Solemnity of the Epiphany
Jan. 8, 2012
Collect
Ursulines, Willow Dr., New Rochelle
The Magi, by Tissot
“You revealed your Only Begotten Son to the nations by the guidance of a star. Grant that we who know you already by faith may be brought to behold the beauty of your sublime glory” (Collect).
The Collect on this solemn feastday alludes to the sacred Scriptures, to the modes of revelation, and to the depths of our knowledge of God.
The Scriptures. God reveals his Son by the guidance of a star. The gospel reading of course tells how the magi, the wise men of the Gentile world, found Jesus by following a new star (Matt 2:1-2). The star over Bethlehem of Judea, in Matthew’s telling of the story, is an echo of the star seen in the prophecy of Balaam—a pagan, a Gentile—in the Book of Numbers, in which he saw a star advancing from Jacob, a ruler’s staff rising out of Israel (24:17). Thus did God announce the future coming of his “son” David, and thus does Matthew link Jesus with his ancestor David, as well as in the prophecy of Micah (5:1) that the chief priests and scribes quote to King Herod (Matt 2:4-6). God’s Son continues to come, and to speak to us, in the Scriptures, pointing out the ways of discipleship, the ways of salvation.
Revelation. The stars have been reliable guides to travelers and navigators for millennia. Astrophysicists today find in them—as I understand it—evidence of the beginnings of our vast universe. These are forms of revelation. The star that rose over Bethlehem and led the magi to Jesus “revealed to the nations” God’s Son, pointed him out to peoples who till then had no knowledge of the One God and no access to him. We have no such physical star; instead we have something more reliable: faith. Faith in Jesus, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham—as Matthew announced him in the 1st verse of his gospel—the Savior conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit (1:20), leads us to God more surely, more definitively, than the magi’s star. That star, strangely, was noticed only by those few foreigners, and not by those closest at hand, Jesus’ own people. Our faith makes salvation accessible to the whole world. But it will avail us only if we’re ready to see it and to follow it.
Knowledge. Our faith gives us knowledge of the Father thru our knowledge of the Son, thru the Scriptures that reveal the Son to us, thru the apostolic preaching that conveys the teaching of Jesus, thru the sacraments that make the “mystery of faith” present and active in our lives. But the Collect points us toward something grander: “beholding the beauty of your sublime glory.” The Latin clause reads, ad contemplandam speciem tuae celsitudinis (I’m sure that enlightened you!)—in which you see "contemplation" hinted at—not just “beholding” but becoming thoroughly engrossed in; or, as one dictionary puts it, “prayer in which reasoning and structure give way to a simple focus on God’s presence”* The object of the “beholding” or “contemplation” for which we long is the speciem tuae celsitudinis, literally “the outward appearance” or “the beautiful form,” particularly “the beauty of the face” “of your heights” or “of your exaltation”—celsitudo seems to be rooted in caelum, “heaven.” You’ll recall that various psalms speak of our longing to see God’s face, that the friendship between God and Moses was so intimate that they spoke to each other face to face (Ex 33:11), that St. John foretells an indescribable destiny for God’s children “when we shall see God as he is” (1 John 3:2). This “exalted height” or “sublime glory” of God in all his beauty, all his splendor, is what our hearts long for, the knowledge of God in himself.
And it begins, only begins, to be revealed in this infant born in Bethlehem of Judea. But if we faithfully follow that infant, God’s Son, we shall see and know him in depth too great for words, contemplating, absorbing, soaking in, basking in his beauty and his joy forever and ever.
* Philip Sheldrake, “contemplation,” in The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism, ed. Richard McBrien (San Francisco, 1995), p. 364.
The Collect on this solemn feastday alludes to the sacred Scriptures, to the modes of revelation, and to the depths of our knowledge of God.
The Scriptures. God reveals his Son by the guidance of a star. The gospel reading of course tells how the magi, the wise men of the Gentile world, found Jesus by following a new star (Matt 2:1-2). The star over Bethlehem of Judea, in Matthew’s telling of the story, is an echo of the star seen in the prophecy of Balaam—a pagan, a Gentile—in the Book of Numbers, in which he saw a star advancing from Jacob, a ruler’s staff rising out of Israel (24:17). Thus did God announce the future coming of his “son” David, and thus does Matthew link Jesus with his ancestor David, as well as in the prophecy of Micah (5:1) that the chief priests and scribes quote to King Herod (Matt 2:4-6). God’s Son continues to come, and to speak to us, in the Scriptures, pointing out the ways of discipleship, the ways of salvation.
Revelation. The stars have been reliable guides to travelers and navigators for millennia. Astrophysicists today find in them—as I understand it—evidence of the beginnings of our vast universe. These are forms of revelation. The star that rose over Bethlehem and led the magi to Jesus “revealed to the nations” God’s Son, pointed him out to peoples who till then had no knowledge of the One God and no access to him. We have no such physical star; instead we have something more reliable: faith. Faith in Jesus, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham—as Matthew announced him in the 1st verse of his gospel—the Savior conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit (1:20), leads us to God more surely, more definitively, than the magi’s star. That star, strangely, was noticed only by those few foreigners, and not by those closest at hand, Jesus’ own people. Our faith makes salvation accessible to the whole world. But it will avail us only if we’re ready to see it and to follow it.
Knowledge. Our faith gives us knowledge of the Father thru our knowledge of the Son, thru the Scriptures that reveal the Son to us, thru the apostolic preaching that conveys the teaching of Jesus, thru the sacraments that make the “mystery of faith” present and active in our lives. But the Collect points us toward something grander: “beholding the beauty of your sublime glory.” The Latin clause reads, ad contemplandam speciem tuae celsitudinis (I’m sure that enlightened you!)—in which you see "contemplation" hinted at—not just “beholding” but becoming thoroughly engrossed in; or, as one dictionary puts it, “prayer in which reasoning and structure give way to a simple focus on God’s presence”* The object of the “beholding” or “contemplation” for which we long is the speciem tuae celsitudinis, literally “the outward appearance” or “the beautiful form,” particularly “the beauty of the face” “of your heights” or “of your exaltation”—celsitudo seems to be rooted in caelum, “heaven.” You’ll recall that various psalms speak of our longing to see God’s face, that the friendship between God and Moses was so intimate that they spoke to each other face to face (Ex 33:11), that St. John foretells an indescribable destiny for God’s children “when we shall see God as he is” (1 John 3:2). This “exalted height” or “sublime glory” of God in all his beauty, all his splendor, is what our hearts long for, the knowledge of God in himself.
And it begins, only begins, to be revealed in this infant born in Bethlehem of Judea. But if we faithfully follow that infant, God’s Son, we shall see and know him in depth too great for words, contemplating, absorbing, soaking in, basking in his beauty and his joy forever and ever.
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