Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord 5 January 2025

Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord 5 January 2025

The search for happiness and reassurance of faith

Saint Augustine (354-430) once claimed that what all people desire is nothing other than happiness. He defined happiness as a state of life that lacks nothing.

The Feast of Epiphany – or as the people call it – the Feast of the Three Kings is a response to our deepest longings.
It is a strange story that Matthew tells us today. Magi come from the East to worship the newly born King of the Jews in Bethlehem. Magi are wise men who represent the knowledge of the East. With this story, Matthew wants to show that this Jesus of Nazareth embodies the wisdom of East and West. He fulfills the longing of the people of the Orient for a wisdom that shows us how to succeed in our lives.

But all searching for the divine God also means giving up what is one's own, what is mine, but above all, giving up my ideas about God, even losing them. He who does not lose "God" will never find him.

Therefore, the wise men followed the star to Bethlehem. There, they prostrated themselves before this child in a completely unroyal place.

They come to give, and in their gifts they give themselves: in gold their wealth, but also all their ideas of God; in frankincense their honour and status, but also all veneration; in myrrh the bitterness and all hopes of healing, but also their hope of eternal life.
The child will do this later on: it gives itself. Jesus – the man for others. This king keeps nothing for himself because he is completely carefree and therefore completely free.

And that is why we lose nothing when we give ourselves to Him. Divine love, whose very nature is to give itself, keeps nothing for itself. It will always give us ourselves, transformed and new.

The Church speaks of the Epiphany of the Lord. Epiphany in Bethlehem. Christ reveals himself to people. Changes them. Gives salvation.

That God has "appeared" to his creatures. He allows himself to be recognized by them. That he says: I am the Father not of some, but of all. I do not abandon my world, even if it may sometimes seem that way.
The celebration of the Epiphany must be a celebration of reassurance for us who believe. That our faith gains new security. That we can live our faith as a matter of course and talk about it. That we are therefore experienced as people of confidence and hope.

Saint Augustine famously said that we are restless until we rest in God and the discovery of his life is that true happiness can only be found in God. Each one of us has been formed in the image and likeness of our Triune God - that’s what we are.

That’s true epiphany.

Fr Joe P.P