6 JANUARY – THE EPIPHANY OF OUR LORD

 

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Feast of the Epiphany is the continuation of the mystery of Christmas, but it appears on the Calendar of the Church with its own special character. Its very name, which signifies Manifestation, implies that it celebrates the apparition of God to His creatures.

For several centuries the Nativity of our Lord was kept on this day, and when in the year 376 the decree of the Holy See obliged all Churches to keep the Nativity on the 25th December, as Rome did — the Sixth of January was not robbed of all its ancient glory. It was still to be called the Epiphany, and the Baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ was also commemorated on this same Feast, which Tradition had marked as the day on which that Baptism took place.

The Greek Church gives this Feast the venerable and mysterious name of Theophania, which is of such frequent recurrence in the early Fathers as signifying a divine Apparition. We find this name applied to this Feast by Eusebius, Saint Gregory Nazianzum and Saint Isidore of Pelusium. In the liturgical books of the Melchite Church the Feast goes under no other name. The Orientals call this solemnity also the holy Lights, on account of its being the day on which Baptism was administered (for, as we have just mentioned, our Lord was baptised on this same day.) Baptism is called by the holy Fathers Illumination, and they who received it Illuminated. Lastly, this Feast is called in many countries King’s Feast: it is, of course, an allusion to the Magi whose journey to Bethlehem is so continually mentioned in today’s Office.

The Epiphany shares with the Feasts of Christmas, Easter, Ascension and Pentecost the honour of being called, in the Canon of the Mass, a Day most holy. It is also one of the cardinal Feasts, that is, one of those on which the arrangement of the Christian Year is based for, as we have Sundays after Easter, and Sundays after Pentecost, so also we count six Sundays after the Epiphany.

The Epiphany is indeed a great Feast, and the joy caused us by the birth of our Jesus must be renewed on it for, as though it were a second Christmas Day, it shows us our Incarnate God in a new light. It leaves us all the sweetness of the dear Babe of Bethlehem who has appeared to us already in love. But to this it adds its own grand manifestation of the divinity of our Jesus. At Christmas it was a few shepherds that were invited by the Angels to go and recognise THE WORD MADE FLESH. But now, at the Epiphany, the voice of God Himself calls the whole world to adore this Jesus and hear Him.

The mystery of the Epiphany brings on us three magnificent rays of the Sun of Justice, our Saviour. In the calendar of pagan Rome this sixth day of January was devoted to the celebration of a triple triumph of Augustus, the founder of the Roman Empire: but when Jesus, our Prince of peace, whose empire knows no limits, had secured victory to His Church by the blood of the Martyrs — then did this His Church decree that a triple triumph of the Immortal King should be substituted in the Christian Calendar for those other three triumphs which had been won by the adopted son of Caesar.

The Sixth of January, therefore, restored the celebration of our Lord’s birth to the Twenty-Fifth of December. But in return there were united in the one same Epiphany three manifestations of Jesus’ glory: the mystery of the Magi coming from the East under the guidance of a star and adoring the Infant of Bethlehem as the divine King; the mystery of the Baptism of Christ who, while standing in the waters of the Jordan, was proclaimed by the Eternal Father as Son of God, and thirdly, the mystery of the divine power of this same Jesus, when He changed the water into wine at the marriage feast of Cana.

But did these three Mysteries really take place on this day? Is the Sixth of January the real anniversary of these great events? As the chief object of this work is to assist the devotion of the Faithful, we purposely avoid everything which would savour of critical discussion, and with regard to the present question we think it enough to state that Baronius, Suarez, Theophilus Raynaldus, Honorius De Sancta-Maria, Cardinal Gotti, Sandini, Benedict XIV and an almost endless list of other writers assert that the Adoration of the Magi happened on. this very day.

That the Baptism of our Lord, also, happened on the Sixth of January, is admitted by the severest historical critics, even by Tillemont himself, and has been denied by only two or three. The precise day of the miracle at the marriage feast of Cana is far from being as certain as the other two mysteries, though it is impossible to prove that the Sixth of January was not the day. For us the children of the Church it is sufficient that our Holy Mother has assigned the commemoration of these three manifestations for this Feast. We need nothing more to make us rejoice in the triple triumph of the Son of Mary.

If we now come to consider these three mysteries of our Feast separately, we will find that the Church of Rome in her Office and Mass of today is more intent on the Adoration of the Magi than on the other two. The two great Doctors of the Apostolic See, Saint Leo and Saint Gregory in their Homilies for this Feast take it as the almost exclusive object of their preaching. though together with Saint Augustine, Saint Paulinus of Nola, Saint Maximus of Turin, Saint Peter Chrysologus, Saint Hilary of Arles and Saint Isidore of Seville, they acknowledge the three mysteries of today’s Solemnity. That the mystery of the Vocation of the Gentiles should be made thus prominent by the Church of Rome is not to be wondered at for, by that heavenly vocation which in the three Magi called all nations to the admirable light of Faith, Rome, which till then had been the head of the Gentile world, was made the head of the Christian Church and of the whole human race.

The Greek Church makes no special mention in her Office of today of the Adoration of the Magi, for she unites it with the mystery of our Saviour’s birth in her celebration of Christmas Day. The Baptism of Christ absorbs all her thoughts and praises on the solemnity of the Epiphany.

In the Latin Church, this second mystery of our Feast is celebrated unitedly with the other two, on the Sixth of January, and mention is made of it several times in the Office. But as the coming of the Magi to the crib of our new-born King absorbs the attention of Christian Rome on this day, the mystery of the sanctification of the waters was to be commemorated on a day apart. The day chosen by the Western Church for paying special honour to the Baptism of our Saviour is the Octave of the Epiphany.

The third mystery of the Epiphany being also somewhat kept in the shade by the prominence given to the first (though allusion is several times made to it in the Office of the Feast) a special day has been appointed for its due celebration, and that day is the second Sunday after the Epiphany.

Several Churches have appended to the Mystery of changing the water into wine that of the multiplication of the loaves, which certainly bears some analogy with it, and was a manifestation of our Saviour’s divine power. But while tolerating the custom in the Ambrosian and Mozarabic rites, the Roman Church has never adopted it in order not to interfere with the sacredness of the triple triumph of our Lord which the Sixth of January was intended to commemorate as also, because Saint John tells us in his Gospel, that the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves happened when the Feast of the Pasch was at hand (John vi. 4) which, therefore, could not have any connection with the season of the year when the Epiphany is kept.

We propose to treat of the three mysteries, united in this great Solemnity, in the following order. Today, we will unite with the Church in honouring all three. During the Octave we will contemplate the Mystery of the Magi coming to Bethlehem. We will celebrate the Baptism of our Saviour on the Octave Day, and we will venerate the Mystery of the Marriage of Cana on the Second Sunday after the Epiphany, which is the day appropriately chosen by the Church for the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Jesus.

Let us, then, open our hearts to the joy of this grand day, and on this Feast of the Theophany, of the Holy Lights, of the Three Kings, let us look with love at the dazzling beauty of our Divine Sun who, as the Psalmist expresses it (Psalm xviii. 6) runs His course as a Giant, and pours out upon us floods of a welcome and yet most vivid light. The shepherds who were called by the Angels to be the first worshippers have been joined by the Prince of Martyrs, the Beloved Disciple, the dear troop of Innocents, our glorious Thomas of Canterbury, and Sylvester the Patriarch of Peace. And now, today, these Saints open their ranks to let the Kings of the East come to the babe in his crib, bearing with them the prayers and adorations of the whole human race. The humble stable is too little for such a gathering as this, and Bethlehem seems to be worth all the world besides. Mary, the Throne of the divine Wisdom, welcomes all the members of this court with her gracious smile of Mother and Queen. She offers her Son to man for his adoration, and to God, that He may be well pleased. God manifests Himself to men because he is great, but He manifests Himself by Mary, because He is full of mercy.

The great Day which now brings us to the crib of our Prince of Peace has been marked by two great events of the first ages of the Church. It was on the Sixth of January in the year 361 and Julian (who, in heart, was already an apostate,) happened to be at Vienne in Gaul. He was soon to ascend the imperial throne which would be left vacant by the death of Constantius, and he felt the need he had of the support of that Christian Church in which it is said he had received the order of Lector and which, nevertheless, he was preparing to attack with all the cunning and cruelty of a tiger. Like Herod, he too would fain go, on this Feast of the Epiphany and adore the new-born King. His panegyrist Ammianus Marcellinus tells us that this crowned hilosopher who had been seen, just before, coming out of the pagan temple where he had been consulting the soothsayers, made his way through the porticoes of the Church and, standing in the midst of the faithful people, offered to the God of the Christians his sacrilegious homage.

Eleven years later, in the year 372, another Emperor found his way into the Church on the same Feast of the Epiphany. It was Valens, a Christian, like Julian, by baptism, but a persecutor in the name of Arianism of that same Church which Julian persecuted in the name of his vain philosophy and still vainer gods. As Julian felt himself necessitated by motives of worldly policy to bow down on this day before the divinity of the Galilean, so on this same day the holy courage of a saintly Bishop made Valens prostrate himself at the feet of Jesus the King of kings.

Saint Basil had just then had his famous interview with the Prefect Modestus in which his episcopal intrepidity had defeated all the might of earthly power. Valens had come to Caesarea and, with his soul defiled with the Arian heresy, he entered the Basilica when the Bishop was celebrating, with his people, the glorious Theophany. Let us listen to Saint Gregory Nazianzum, thus describing the scene with his usual eloquence:

“The Emperor entered the Church. The chanting of the psalms echoed through the holy place like the rumbling of thunder. The people, like a waving sea, filled the house of God. Such was the order and pomp in and about the sanctuary that it looked more like Heaven than Earth. Basil himself stood erect before the people as the Scripture describes Samuel —his body and eyes and soul motionless as though nothing strange had taken place and, if I may say so, his whole being was fastened to his God and the holy Altar. The sacred ministers who surrounded the Pontiff were in deep recollectedness and reverence. The Emperor heard and saw all this. He had never before witnessed a spectacle so imposing. He was overpowered. His head grew dizzy, and darkness veiled his eyes.”

Jesus, the King of Ages, the Son of God and the Son of Mary had conquered. Valens was disarmed. His resolution of using violence against the holy Bishop was gone, and if heresy kept him from at once adoring the Word consubstantial to tho Father, he, at least, united his exterior worship with that which Basil’s flock was paying to the Incarnate God. When the Offertory came, he advanced towards the sanctuary and presented his gifts to Christ in the person of his holy priest. The fear lest Basil might refuse to accept them took such possession of the Emperor that had not the sacred ministers supported him, he would have fallen at the foot of the Altar. Thus has the Kingship of our new-born Saviour been acknowledged by the great ones of this world.

The Royal Psalmist had sung this prophecy — the Kings of the Earth will serve Him, and His enemies will lick the ground under His feet (Psalm lxxi. 9, 11). The race of Emperors like Julian and Valens was to be followed by Monarchs who would bend their knee before this Babe of Bethlehem and offer Him the homage of orthodox faith and devoted hearts. Theodosius, Charlemagne, our own Alfred the Great and Edward the Confessor, Stephen of Hungary, Emperor Henry II, Ferdinand of Castile, Louis IX of France, are examples of Kings who had a special devotion to the Feast of the Epiphany. Their ambition was to go, in company with the Magi, to the feet of the Divine Infant and offer Him their gifts. At the English Court the custom is still retained, and the reigning Sovereign offers an ingot of gold as a tribute of homage to Jesus the King of kings: the ingot is afterwards redeemed by a certain sum of money.

But this custom of imitating the Three Kings in their mystic gifts was not confined to Courts. In the Middle Ages the Faithful used to present on the Epiphany, gold, frankincense, and myrrh, to be blessed by the priest. These tokens of their devotedness to Jesus were kept as pledges of God’s blessing on their houses and families. The practice is still observed in some parts of Germany, and the prayer for the blessing was in the Roman Ritual until Pope Paul V suppressed it, together with several others, as being seldom required by the Faithful.

There was another custom which originated in the Ages of Faith and which is still observed in many countries. In honour of the Three Kings who came from the East to adore the Babe of Bethlehem, each family chose one of its members to be King. The choice was thus made. The family kept a feast which was an allusion to the third of the Epiphany Mysteries — the Feast of Cana in Galilee — a cake was served up, and he who took the piece which had a certain secret mark was proclaimed the King of the day. Two portions of the cake were reserved for the poor in whom honour was thus paid to the Infant Jesus and His Blessed Mother, for, on this Day of the triumph of Him who, though King was humble and poor, it was fitting that the poor should have a share in the general joy. The happiness of home was here, as in so many other instances, blended with the sacredness of Religion. This custom of King’s Feast brought relations and friends together and encouraged feelings of kindness and charity. Human weakness would sometimes, perhaps, show itself during these hours of holiday-making, but the idea and sentiment and spirit of the whole feast was profoundly Catholic, and that was sufficient guarantee to innocence.

The King’s Feast is still a Christmas joy in thousands of families, and happy those where it is kept in the Christian spirit which first originated it! For the last [four] hundred years, a puritanical zeal has decried these simple customs in which the seriousness of religion and the home enjoyments of certain festivals were blended together. The traditions of Christian family rejoicings have been blamed under pretexts of abuse as though a recreation in which religion had no share and no influence, were less open to intemperance and sin! Others have pretended (with little or no foundation) that the Twelfth Cake and the custom of choosing a King are mere imitations of the ancient pagan Saturnalia. Granting this to be correct (which it is not) we would answer that many of the old pagan customs have undergone a Christian transformation, and no one thinks of refusing to accept them thus purified. All is mistaken zeal has produced the sad effect of divorcing the Church from family life and customs, of excluding every religious manifestation from our traditions, and of bringing about what is so pompously called (though the word is expressive enough) the secularisation of society.

But let us return to the triumph of our sweet Saviour and King. His magnificence is manifested to us so brightly on this Feast! Our Mother the Church is going to initiate us into the mysteries we are to celebrate. Let us imitate the faith and obedience of the Magi: let us adore, with the holy Baptist, the divine Lamb over whom the heavens open. Let us take our place at the mystic feast of Cana where our dear King is present, thrice manifested, thrice glorified. In the last two mysteries, let us not lose sight of the Babe of Bethlehem, and in the Babe of Bethlehem let us cease not to recognise the Great God (in whom the Father was well pleased) and the supreme Ruler and Creator of all things.

Lesson – Isaias lx. 1‒6

Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem: for your light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. For behold darkness will cover the earth, and a mist the people. But the Lord will arise upon you, and His glory will be seen upon you. And the Gentiles will walk in your light, and Kings in the brightness of your rising. Lift up your eyes round about, and see: all these are gathered together, they are come to you: your sons will come from afar, and your daughters will rise up at your side. Then will you see and abound, and your heart will wonder and be enlarged, when the multitude of the sea will be converted to you, the strength of the Gentiles will come to you. The multitude of camels will cover you, the dromedaries of Madian and Epha: all they from Saba will come, bringing gold and frankincense, and showing forth praise to the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Oh the greatness of this glorious Day on which begins the movement of all nations towards the Church, the true Jerusalem! Oh the mercy of our heavenly Father who has been mindful of all these people that were buried in the shades of death and sin! Behold! The glory of the Lord has risen upon the Holy City, and kings set out to find and see the Light. Jerusalem is not large enough to hold all this sea of nations. Another city must be founded and towards her will be turned the countless Gentiles of Madian and Epha. You, O Rome, are this Holy City, and your heart will wonder and be enlarged. Heretofore your victories have won you slaves, but from this day forward you will draw within your walls countless children. Lift up your eyes, and see — all these, that is, the whole human race, give themselves to you as your sons and daughters. They come to receive from you a new birth. Open wide your arms and embrace them that come from North and South, bringing gold and frankincense to Him who is your King and ours.

Gospel – Matthew ii. 1‒12

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judah in the days of King Herod, behold there came wise men from the East to Jerusalem, saying: “Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and are come to adore him.” And Herod hearing this was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And assembling together all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, he enquired of them where Christ should be born. But they said to him: “In Bethlehem of Judah: for it is written by the Prophet: And you, Bethlehem, the land of Judah, are not the least among the princes of Judah: for out of you will come forth the captain that will rule my people Israel.” Then Herod privately calling the Wise Men, learned diligently of them the time of the star which appeared to them: and sending them into Bethlehem, said: “Go, and diligently enquire after the child: and when you have found him, bring me word again, that I also may come and adore him.” Who, having heard the king, went their way. And behold the star which they had seen in the east went before them until it came and stood over where the child was. And seeing the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And entering into the house, they found the Child with Mary, his Mother (here all kneel) and falling down, they adored him. And, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh. And having received an answer in sleep that they should not return to Herod, they went back another way into their own country.

Praise be to you, O Christ.
 

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Magi, the first-fruits of the Gentile world, have been admitted into the court of the great King whom they have been seeking, and we have followed them. The child has smiled upon us, as He did upon them. All the fatigues of the long journey — which man must take to reach his God — all are over and forgotten. Our Emmanuel is with us, and we are with Him. Bethlehem has received us, and we will not leave her again — for, in Bethlehem, we have the Child and Mary His Mother. Where else could we find riches like these that Bethlehem gives us? Oh let us beseech this incomparable Mother to give us this child of hers (for He is our light, and our love, and our Bread of life) now that we are about to approach the altar, led by the star of our faith. Let us, at once, open our treasures. Let us prepare our gold, our frankincense, and our myrrh for the sweet babe, our King. He will be pleased with our gifts, and we know he never suffers Himself to be outdone in generosity. When we have to return to our duties we will, like the Magi, leave our hearts with our Jesus And it will be by another way, by a new manner of life, that we will finish our sojourn in this country of our exile, looking forward to that happy day when life and light eternal will come and absorb into themselves the shadows of vanity and time which now hang over us.

* * * * *

We also, Jesus, come to adore you on this glorious Epiphany which brings all nations to your feet. We walk in the footsteps of the Magi, for we too have seen the Star, and we are come to you. Glory be to you, dear King! to you who said in the Canticle of David your ancestor: “I am appointed King over Sion, the holy mountain, that I may preach the commandment of the Lord. The Lord has said to me that He will give me the Gentiles for my inheritance, and the utmost parts of the Earth for my possession. Now, therefore, O ye kings, understand: receive instruction, ye that judge the Earth” (Psalm ii. 6, 8, 10).

You will say, O Emmanuel, with your own lips: “All power is given to me in Heaven and on Earth (Matthew xxviii. 18), and a few years after the whole Earth will have received your Even now Jerusalem is troubled. Herod is trembling on his throne. But the day is at hand when the heralds of your coming will go throughout the whole world proclaiming that He, who was the Desired of nations (Aggeus ii. 8), is come. The word that is to subject the Earth to you will go forth (Psalm xviii. 5) and, like an immense fire, will stretch to the uttermost parts of the universe. In vain will the strong ones of this world attempt to arrest its course. An Emperor will propose to the Senate, as the only means of staying the progress of your conquests, that thy Name be solemnly enrolled in the list of those gods whom you come to destroy. Other Emperors will endeavour to abolish your kingdom by the slaughter of your soldiers. But, all these efforts are vain. The day will come when the Cross, the sign of your power, will adorn the imperial banner. The Emperors will lay their crown at your feet, and proud Rome will cease to be the Capital of the empire of this world’s strength and power in order that she may become, forever, the centre of your peaceful and universal kingdom.

We already see the dawn of that glorious day. Your conquests, King of ages, begin with your Epiphany. You call, from the extreme parts of the unbelieving East, the first-fruits of that Gentile world which hitherto had not been your people and which is now to form your inheritance. Henceforth there is to be no distinction of Jew and Greek, of Barbarian and Scythian (Colossians iii. 11). You have loved Man above Angel, for you have redeemed the one, while you have left the other in his fall. If your predilection, for a long period of ages, was for the race of Abraham, henceforth your preference is to be given to the Gentiles. Israel was but a single people. We are numerous as the sands of the sea, and the stars of the firmament (Genesis xxii. 17). Israel was under the law of fear. You have reserved the law of love for us.

From this day of your Manifestation, divine King, begins your separation from the Synagogue which refuses your love. And on this same day you take, in the person of the Magi, the Gentiles as your Spouse. Your union with her will soon be proclaimed from the Cross, when, turning your face from the ungrateful Jerusalem, you will stretch forth your hands towards the nations of the Gentiles. Ineffable joy of your birth! But O still better joy of your Epiphany in which we, the once disinherited, are permitted to approach to you, offer you our gifts, and see you graciously accept them, O merciful Emmanuel! Thanks be to you, O Infant God, for that unspeakable gift (2 Corinthians ix. 15) of Faith which, as your Apostle teaches us, has delivered us from the power of darkness and has translated us into your kingdom, making us partakers of the lot of the Saints in Light (Colossians i. 12, 13). Give us grace to grow in the knowledge of this your Gift, and to understand the importance of this great day on which you make alliance with the whole human race, which you would afterwards make your bride by espousing her. Oh the Mystery of this Marriage Feast, dear Jesus! “A Marriage,”' says one of your Vicars on Earth (Pope Innocent III), “that was promised to the Patriarch Abraham, confirmed by oath to King David, accomplished in Mary when she became Mother, and consummated, confirmed and declared on this day, consummated in the adoration of the Magi, confirmed in the Baptism in the Jordan, and declared in the miracle of the water changed into wine.”

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

In the diocese of Rheims, the martyrdom of St. Macra, virgin, who, in the persecution of Diocletian, was cast into the fire by order of the governor Rictiovarus. As she remained uninjured, she had her breasts cut off, was imprisoned in a foul dungeon, rolled upon broken earthenware and burning coals, and finally she gave up her soul while engaged in prayer.

In Africa, the commemoration of many holy martyrs who were burned at the stake in the persecution of Severus.

At Rennes in France, St. Melanius, bishop and confessor, who, after a life remarkable for virtues innumerable with his thoughts constantly fixed on heaven, gloriously departed from this world.

At Florence, St. Andrew Corsini, a Florentine Carmelite and bishop of Fiesoli. Being celebrated for miracles, he was ranked among the saints by Pope Urban VIII. His festival is kept on the fourth of February.

At Geris in Egypt, St. Nilammon, anchoret, who, while he was carried to a bishopric against his will, gave up his soul to God in prayer.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.