
Sunday 05/01/2025
Since the nativity we have been blessed with celebration after celebration and rightly so. We have celebrated the birth of the Messiah: the choice of God to share fully in our lives and give us the opportunity to embrace life in its fullness. Wonderfully we continue to celebrate with the feast of the Epiphany which reminds us that God did not just come to us who welcome him so lovingly, with hope and faith but came for every single person who has existed, exists and will ever exist. Isn’t that just the kind of God we would want as a friend and saviour!!
The birth of the Saviour was the realisation of long-awaited hope and we are on the verge of celebrating a Jubilee of HOPE and, as the Epiphany proclaims, it is a hope offered to everyone in the world. It was HOPE that inspired the magi, the wise men from the east, to travel across an unmerciful desert, with all its dangers, to greet the new born king, not just for the Jews but for us all – a king that loving and hope filled souls would confidently embrace with all their hearts. This is the day, this is the season, this is the year that invites us to experience many epiphanies to be celebrated with poetry and song:
The Magi Malcolm Guite It might have been just someone else's story; some chosen people receive a special king, we leave them to their own peculiar glory, we don't belong, it doesn't mean a thing. But when these three arrive they bring us with them, gentiles like us, their wisdom might be ours; a steady step that finds an inner rhythm, a pilgrim's eye that sees beyond the stars. They did not know his name but still they sought him they came from otherwhere but still they found; in palaces they found those who sold and bought him, but in the filthy stable, hallowed ground. Their courage gives our questing hearts a voice to seek, to find, to worship, to rejoice.
Epiphany" by Macrina Wiederkehr, OSB
Creator of the Stars, God of Epiphanies, You are the Great Star. You have marked my path with light. You have filled my sky with stars, naming each star, guiding it until it shines into my heart,
awakening me to deeper seeing, new revelations and brighter epiphanies. O Infinite Star Giver, I now ask for wisdom and courage to follow these stars for their names are many and my heart is fearful. They shine on me wherever I go: The Star of Hope The Star of Mercy and Compassion The Star of Justice and Peace The Star of Tenderness and Love The Star of Suffering The Star of Joy.
And every time I feel the shine, I am called to follow it, to sing it, to live it all the way to the cross and beyond. O Creator of the Stars, you have become within me an unending Epiphany.
A Blessing
May God the Father,
who led the Wise Men by a star to find the Christ,
lead us on our pilgrimage to find the Lord.
May God the Son,
who transformed the ordinary into the extraordinary
make of us a new creation.
May God the Holy Spirit fill us with love, light and joy
and may the Presence and blessing of God Almighty,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
be with us and all those we love and pray for,
today and always. Amen.
by Fr. Thomas O'BRIEN a.a
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