Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
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The epiphanies in our life
Lord God of heaven and earth, you revealed your only Son to every nation by the guidance of a star. Fill us with the light of Christ. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen
Today is one of my favorite feasts of the year, the Feast of Epiphany.
Epiphany from a Greek word means "intense appearance." "Phanein" means "to appear" in Greek and "epi," which means "on top of," is a way of intensifying. So "epiphanein" means something that has appeared but in a very intense way, revealing something of enormous significance.
For the wise men, it was first the star, but it wasn’t the star that was the real epiphany. They went looking for a king and they found this little child. That was the really extraordinary appearance. That was Epiphany.
This feast today is meant to signal to us that we should be attentive in a similar way to these moments of breakthrough in our life. When something shows itself so powerfully, that it speaks to us of God, to notice moments of intense manifestation.
I am going to give 4 some examples from my own life to show what I mean by this epiphany.
In 2010, Granada, Spain, it was the year that I finished my theological studies, in my college (Jesuits) we had a good and huge library and one day I found a book called “The Genesee Diary by Henri Nouwen. He talks about his seven months that he spent living as a monk at the Abbey of the Genesee in upstate New York in 1974. How he encounters the true God, the true self in the silence, in the daily life of the monastery.
This book has impacted me so much, and always in different moments of my life, this book comes to mind. That was more than just another book. For me it was an epiphany. His experience was a hyper intense manifestation of True God.
Last year, for our general chapter, we went to South Africa, and we had a chance to visit Holy cross school, Our School in Makhanda. The first meeting with our students and staff was in the chapel for a Morning Prayer. I remember when we entered the chapel, the children were singing with those beautiful voices with such great harmony and seeing their faces, smiles, joy, and dancing was something so unique and wonderful, this is the fruit of all the work, mission that we are doing there. That was a manifestation of good at such an extraordinarily intense level.
In 2016, I went to visit the Holy Land. There, everything is breathtaking. It is unbelievable, everything fascinates. but what struck me the most was crossing the Sea of Galilee. From Ginosar (Northeast Israel, before Capernaum) to Tiberias. When we were crossing, the guide told us all the Bible stories, parables that had happened there. So unique moment, listening to all that, contemplating the sea, the sunset, seagulls flying around. For me, this was an epiphany, that was an extraordinary manifestation. That experience never left me. To this day it affects me. It was an epiphany. It was a showing forth of something of great intensity.
The last one, back to last year in South Africa. I remember our trip from Hermanus to Makhanda. It was still dark, during our trip in the van, we were listening to Lusanda Spiritual Group, an amazing, beautiful gospel music in Xhosa. We saw the Sunrise through the valley and mountains. It is a stunningly beautiful thing. This moment was so special, so unique.
But for me, it was more than that. It was an epiphany. It was an intensely powerful manifestation of something extraordinary. It was a showing forth of such splendor and such transcendent beauty.
The point is: When you got a heightened experience of the truth, that was with Henri Nouwen. When you have a heightened experience of the good, that is what happened to me in Holy Cross School. When you got a heightened experience of the beautiful, that was crossing the galilee sea and in our trip from Hermanus to Makhanda. When that happens to you, you are placed in the presence of the source of all truth, all goodness, and all beauty.
Those epiphanies are those moments when it is as though the light that is behind all things suddenly shines forth with a particular radiance.
We all have these experiences too and we cannot control them. None of those experiences that I just described is something that I could control, or I could make happen again. It was like grace.
The Magi had Epiphania. The first was seeing the star but the second was seeing the child. They had spent days, months, years surveying the night sky. looking for signs.
That is a large part of the spiritual life, that’s why we attending Mass every day, pray the daily offices every day, doing Lectio Divina, retreats, spiritual readings, spiritual direction etc...
What are we doing when we pray or do all this? We are being attentive. We are looking.
The magi, once they saw the great star, they moved; they acted. Once the Lord breaks through into your life, savor that moment and follow it to the source of what is true, good, and beautiful, this is the best way to respond to an epiphany. Happy Feast Day!
