Catechesis on the Epiphany

On the feast of the Epiphany we read the passage from the Gospel of St Matthew which describes the arrival of some Magi from the East at Bethlehem: “Going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.” (Mt 2:11-12).

Today we return once more to those characters who, according to tradition, were three in number: the Magi Kings. St Matthew’s concise text renders very well what is part of the very substance of man’s meeting with God: “they fell down and worshipped him”.

Man meets God in the act of veneration, of worship, of cult. It is useful to note that the word “cult” (cultus) is closely related to the term “culture”. Admiration, veneration for what is divine, for what raises man on high, belongs to the very substance of human culture, of the various cultures.

Man gets to know God by meeting him, and vice versa he meets him in the act of getting to know him. He meets God when he opens up to him with the interior gift of his human “ego”, to accept God’s Gift and reciprocate it.

The Magi Kings, at the moment when they present themselves before the Child in his mother’s arms, accept in the light of the Epiphany the Gift of God Incarnate, his ineffable dedication to man in the mystery of the Incarnation .. but above all they open themselves up to him, with the interior gift of their own heart. And this is the real treasure they offer, of which the gold, incense and myrrh are only an exterior expression.

When I meditate in this way, together with you gathered here, on those words of the Gospel of Matthew, there come into my mind the texts of the Constitution Lumen Gentium which speak of the universality of the Church. The day of the Epiphany is the feast of the universality of the Church, of her universal mission. Well, we read in the Council: “The one People of God is accordingly present in all the nations of the earth, since its citizens, who are taken from all nations, are of a kingdom whose nature is not earthly but heavenly. All the faithful scattered throughout the world are in communion with each other in the Holy Spirit”.

Pope St John Paul II