A beautiful feast today! It opens Christmas out. It invites us all in. “Let them come in, let them come in – all the Gentiles (that is, non-Jews),”, said Pope Leo I, preaching on this feast centuries ago, “let them come in and join the family of Abraham.” “Lift up your eyes all round, and see; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come in from afar, and your daughters shall be carried on the hip. Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and exult, because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you.” That’s Isaiah. Then the Psalm, a Psalm of David anticipating the future of his son, Solomon immediately but Jesus ultimately: “The kings of Tarshish and the islands shall pay him tribute. The kings of Sheba and Seba shall bring him gifts. Before him all kings shall fall prostrate, all nations shall serve him.” Then, after the event, St Paul: The mystery – God’s hidden plan, is now out in the open: “the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the same promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel.” What is exciting St Paul is that, with the coming of Christ, the people of God has been thrown open, enlarged, extended to include non-Jews, the rest of the human race. The time of restricted access is over. Now Jew and Gentile have common access to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.
The whole missionary future of the Church belongs in here. Often on this feast, the Pope will ordain new bishops, especially those for missionary parts of the world.
Christmas is the birth of Christ, Epiphany is the birth of the Church.
On 19th October last year, Pope Leo XIV canonised seven blessed. They were carefully chosen to highlight the universality of holiness in the Church: two of the seven were from Venezuela, one was from Papua New Guinea, the first saint from there, a married man, a catechist, martyred during the Japanese occupation of World War II, one was an Armenian bishop, an Eastern Catholic, martyred in 1915 during a genocide, one was an Italian sister who spent her life for the indigenous people of Ecuador, another a religious foundress in Italy, another a lawyer, a former Satanic priest who as a layman founded the great sanctuary of our Lady of Pompei outside Rome. Just in this one cluster of souls, don’t we sense the wide embrace of God’s merciful plan? Three continents, a doctor, a lawyer, a bishop, religious women, laymen. Isn’t this one small example of how what began with the Magi continues now?
And it all begins so humbly: “behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem”. The shepherds were local, from Bethlehem, Jews, country folk, and there’s no mention of them taking anything to the baby in the manger. The magi, by contrast, come from afar, are Gentiles, would have been city types, from modern Iran quite likely, astronomers, scientists, researchers, and they did bring gifts, pricy – had they been from Edinburgh, they’d have shopped in Princes Street. Above all, though, they’re God-seekers, God-farers. They seek God, who speaks to them in the order of the cosmos. They’d know something too of Jewish expectation: “a star shall come out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel” (Num 24:17) It’s enough for them to go by. In their encounter with Herod they show their calibre. They are straightforward; he is devious. Their look is upwards; he’s absorbed by his petty kingdom and personal power. He is troubled, this child is a threat. The magi say, they’ve come to worship him. How fine they are! The goal of their seeking is worship, not fame; it’s a person, not knowledge in itself with which to show off. I know one professor who keeps a prie-dieu, a kneeler, in his study, precisely so he can pray. I imagine he’s rather an exception among university types. The magi follow a star. There is something more in their hearts than personal concerns. They want the good of the world in this king. They are people of conscience. They care. The star comes and goes, and they go on nonetheless. And when it settles above a simple house in Bethlehem, they are beside themselves with joy. In they go. They see the child with Mary his mother and fling themselves on the ground before him. They have their epiphany. The star, as it were, disappears into the child. Their star turns into Jesus, and Mary – like a monstrance – holds him there for worship, the worship she and Joseph were already steeped in. And opening their treasures, they offered gold for a king, incense for a God, myrrh for the passion to come. They brought the fruit of the earth, mined and grown, and the work of human hands, and giving those things gave themselves. The gold of service, the incense of prayer, the myrrh of patience. May what began in them continue in us!
Skirting Herod, home they go. What’s our takeaway as we go back (or forward) to another year? Could it be a clearer sense of what’s really going on? A sense of God at work in the world and in our lives. Awareness of his leading, of what an English mystic called “the drawing of this love and the voice of this calling”. Underneath the surface noise – too often the noise of explosions – there’s another kind of movement, divine providence unfolding, the stars the Lord lights in our hearts, the quiet pull of Mary and Joseph, of heaven, the true Jerusalem. Underneath our work, there’s another going on, something deep and supporting. May we sense it in silence, in adoration, in moments we’re alone. May the mystery that magnetised the Magi draw us too!
St Mary’s Cathedral, Aberdeen, 4th January 2026
