Chiesa della Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini
Rome
January 6, 2025
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
The Feast of the Epiphany is inseparably united with the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord, which we have just celebrated. It is the feast of God the Son Incarnate, born of the Virgin Mary at Bethlehem, manifesting Himself to all men, to the ends of the earth. Blessed Ildefonso Schuster comments on today’s feast:
Epiphany means “appearance” or “manifestation,” and among the Eastern Christians had originally the same significance as Christmas in Rome. It was the festival of the eternal Word, clothed in the flesh, revealing himself to mankind. Three different phases of this historical manifestation were especially venerated – viz., the adoration of the Magi at Bethlehem, the changing of the water into wine at Cana, and the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan.[1]
Truly, with the Birth of Our Lord, as foretold through the Prophet Isaiah, “[our] light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon [us].”[2]
The Christmas star led the Wise Men from faraway lands to the manger in which the Christ Child was lying. Thus, God the Son Incarnate, the King of Heaven and Earth, showed Himself – to all peoples – as their light and salvation. The Gospel according to Saint Matthew recounts the mystery of the Epiphany: “When they [the Wise Men] 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.”[3]
In his commentary on today’s feast, Blessed Ildefonso Schuster very clearly underlines the fundamental truth manifested to the Wise Men: “St Matthew’s silence [regarding Saint Joseph] and his insistent precision in giving Mary the title of Mother of Jesus exclusively shows us that, over and above the mere historical recital of facts, we have here also a profoundly dogmatic representation of the incarnate Word being acknowledged and adored on his Mother’s knees by the great ones of the earth.”[4]
Surely Saint Joseph was present, fulfilling with heroic virtue his office of True Spouse of the Virgin Mary and Virginal Father of Jesus, but the account of the Evangelist directs our attention to the mystery of the two natures – human and divine – in the one Divine Person of Our Lord Who is both God the Son and Son of Mary. It is the truth of the Redemptive Incarnation which has been under attack by heretics from the first years of the life of the Church. It continues to be under attack today by those who would render the Faith an ideology and the Church a merely human institution. Today, in a particular way, let us pray for unwavering faith in Our Lord, God and man, Who alone is our salvation, and in His Mystical Body, the Church.
At His Baptism in the Jordan, God the Father gives witness to Our Lord’s divine identity, together with His vocation and mission as Redeemer. As Our Lord came out of the waters of the Jordan River, God the Father’s was heard to declare: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”[5]
Our Lord receives also the testimony of God the Holy Spirit, as Saint Matthew reports: “And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; …”[6]
At the Baptism of Our Lord, we contemplate the wondrous exchange by which God takes our human nature, becoming incarnate in the Womb of the Virgin Mary, to give us, in return, a participation in His divine nature.[7]
We contemplate, with inexpressible joy and gratitude, our identity, by the grace of Baptism, as true sons and daughters of God the Father in God the Son through the outpouring of God the Holy Spirit into our souls. We pray never to lose trust in Our Lord’s promise to remain with us always in the Church and to accomplish in each of us His work of salvation.
At the Wedding Feast at Cana, God the Son Incarnate performs His first miracle, the first sign of His saving mission, on behalf of a newlywed couple. The Blessed Virgin Mary, His true Mother and His first and best disciple, leads the servants at the Wedding Feast – in their moment of great need – to Her Divine Son with the instruction which thereafter reaches all men who are drawn to Our Lord through the mediation of Mary, His Virgin Mother: “Do whatever he tells you.”[8]
God the Son Incarnate manifests Himself at Cana by blessing miraculously the union of marriage and its incomparable fruit, the family, the first cell of all society, the cradle of human life. In Our Lord’s first miracle, we contemplate the immeasurable and unceasing love of God for man, blessing the family as the first place in which He is known, loved, and served. Let us pray especially today for the family, assaulted so fiercely and relentlessly in the world, that Christ the King may reign in the heart of each member of the family, that every home may be indeed “a domestic Church.”[9]
Rejoicing in the Epiphany of Our Lord – in the manifestation of His saving presence and mission in the Church – we reflect on all the ways in which God the Son has shown Himself to us as Our Lord and Savior. Blessed Ildefonso Schuster comments:
The interior life of a Christian is the reproduction of the life of Jesus; thus the object of the Church in placing before us the annual cycle of feasts is not merely to commemorate the great historical epochs in the history of our redemption, but also to reproduce in our souls their spiritual teaching. Hence in the Night Office of this feast of the Epiphany we do not so much adore the Christ who showed himself twenty centuries ago to the Magi, but rather the Christ who has revealed himself to us, too, who are now living. In a word, it is not alone the historical Epiphany which we desire to celebrate, but we associate ourselves also with that other subjective and personal Epiphany which is manifested in the soul of every believer to whom Jesus appears by means of our holy Faith.[10]
Our Lord has made Himself manifest to each of us through Faith and Baptism. He is alive in us for the salvation of our immortal souls and the salvation of the world.
Celebrating the Feast of the Epiphany, we celebrate the reality of God the Son Incarnate in our midst, in our souls, so that we may be always one with Him and may bring Him to all whom we meet for the sake of their eternal salvation. We pray in a particular way today, through the intercession of the Virgin Mother of God and of the Three Wise Men for the conversion of countless souls, of those who do not yet know Our Lord and of those who have known Our Lord but have abandoned Him and His way of salvation. We bless ourselves and our homes with Epiphany Water and we mark our homes with the chalk blessed on this feast, manifesting ourselves to the world as true sons and daughters of God in God the Son Incarnate.
Like the Three Wise Men, we have been led by Christ the Light to the altar of His Sacrifice upon which He makes sacramentally present the gift of His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity as the Heavenly Bread to sustain us on our life pilgrimage to our eternal home with Him. As Christ manifests Himself to us here as the Bread of Life – His true Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity – , so may we faithfully, generously, and purely manifest Him alive in us for the salvation of all men!
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Raymond Leo Cardinal BURKE
[1] “Epifania vuol dire apparizione, e presso gli orientali originariamente aveva il medesimo significato che il Natale a Roma. Era la festa del Verbo Eterno che si rivela all’umanità rivestito di carne. Si veneravano particolarmente tre diverse circostanze di questa rivelazione storica, l’adorazione dei Magi a Bet-lehem, la conversione dell’acqua in vino alle nozze di Cana, ed il battesimo di Gesù nel Giordano.” A. I. Schuster, Liber Sacramentorum. Note storiche e liturgiche sul Messale Romano, Vol. II (Torino-Roma: Casa Editrice Marietti, 1933), p. 193. [Schuster]. English translation: Ildefonso Schuster, The Sacramentary (Liber Sacramentorum): Historical & Liturgical Notes on the Roman Missal, tr. Arthur Levelis-Marke, Vol. I (Parts 1 and 2) (Waterloo [Canada]: Arouca Press, 2020), p. 400. [SchusterEng].
[2] Is 60, 1.
[3] Mt 2, 10-11.
[4] “Però il silenzio di san Matteo [riguardo a San Giuseppe] e la sua costante precisione nell’attribuire esclusivamente a Maria il titolo di Madre di Gesù, ci mostrano che qui, meglio d’una relazione unicamente storica, abbiamo anche una profonda rappresentazione dogmatica dell’umanato Verbo di Dio, riconosciuto ed adorato dai grandi del mondo in grembo a sua Madre.” Schuster, p. 196. English translation: SchusterEng, p. 403.
[5] Mk 1, 11; Lk 3, 22. Cf. Mt 3, 17.
[6] Mt 3, 16. Cf. Mk 1, 10, and Lk 3, 21-22.
[7] Cf. Columba Marmion, Le Christ dans Ses Mystères. Conférences Spirituelles (Montréal: Librairie Granger Frères Limitée, 1946), p. 126.
[8] Jn 2, 5.
[9] “Ecclesia domestica.” Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 1656 and 2204.
[10] “La vita interiore del Cristiano è una riproduzione della vita di Gesù; onde lo scopo della Chiesa nel proporci l’annuo ciclo festivo, non è quello semplicemente di commemorare le grandi epoche storiche dell’umana Redenzione, ma sì ancora di riprodurne il contenuto spirituale nelle anime nostre. Perciò nell’ufficio notturno di quest’oggi, non cantiamo già che il Cristo venti secoli fa è apparso ai Magi, ma sì bene che Egli si è rivelato anche a noi.
In una parola, non è la semplice Epifania storica che vogliamo celebrare, ma vi associamo altresì quell’altra soggettiva che si verifica in ogni credente, cui Gesù appare per mezzo della santa Fede.” Schuster, p. 197. English translation: SchusterEng, p. 404.