January 5, 2011: The Epiphany

The Epiphany of Our Lord
Mt 2.1-12
January 5, 2011
Fr. Patrick S. Allen

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Some of you may be aware that there is something of a revival happening these days in some corners of Catholic religious life in America – and by "religious life" I mean monks and nuns, friars and sisters in monastic religious orders.  Two of these orders orders – both very traditional Dominican orders for women, one in Nashville, the other in Ann Arbor – have experienced such amazing growth and the joyful witness of their love of Christ and life of prayer is so visibly vibrant that they have garnered national media attention. 

Just two weeks ago National Public Radio did a feature segment on the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia in Nashville.  And the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist in Ann Arbor were even featured twice in 2010 on ... wait for it ... Oprah.  So you know something important is happening.

There are several interesting features of the life and growth of these orders:  they are very traditional in their rigorous pattern of devotion and liturgical practice.  They are decidedly orthodox in their commitment to the Church's teaching.  In contradistinction from many American orders following the 2^nd Vatican Council, they are very traditional in their dress, fully habited.  And impressively, after years and years of waning vocations, they are growing and young – very young.  The average age of the Nashville sisters is 36, which according to NPR is "four decades younger than the average nun nationwide."  The average age of the Ann Arbor sisters is 28.

To follow their particular vocations, the particular path for them of faithfulness to Christ, these sisters have left promising and worthwhile careers, they turned their backs on the comforts and, we may even say, blessings of upper middle class affluence, and on, of course, all the joys of married life – and all to go where Jesus was calling them, where Jesus was waiting for them.

Sister Maria, one of the Ann Arbor sisters, who left a high-powered and lucrative corporate career to take this monastic journey, said in an interview, "I wanted more than a house on the lake and a closet full of shoes..."  Though friends tried to dissuade her, she said that for her it came to a point when it was "go big or go home; no one will live my life but me."[i]

Sister Beatrice, one of the Nashville sisters, came home from her prestigious college and told her parents, "I think I'm supposed to be a nun; I think I'm supposed to go soon."  And through tears her father said to her, "now is the time in life to take leaps."

Go big or go home.  Now is the time in life to take leaps. 

And even:  We have seen his star in the East, and we have come to worship him. 

On this great feast of the Epiphany, the Church draws our attention to these wise men, these magi, these kings, who pull up stakes in Persia – where they were wealthy, honored, comfortable – and leave on a long and dangerous journey to follow a God whom they only knew by the hints and allegations of their very fragmentary library of Hebrew scriptures, even by the incidents and accidents of their astronomical observations. 

They leave not knowing how or even exactly where – as their questioning of Herod shows – their journey will end – certainly not at the crib of a rag-wrapped child in the temporary home of an impoverished carpenter.  But they do leave, they do go, and they search for the one born King of the Jews that they may honor him.

Well, "seek and ye shall find," as this same child grown to adult years would later say, and – who knows? – it may be that he had these magi in mind.  He might have had these magi in mind; he certainly had you and me in mind – to give himself to us, to reward our earnest if sometimes misguided seeking. 

Seek and ye shall find.  That is our God's promise, and we see it "living and active" in this Epiphany, this Manifestation, this Revelation of God's only-begotten Son, Mary's Son, to the nations, represented in these wise men from the East.  They left, they sought, and – sure enough – they found.  And, St. Matthew wants us to know, and he piles up the adverbs to tell us, that having found, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. 

But, of course, first they left.  And that first step, as they say, is a doozy.  It is risk.  It is faith not sight.  It is turning aside from security and all that we might expect to come our way in due course, but it is turning aside from one thing – or even from many things, many good things – for the sake of something else; or rather, for Someone Else. 

Another of those young Dominican sisters, a former software engineer, said simply, "I loved my career, but Jesus Christ is better."  That's what it meant for her, and certainly for another it may mean loving Jesus precisely as a software engineer. 

But our Heavenly Father is always calling us to leave something, to lay something aside, to smash some idol.  But only so that he may give us something better, to lay upon us an easier yoke and a lighter burden, to bring us to this Child wrapped in rags who is, as Fr. Dan showed us Sunday, "the only kind of God worth our worship." Whatever it is, whatever weight that clings so closely, Jesus Christ is better. 

The Magi left on a hunch, a poorly educated astrological guess.  And, I imagine – if I may my play my own homiletic hunch – that our Lord allowed himself to be found by them so that his strength could be made perfect in their weakness, and by their example to help us in our weakness. 

The Magi left on a hunch, a suspicion.  But we have seen King Jesus poor and in a manger for us, naked and on a cross for us, mightily resurrected and gloriously ascended for us. 

Our light has come.  Now is the time to "go big," Sister Maria says.  "Now is the time for leaps," Sister Beatrice's dad tells us.  With the Wise Men, we have seen his star in the East, our "Dayspring from on high," this "Sun of Righteousness risen with healing in his wings." 

Let us seek him in faith that we will find him, knowing that in the end he will bring us truly and finally home, if by another and unexpected way.

And that journey begins tonight:  all the way from your pew to this Altar.

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[i] By way of Elizabeth Scalia, who made the connection to Epiphany: http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/theanchoress/2009/01/03/jesus-christ-is-better/