Homily for the Solemnity of the Epiphany

Homily for the Solemnity of the Epiphany

Jan. 4, 2026
Eph 3: 2-3, 5-6
Villa Maria, Bronx
Our Lady of the Assumption, Bronx

Adoration of the Magi
(Bernardo Cavallino)

“The Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body, and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus thru the Gospel” (Eph 3: 6).

Epiphany means “manifestation.”  In some parts of the Christian world, the day when Christ was made manifest to the world is celebrated as a feast greater than Christmas.

The magi came to the Christ Child bearing gifts as for a god.  But we celebrate today God’s gift of salvation to the entire human race.  God opens a gift for us.

God had made a promise and a covenant with Abraham, and from that promise and covenant sprang Israel, God’s chosen people.  So the prophet could proclaim, “Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem!  Your light has come; the glory of the Lord shines upon you” (Is 60:1).

That prophecy expands the reach of God’s light:  “all shall come … proclaiming the praises of the Lord” (60:6)—from Midian, Ephah, and Sheba, i.e., from the nomadic tribes of the Sinai and Arabia.

St. Matthew shows the reach of God’s light in his account of the “magi from the east” who came to Jerusalem (2:1) and then traveled on a few more miles to “do homage” to the Christ child (2:11).  The light of a divine star lit their path.  Thru them, God lights a path for all the nations—the Gentiles—to come forward and be joined to Christ as “coheirs, members of the same body,” in St. Paul’s words.

No longer is Israel God’s only people.  Thru Israel—thru Jewish Jesus—all the nations that will come are now God’s people.  God’s promise expands to all “in Christ Jesus thru the Gospel.”  God reaches out to and welcomes into his family the Babylonians and Persians from whom the magi perhaps came—and to Greeks, Romans, Africans, and Arabs, all that crowd named by St. Luke on Pentecost Day (Acts 2:9-11); and in succeeding centuries to Italians, Irish, French, and Germans, to Chinese and Filipinos, to every nation on the earth.  “Lord, every nation on earth will adore you” (Responsory).

How and why God reaches out to us with his divine light is a mystery.  Our prayer after Communion will refer to “the mystery in which you [God] have willed us to participate.”  Our participation begins with our “yes” to Christ in Baptism and continues as we walk in his light by our manner of life, as we join Christ in worship of his Father at Mass, as we share in the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus, so becoming “members of the same body,” and with Jesus “coheirs in [God’s] promise.”

Homily for Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

Homily for the Solemnity of
Mary, Mother of God

Jan. 1, 2026
Luke 2: 16-21
Gal 4: 4-7
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.

The Circumcision of Jesus (Andrea Mantegna)

On the 8th day, in accordance with the Law, Mary’s child becomes a son of the covenant.  He receives his name, “YHWH is salvation” or “YHWH saves.”[1]  Paul links his birth with our ransom (Gal 4:4-5), the ransom that brings us into a new covenant, the covenant of God’s grace by which we are saved and become children of God.

Jesus was “born under the Law” (4:4).  On its face, that means the Law of Moses, the law that commanded circumcision and the other ritual practices which Jesus of Nazareth observed faithfully.  Beyond that, it means the law of human frailty and death, to which Jesus likewise submitted.  By submitting to death, he was able to incorporate us into his life, to covenant us with himself in a union both physical and spiritual, a union of human nature and of the Holy Spirit.  “God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,” enabling us to name God our “Abba” and to become heirs of eternal life along with his only-begotten Son (4:6-7).

Jesus received his humanity from his mother, of course.  So we are happy to honor her; by sharing her humanity with him “thru fruitful virginity,” as the collect expresses it, he has been able to “bestow on the human race the grace of eternal salvation” (collect), to give to us a share in his sonship by adoption.  The true Son makes us adopted sons and daughters.

The 1st antiphon in last evening’s Vespers puts it neatly:  “O marvelous exchange!  Man’s Creator has become man, born of a virgin.  We have been made sharers in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”[2]

A “marvelous exchange,” indeed!  A mystery of faith.  Praise to Mary, mother of Jesus, mother of God, mother of our salvation.

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[1] That’s what “Jesus” means.

[2] LOH 1:477.