peter's Basilica, Rome, Epiphany 2020

Antiphona ad Communionem  Communion Antiphon Cf Matthew 2:2

Vidimus stellam eius in Oriente,

et venimus cum muneribus adorare Dominum.

We have seen his star in the East,

and have come with gifts to adore the Lord.

Traditional Latin Mass

The Epiphany of Our Lord

The complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 01-06-2024 if necessary).

Lesson: Isaiah 60:1-6. Gospel: Matthew 2:1-12.  

The Enniscorthy Carol (The Wexford Carol)

Sung by Aileen Lambert in St Aidan's Cathedral, Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Ireland.

In recent decades this very old Irish Christmas carol has become better known not only in Ireland but internationally. I included a different version last week.  The song tells the whole Christmas story from the birth of Jesus up to the visit of the Magi. I used a different version of the carol last week. Aileen Lambert's sings in a style characteristic of folk singing in Ireland.

Feast of the Holy Family, Year B; Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God, Year B

 

St Joseph and the Christ Child

El Greco [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland)

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Luke 2:22-40 [or 22, 39-40] (English Standard Version Anglicised: India)

And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they [the parents of Jesus] brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord [(as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”) and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, “a pair of turtle-doves, or two young pigeons”. Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the Law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said,

“Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace,
    according to your word;

    for my eyes have seen your salvation
    that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
    a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
    and for glory to your people Israel.”

And his father and his mother marvelled at what was said about him. And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”

And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshipping with fasting and prayer night and day. And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.] 

And when they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favour of God was upon him.

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

The Census at Bethlehem

Pieter Bruegel the Elder [Web Gallery of Art]

My late father visited me in the Philippines for six weeks in 1981, arriving on 16 February, one day before St John Paul II made his first visit as Pope. My Dad spent most of the time with me in a small seminary for diocesan seminarians that I was in charge of for two years in Tangub City, Misamis Occidental. Before that I had spent less than three months as parish priest of Tangub, the last Columban priest to hold that position.

One evening a family invited my father and myself to visit their home. We went with some other parishioners. When we were walking home slowly someone commented that my father and I were walking in exactly the same way, with our hands behind our backs. I had never been conscious of that before. I recalled Sunday mornings when I was a child when my father would take my brother and myself for a walk in the Phoenix Park, the largest enclosed park in any capital city in Europe, which was about ten minutes' walk from where we lived. Our walks in the Park were usually more of an amble or a mosey rather than the determined 'keep fit' type of walk that so many engage in today.

Phoenix Park, Dublin

[Wikipedia; photo]

But my friend's comment in Tangub City made me realise that I had unconsciously picked up this kind of ambling from my Dad.

I learned a lot more from him without being aware of it. When my brother Paddy, who is three years younger than me, was very young Dad would take me to Sunday Mass while Mam stayed at home with the baby and went to a later Mass. I gradually became aware that my father went to an early Mass every day of his working life before going to work on construction sites. (Like St Joseph he was a carpenter and was named John Joseph.) I noticed that after Mass he prepared my mother's breakfast, bringing it to her in bed, and I often saw him during winter cleaning the fireplace, taking away the ashes from the previous day's fire, and preparing it for the fire that would be lit later in the day. All of this before going to work.

I saw how he deeply respected my mother, and everyone else he met, most especially the men who worked under him on construction sites. I worked with him on one of those during the summer of 1967 when I was a subdeacon. I was ordained the following December. I saw at first hand what I already knew. He never swore, never raised his voice, was a real mentor to young workers, and led by example. He was a quiet man, with a sense of responsibility that he carried lightly and a gentle sense of humour.

The Census at Bethlehem (detail)

Pieter Bruegel the Elder [Web Gallery of Art]

In a number of places Pope Benedict XVI reminds us that St Joseph is the legal father of Jesus: Therefore let us venerate the legal father of Jesus (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 532), because the new man is outlined in him, who looks with trust and courage to the future. He does not follow his own plans but entrusts himself without reserve to the infinite mercy of the One who will fulfil the prophecies and open the time of salvation. This is because he named Jesus, as the angel had instructed him in Matthew 1:21 - She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. On 19 March the Church celebrates the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Today's gospel refers to Joseph and Mary as his father and mother. Jesus in his humanity learned from St Joseph how to behave as a boy and as an adolescent. He learned  the trade of a carpenter from St Joseph. Most likely he walked like St Joseph. And we can be sure that St Joseph took him to the synagogue on the sabbath. In today's gospel St Joseph and Mary take the infant Jesus to the Temple to present him to the Lord. They took him again to the Temple when he was twelve. These two events are marked in the fourth and fifth Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary.

It was Joseph as husband of Mary who led the pregnant Mary to Bethlehem as shown in Pieter Bruegel the Elder's painting above, The Census at Bethlehem. The artist shows the Holy Family coming into a 16th-century Netherlands village in the depths of winter, nobody noticing them. This shows on the one hand that He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him (John 1:10-11). It shows on the other hand that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). God who became Man threw in his lot with us. He came into our townland, our village, our town, our city. The villagers in Bruegel's painting haven't rejected Jesus but they haven't yet recognised him.

St Joseph is central to all of this. He exemplifies the vocation of the husband and its consequence for most husbands, the vocation of the father, to an extent that no one else has done. He was the man whom Mary honoured as her husband and whom Jesus called Abba/Dad / Papa / Tatay.

Dad

Taken a week before his sudden death on 11 August 1987

Traditional Latin Mass

Sunday Within the Octave of the Nativity of Our Lord

The complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 12-31-2023, if necessary).

Epistle: Galatians 4:1-7. Gospel: Luke 2 1:33-40.

Presentation in the Temple

Rembrandt [Web Gallery of Art]

Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel (Luke 2:24; Gospel).

Monday 1 January 2024

Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God

The Octave Day of the Nativity of the Lord

This is a Holyday of Obligation in the Philippines, the USA and some other countries.

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland)

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Luke 2:16-21 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India)

The shepherds went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

Adoration of the Shepherds

Murillo, painted 1650-55 [Web Gallery of Art]

Traditional Latin Mass

The Octave Day of the Nativity of the Lord

The complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 01-01-2023, if necessary).

Epistle: Titus 2:11-15. Gospel: Luke 2:21.

And at the end of eight days , when he was circumsised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

The Wexford Carol

Sung by Nancy Griffith with The Chieftains

This traditional Irish carol originated in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Ireland.

A Happy New Year!