Happy Epiphany everyone.
The word Epiphany certainly isn’t an everyday word. And that’s sort of fitting because an epiphany isn’t something you typically experience every day.
Epiphany comes from the Greek word which means “Revelation”. An epiphany reveals something. The Christmas season feast of the Epiphany celebrates the Revelation that Jesus Christ, the one born in Bethlehem, is God and Savior of the entire world. This is an epiphany that has certainly changed things--all time is now structured around this moment.
In today’s Gospel, we hear of those three wise men from the east, whom tradition names Melchior, Balthezar, and Caspar: how the Christ Child was revealed to them as Savior of all people, times, and places.
After receiving this epiphany, and traveling to Bethlehem where they found the newborn Savior, they worshipped him and adored him. Then in a dream an angel told them that King Herod whom they had met on the way to Bethlehem had terribly vicious designs to kill the Messiah, to kill baby Jesus. So as we just heard, they departed for their home country by another way, they went home by another route.
There’s that notion of epiphany: “they went home by another route”. They searched for the savior, they found him, and upon finding him, they were changed forever. There is the important spiritual truth: Once you truly meet Jesus Christ and adore Him, once his identity is revealed to you, once receive that epiphany, once you place your faith in Him, your life is changed forever. And that means even though you return home, you go home differently, you go home by a different route.
That is why the word Epiphany is so fitting for today’s feast. An epiphany changes you. We love stories about epiphanies don’t we? Some of our favorite non-biblical stories contain characters who have life changing epiphanies.
Think of the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge, indifferent to the suffering of others, including his overworked, underpaid employee Bob Crachett. Scrooge has a dream in which he is given a glimpse of his past, present, and future—a revelation of his life, if you will. And this experience, coming to understand the consequences of how he treats people, how his greed and self-centeredness brings misery to others leads him to change his life. The epiphany of the goodness he was capable of, changed his life, and he would go on to live a life of charity that would impact the lives of others.
Another one of my favorite literary epiphanies is that of Jean Valjean from Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. The hardened ex-convict Jean Valjean is welcomed into the home of a kindly bishop. But, in the midst of night, Valjean decides to steal the bishop’s silver candlesticks. He is quickly arrested and brought before the bishop. But, rather than condemning him, the bishop shows Jean Valjean radical kindness and mercy. The compassion and mercy of the bishop leads Valjean to an epiphany, that God is real and that there is goodness in the world, and he is called to a life of goodness. So Valjean dedicates his life to helping others, even at great cost to himself, including raising the orphan daughter of a prostitute.
But epiphanies don’t just happen in fiction. The lives of the saints are full of life-changing epiphanies. The murderous pharisee Saul, has an epiphany on the road to Damascus, that he is silencing and persecuting the Word of God. He definitely went home by a different route, dedicating his life, as an apostle, to the spread of the Gospel.
Saint Ignatius of Loyola, began life, an arrogant nobleman, seeking fame through war, full of ambition, vain about his appearance, addicted to gambling and immoral in his relations with women. He went everywhere armed, looking for a fight, obsessed with proving himself in battle. But an epiphany occurred in his life, which changed him forever.
After rushing into battle, his legs were shattered and wounded by a cannonball. And as he lay convalescing in bed, his sister-in-law gave him two books, a life of Christ and a collection of the lives of the Saints. There in his solace, shattered, broken, he met Christ. He repented of letting his vanity, and his pride, and lust, and violence rule his life. He began to pray, and dedicated himself to Christ. He founded the Jesuit Order and became a soldier in quite a different sense, soldiers in spreading the Gospel throughout the world—to the deepest jungles and most foreign lands.
Perhaps some of you here have also had life changing epiphanies, in fact, I hope you have. Maybe you were raised without religion, and came to understand the truth of Christ. Maybe the faith was practiced in a lukewarm way in your family, and upon meeting Jesus you have come to a deeper practice of the faith than your parents.
Even if you were baptized Catholic as an infant, I hope you’ve had many ephiphanies as well, that the Lord is calling you deeper, to deeper union with him, more devoted prayer, more intentional practice of the virtues, a deeper understanding of the truths of our faith than you received in 8th grade, and a deeper commitment to charitable service.
Later this month we will celebrate the Rite of Acceptance for members of the OCIA who have come to the epiphany that Christ is calling them to follow him as fully initiated Catholics.
But, God wants to continue to reveal himself in epiphany moments in our lives as well. Our daily prayer, when we kneel, humbly before God with our desires for conversation and for peace and healing—those are meant to be epiphany moments.
Vatican II called Sunday Mass the source and summit of the Christian life: like the wise men who encountered the Christ child, we too who encounter Christ in word and sacrament and should return home a different route. Do you come to Mass desiring that? Hoping for that? Open to that epiphany moment? where your encounter with the Lord Jesus at Mass changes you, so that you go home a different person than when you came? I hope you do. Perhaps, go home a different route today, pondering a little more deeply how the Lord is calling you to something profound in this year of our Lord 2026.
After encountering the Lord in the Eucharist today, you will be sent out into the world. Deeper prayer, intentional virtue, more generous service, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
