True Victimhood

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

The first reading and the gospel both present us with two polar opposites of how we view ourselves and others, which ultimately defines the way we relate. In the first reading, Job sees himself as a victim of circumstances and perhaps even God’s seemingly capricious unfairness. He has lost everything - his wealth, his family and his health - all are common denominators of one’s personal happiness and success. As he moans, groans and rants, he speaks from a place of entitlement. Did he not earn God’s favour by living a righteous life? This is not the same Job whom the Lord praises at the beginning of the story because at that point of time he lacks nothing, nor is this the Job who is enlightened by these series of tragedies and ensuing debates with his friends who emerges vindicated at the end of the story. In this passage, Job’s experience mirrors many of ours. We praise God for His blessings when life has been good to us, but the moment these favours are withdrawn, we immediately descend into petulant rantings of a spoilt entitled child.

In the gospel, we are given two positive examples - one is the mother-in-law of St Peter and the other is our Lord Jesus. But to add contrast to the story, we are also presented with the negative examples of the crowds who come to the Lord for healing and together with the disciples form a cohort of entitled persons, believing themselves to be uniquely deserving of the miracles of the Lord and would not wish to share Him with others. In contrast to this second group, note how Peter’s mother-in-law made no demands of the Lord but was most willing to serve Him the moment she recovered. There is no sense of entitlement but rather a sense of service to others springing from gratitude. Her actions merely reflect that of our Lord’s ministry, who tells us that His primary mission and duty is to preach the gospel of the Kingdom, to offer the gift of salvation to others, for this is the reason why He came.

So, this question is now placed before us as a choice: do we live for ourselves with a sense of entitlement, or do we live for others with a sense of duty and responsibility? Most of us would be conflicted. St Paul, however, resolves this tension within his own life and ministry. In the second reading, Paul writes: “I do not boast of preaching the gospel, since it is a duty which has been laid on me; I should be punished if I did not preach it! If I had chosen this work myself, I might have been paid for it, but as I have not, it is a responsibility which has been put into my hands. Do you know what my reward is? It is this: in my preaching, to be able to offer the Good News free, and not insist on the rights which the gospel gives me.” He rejects the sense of entitlement and embraces the responsibility which has been placed on him to preach the gospel and he claims that carrying out that duty is itself, his reward.

This tension exists even till today. Our culture today, is a battle ground between the values of entitlement and the values of duty or responsibility. The person with a sense of entitlement believes: everything that happens should somehow benefit them. Anything unfavourable or unfortunate that happens in life is happening “to” them. They constantly see themselves as poor victims. The person with a sense of responsibility believes: it’s their duty to deal with whatever comes up, to be accountable, and to accept all of the consequences of their own actions. The person with a sense of duty lives for others. They do not ask: “what’s in it for me?” but rather, “how can I help and be of service for others?” The model for this sense of duty is our Lord Himself.

Our Lord is often described in our liturgical text as both Priest and Victim. But what does it mean to be a Victim, in the sense of being Christlike? The victim here is a reference to the animal sacrifice or holocaust offered by the priests in the Temple to atone for the sins of men. It was meant to be a sacrifice of atonement, to take our place in receiving God’s judgment and punishment. But until the time of Jesus, no animal sacrifice was capable of accomplishing this despite the number of animals being killed to appease what seems to be a blood-thirsty God. But all this changed when God Himself offered His only begotten Son as the sacrifice. Jesus is the perfect sacrifice or Victim, because He alone is “spotless and unblemished”.

In the Eucharist, Christ victimhood is at the heart of the Sacrifice of the Mass. The Bread which is consecrated during Mass is called the Host, which is derived from the Latin “Hostia” which means Victim or Sacrifice. See the connexion? So, whenever we participate in the Holy Mass where the Host is offered and consecrated, and whenever we receive that consecrated host in Holy Communion, we too partake in the victimhood of Christ, a victimhood which atones sins and redeems us from the devil. Christ’s victimhood is a victimhood for others, rather than the sordid victimhood of a culture of entitlement which only seeks to benefit oneself.

The Victimhood of Christ is the necessary antidote to the malaise of victim mentality we see in today’s culture, a mentality that is extremely tempting and popular today. Today, claiming the status of a victim grants one status, power, and moral high ground. It conveys the moral certainty that one is automatically right. Now even the smallest offense is trumpeted all over social media. Social media has raised ranting and complaining to an art form. “Victims” feel extremely entitled and have become extremely unforgiving. Even mild or merely awkward remarks are interpreted in the harshest way possible and as aggressive attacks on the purported victim.

How different is this false victimhood from the true victimhood to which Christians are called. The image of Christ as victim runs throughout the Christian theology, hymnary, and scripture. First, Christ was a true victim in what He suffered. He did not experience some imaginary suffering or claim that mere words are violence. On the contrary, He suffered the worst and cruelest humiliation and death and yet found it within His heart to forgive His enemies.

Second, He suffered for others. He called Himself the Good Shepherd and said He would lay down His life for His sheep. And then He did it. The modern victim suffers nothing for no one except himself. The smallest slight becomes a reason for seeking revenge.

Our Lord also suffered in silence. Pilate even prodded Him, urging Him to denounce or contradict His accusers. He invited our Lord to proclaim His innocence, and our Lord would not do it. Isaiah prophesied this moment when he spoke of the Suffering Servant, “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7).

A Christian is called to accept true victimhood, and with humility. We are told we must take up our crosses and suffer with our Lord. And not only with Him but like Him. As parents, spouses, children, brothers, sisters, and friends, every Christian is to be a victim - not of the entitled and demanding type but of the self-giving and sacrificial type like Christ. To be willing to suffer for others, to forgive, and to do so quietly and with dignity.

A New Authority

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

“Don’t put words into my mouth” is a popular way of deflecting accusations by arguing that you have been misquoted, that your original speech has been embellished by words which do not reflect your original intent. Under these circumstances, you would not appreciate any extrapolation by others. The original words and context are always the best, or as they would say, “from the horse’s mouth.”

Despite our insistence on others keeping faithful to what we had originally said, we always appreciate novelty in speech. Innovation excites. Repetition bores. Sometimes, the truth does not matter especially when it hurts and does not work in our favour. The more fanciful the story, the more entertaining. That is why the best gossips and rumours are often the most incredulous. Who wants to know the boring truth, when you have the make-believe version that is much juicier?

Our readings today reverse the above cultural trends.

Instead of innovating with our own words and ideas, the first reading seeks to look for an ideal prophet following the archetype of Moses, someone who speaks God’s words and not his own. In fact, only God has every right to demand that we do not put words in His mouth and claim to speak on His behalf when He has not spoken these words at all. “All they have spoken is well said. I will raise up a prophet like yourself for them from their own brothers; I will put my words into his mouth and he shall tell them all I command him. The man who does not listen to my words that he speaks in my name, shall be held answerable to me for it. But the prophet who presumes to say in my name a thing I have not commanded him to say, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.” The Lord promises to raise up another leader like Moses, a prophecy which can only be fulfilled perfectly in the person of Jesus.

In the second reading, we are reminded by St Paul that words are not sufficient in witnessing the gospel of the Kingdom. It must be matched by actions and a particular value-based lifestyle. This is why St Paul advocates the celibate life. He does so not because he believes that marriage is bad and that the conjugal life is somewhat evil. He does so because celibacy, just like marriage, is also a sign of the life of the Kingdom. Celibacy does not make sense unless the values of the Kingdom of God fill the celibate’s whole horizon.

Finally, we have a miracle story in the gospel where our Lord exorcises a man possessed with an evil spirit in the synagogue. The crowds seem impressed by our Lord’s teachings, because “unlike the scribes, he taught them with authority.” St Mark does not elaborate any further as to the meaning of this term: “authority.” We often believe that “authority” and “power” are interchangeable. Yes, although there is intersection between the two concepts, one does not immediately imply the other. Persons with authority can be made powerless and those with power may not have authority.

The original Greek used by the evangelist would help us make more sense of the differences between these two words. The Greek word for power is dunamis, from which we derive the English dynamite. Our Lord had power as evidenced by His power to perform healing miracles, raise the dead, calm storms and cast out demons. But the unclean spirits likewise had power over the humans and the animals which they possessed. The difference between our Lord and the demons is that the former had authority (exousia) to exercise that power, while the demons did not. Exousia or authority points to limits, accountability, ministry and jurisdiction. Our Lord possessed authority by virtue of His identity - being the Son of God - an identity and authority which even the demons recognised and feared. Notice that the demons did not acknowledge the authority of the scribes, Pharisees and religious establishment. In the case of our Lord Jesus, He possessed both authority and power. The demons possessed their subjects with power but without authority.

Likewise, in modern times, many people are no respecters of authority, viewing it as tyrannical and old fashioned. They fail to recognise that without authority, without true limits, jurisdiction and accountability, everything descends into sheer abuse of power. Nothing exists in a vacuum. When we reject legitimate and rightful authority, we become an authority unto ourselves. My favourite definition of a Pharisee reflects this irony - a Pharisee sees a law when there is none and breaks a law when there is one.

It is authority which links our Lord’s deeds with His words, and this is the reason why the crowds commented that our Lord teaches with authority even though they had just witnessed an exorcism, for they saw both our Lord’s teachings and His deeds are united by their common source - authority - “he gives orders even to unclean spirits and they obey him.”

One last point needs to be raised when it comes to the truth of the Word of God. The crowds also declared this after having seen our Lord’s authority over demons: “Here is a teaching that is ‘new’”. Is novelty the benchmark for truth? Modernist would argue that it is so. In their efforts to revise the teachings of Christ, the Word of God and the traditional teachings of the Church, they argue that the only criterion which matters is that all these must be in synch with the values of modern times, values which are constantly shifting and expanding, what we call “new!” What they fail to recognise is that the hallmark of Christianity is not novelty but fidelity. We will be judged not by how the Church gets in “with the times,” but how she is more perfectly faithful as a Bride of Christ, whom St Augustine calls “O Beauty, Ever Ancient Ever New.” It is Christ who makes the teachings of the Church new, not us.

Preaching in all its forms is indispensable to the Church’s mission given to her by Jesus Christ: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:16-20). Such preaching cannot just be a car salesman’s pitch, rooted in half truths. It cannot just be one that tickles the imagination of our audience and entertains them with innovation and creativity. It must always be done with the authority given to us by the Lord through the Holy Spirit and not spring from self-appointment. Finally, preaching must lead others to be conformed to Christ and not to the world. The world may demand what is popular and effective but only Christ’s teachings are going to get us to heaven.

Change your mind and turn around

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Without skipping a beat, the evangelist St Mark notes the immediate transition from the ministry of the Baptist to that of the Lord’s after the former’s imprisonment - the latter takes over where the former left off - calling people to repentance: “The time has come … and the kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the Good News.” The work of repentance did not end with John the Baptist. In fact, the Lord not only assumes John’s primary work of calling people to repentance but takes it to another level.

The noun “repentance” comes from the Greek word “metanoia,” and the verb “to repent” comes from the Greek verb “metanoeō,” both of which connote a change of mind. In Greek, the word sheds its baggage of merely turning away from and renouncing sin. It calls for a radical change of our noetic faculties, of how we see things, how we think about things, of how we remember things. It addresses the issue of what occupies our attention and that which we give priority to. Seen in this light, metanoia addresses a society of narcissistic people who are obsessed with themselves and who have forgotten God. We are often preoccupied with earthly affairs rather than contemplate heavenly things. This is what sin entails - a forgetting of God. It is hard to sin, when we are thinking about God. The occasion of sin translates into the sin the moment we push God out of our consciousness.

Similarly, the moment of repentance takes place when we begin to think about God. Consider the story of the Prodigal Son, who squandered his inheritance in a wasteful and hedonistic lifestyle, thinking only of himself. But the turning point, the point where he “changes his mind” or experiences metanoia, is when he remembers his father and his father’s goodness and kindness. That reorientation of his thinking sets him on the path home. Consider also the story of the disciples in the gospel. There is no indication that they lived lives of depravity or abject sinfulness. They were just too occupied with their work, making a living, tending to their family affairs. But the encounter with our Lord changed everything. They experienced a metanoia too, a change of mind which led to a change of values and priorities. From now on, Christ will be their principal priority and everything else will take second place.

To explore further the deeper nuances of repentance, we need to turn to the Old Testament. In the Old Testament there are two words which expresses the idea of repentance, shuv (or its verb teshuvah) and naham. Shuv can be translated “to turn,” “to turn back,” “to turn around.” It does at times denote the kind of a complete heart change we will come to see in the New Testament idea of metanoia. Naham, on the other hand, has a number of meanings: “to sigh, to be sorry, to pity, to console, or (reflexively) to rue; to avenge, to comfort, to repent.” We will find both words used in the first reading if we happen to have the opportunity of reading the text in its original Hebrew.

In the first reading, we have a short excerpt from the familiar story of the prophet Jonah. Too often the prophets are thought of mainly as predictors of the future. But the truth is that they were mainly forthtellers or truth-sayers, for they spoke forth the truth of the Word of God over against the rising tide of idolatry, apostasy, and sin of the nation.

Whether it was deliberate or not, the excerpt in the first reading provides us with an extremely sanitised picture of the mission of Jonah without the full context, that is minus the hitches or glitches or drama and the multiple twists and turns in the entire narrative. The reading begins with Jonah carrying out his mission by being obedient to the Lord’s word. But the truth is that Jonah was not always “obedient” to the Lord’s word. In fact, Jonah did everything to run away from God and evade the mission that was entrusted to him. Instead of “going up”, literally heading north, Jonah fled south. Instead of going east in the direction of the great city of Nineveh of the Assyrians, Jonah sailed off westward into the uncharted waters of the Great Sea (the Mediterranean). It was after several adventures or misadventures, including being swallowed up by a whale, did Jonah relent. He “teshuvah,” he turned to the Lord and turned in the direction of Nineveh to fulfil his mission. And because his preaching was so effective (or the prospect of divine punishment so horrifying), the inhabitants of Nineveh also “teshuvah”, they repented.

But this is not the most amazing part of the story. The passage ends with this mysterious line describing what God did next: “God saw their efforts to renounce (shuv) their evil behaviour, and God relented (naham): he did not inflict on them the disaster which he had threatened.” Jonah turned. The Ninevites turned. But according to the text, God also turned! On the one hand, it is consoling to note that God turns His countenance on the sinner when he repents. It is important to note that God’s repentance is not like man’s. God is not taken off guard by unexpected turns of events like we are. He knows all the future. God did not regret creating man after the Fall because He knew that the Fall would bring about a greater good - man’s redemption through His Son’s death on the cross. Nor does God repent from sin since God never sins. So, His repentance is not owing to lack of foresight nor to folly. God neither turns away from committing sin nor does God “change his mind” about sin.

In the case of God, relenting or “naham” is a sign of His infinite mercy. God respects our freedom to walk away from Him, He even warns us of the consequences of our actions to discourage us from pursuing this path of destruction, but God is always ready to welcome us back. As much as He waits for us to turn around, God’s gaze is always upon us even while we were sinners. It does seem at least from our perspective that God’s judgmental eyes are boring into the back of our heads when we walk away from Him in sin. But the truth is that He has always been looking at us with His loving gaze and we will only come to realise this when we finally decide to turn around.

We just celebrated the New Year three weeks ago and many of you have made strong resolutions to turn your life around and become a better version of yourselves, resolutions which we often fail to keep. But why wait for this annual event to change. The Catholic Church provides us with an all year round opportunity to do better because she understands that we slip, we fall, and she affords us the opportunity to get up and start all over again. She knows us in and out, and how much we need to change, and how much help we need in changing. In fact, as our Eastern brethren would remind us, repentance is a permanent mode of Christianity, for to grow in holiness, one is constantly called to turn to God.

For this reason, the Church is never “stingy” in dispensing mercy. Repentance is not something which should be limited to once or twice a year when the penitential service comes round to the parish. The Church offers us the sacrament of confession anytime we need it and God knows how much we are in need of it. In offering confession, the Church offers us a much better version of the human desire to change. When we go before the priest in confession, we are renewing our commitment to “change our minds and our hearts”, to turn away from all worldly distractions and the allures of sin, to run back into the arms of a Loving God who has never taken His gaze off us. In confession, through the ministry of the priest, we turn to God and He turns to us in a loving embrace. So my dear brothers and sisters, wait no longer but “Repent, and believe the Good News!”

Are you listening?

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

For those who complain that God isn’t speaking to them - and I’m not referring to the delusional types who hear voices inside their heads - this Sunday’s readings remind us that God is always speaking, but the real issue is this - are we really listening? God’s Word is contained in sacred scripture and sacred tradition. How many of us take the trouble to put aside some time every day to study it, to meditate upon it and to apply its message to our lives? And I don’t mean to shame you to take out your Bible or your Catechism and read a few paragraphs today. I will be happy if you could do it every day.

More often, if we don’t hear what someone is saying, it’s because we don’t want to hear it. It’s called selective hearing. Whether it’s ignoring emails, screening phone calls and texts, staring at the screens of our devices while someone else is talking, or simply putting headphones in and cutting ourselves off from the world – we all practice selective hearing, even when we know we shouldn’t.

And it’s not a new phenomenon – Israel, in Samuel’s time, had a severe case of hearing deficit. It wasn’t that God wasn’t speaking; they still had the Law given to Moses to provide them with guidance, but neither those tasked with preaching it nor those tasked with listening were doing their job. Take for example the sons of Eli, Hophni and Phineas, who were all anointed priests of the Lord. Instead of preaching and teaching God’s Word to the people of Israel – as they were called to do – his sons were notorious for stealing from the portion of sacrificial offerings offered to God and for sleeping with the women who served at the tabernacle. But the most egregious sin was their refusal to listen to anyone who tried to correct their sinful ways.

As a result of the obstinacy of the religious leadership, God decided to give them the silent treatment. Since Israel had stopped listening, so God stopped speaking. That’s what it means when it says, in those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions. God wanted to speak to His people, to lead them, discipline them, forgive them, comfort them but because they refused to listen to Him, God refused to speak. It was the worst judgment possible.

And so enters Samuel, who is apprenticing with Eli his mentor. God calls Samuel to replace these hopeless ministers who have stopped listening to His Word. There is only one simple criteria – he must be willing to LISTEN, put it into practice and communicate it faithfully.

We turn to the gospel as we see the Word Incarnate finally emerging and the various peoples responding to His Word by learning to listen. We have the Baptist’s disciples listening to their master as he identifies Jesus as the Lamb of God and then they decide to follow up with their own investigation. They heard and heeded our Lord’s invitation to “Come and See” and was transformed by that encounter. Now having heard and encountered the Word personally, and not just come to know of Him by hearsay, they began to share the Word with others. We see this ripple effect finally reaching Simon Peter. His brother Andrew comes and shares his experience and thereafter took Peter to meet the Lord. Peter’s name serves as an apt conclusion to this whole episode. Simon (Shimon) in Hebrew means hearing or listening. Though the name was a real name and not just a symbolic one, St John the Evangelist weaves it beautifully into his narrative to summarise the process and dynamics of discipleship - the disciple is one who listens and puts into practice what he has heard.

So, God continues to speak to us through His Word. And His Word is not just found in a book, but in a living breathing person, our Lord Jesus Christ. We should have no excuse to not listen. And yet, we can find a load of excuses not to listen. I guess that busyness is easily the number one excuse for not hearing, not meditating, not praying, not taking time to study God’s Word. But busyness is just a cover for the real reasons. One common reason is pride. Pride that wants to say, “Listen up, Lord, I’m speaking” rather than “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.” Others don’t listen because they are angry with God, and so we choose to give Him the silent treatment. Or maybe our problem is just sheer laziness. Bibles, study guides, online formations – and more – are all easily accessible, but we’re just too lazy to make use of them.

And yet, God in His grace, continues to speak. God is more persistent than we can ever imagine. He hasn’t taken His Word from our lives – in fact, just the opposite, He speaks to us in more places and ways than ever before. In spite of our selective listening, and in spite of our sinfulness, God continues to speak to us for only one reason: Love. God’s Word has the power to do what none of the other voices in the world can do: He transforms us so that we not only want to listen, but we are emboldened to obey. St Paul reminds the Corinthians in the second reading that after having heard the Word, they can no longer go back to their previous depraved lives. Living such a life might not always make sense. But it is God’s Word – the only voice we can trust in this noisy world, and which can set us on the right and straight path to holiness.

Finally, all this begs the question: What does it mean to listen to God?

The first step is to stop talking. It is amazing how God can speak to us when we shut up. Fr Bona has been reminding me to this ever since I was discharged from the hospital. If you want to heal quicker, learn to be quiet. Shut up! If you want to be more attentive to God’s word, learn to be quiet.

We can also listen to God intently through scripture. There is a time for studying the Word to have a better grasp and understanding of the text. But the Word of God is also meant to be prayed. As much as we admire the Protestant’s proficiency in quoting scriptural texts, our Catholic exposition and appreciation of the bible cannot be done in isolation and apart from our liturgy, as our liturgy is deeply scriptural and our scripture is profoundly liturgical. We listen and comprehend the Word of God most deeply when we do so in prayer and worship.

Finally, listening to God also requires patience. Patience teaches us humility and docility - humility to recognise that God sets the pace, not us; and docility to submit in obedience to the Word. The Latin root for the word “obedience”, “obedire”, simply means “to listen” as the Apostle James reminds us: “you must DO what the Word tells you and not just listen to it and deceive yourselves.” (James 1:22) Listen! Do! Believe and Live!

Light shines brightest in darkness

Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord

Imagine that the journey of life was all cozy and rosy. That everything worked out as we wished and there was absolutely no pain. How could you appreciate the presence of something if you have never known its absence? Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. Sorrow and joy, darkness and light, pain and happiness, these things serve as the lower and upper limits of the scale of life. They enable us to measure situations and moments in our lives. Without one, it becomes impossible to appreciate the other. We need to understand darkness to comprehend the light. To appreciate life, we must accept death as part of the equation. To live is to experience wholeness.

Today’s feast similarly gives wholeness and a necessary balance to the entire Christmas story. Its placement in the calendar positions, Epiphany as the fulfilment of Advent and the climax of Christmas. While in Advent the Church awaits the coming of the light of the Messiah, at Christmas the Church beholds the incarnation of God in flesh, and on Epiphany the Church celebrates that God has come to make His glory known to the world, in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. During Advent, the Church seeks God’s intervention for humanity still covered by darkness. At Christmas the Church declares that God has assumed our humanity, by inserting His light into the darkness. On Epiphany the Church asserts that God has made Himself known to all humanity, the Light now shines in the darkness.

The movement from Advent to Epiphany marks a progression from darkness to light, which is why Epiphany sometimes is called the Feast of Lights. Advent anticipates God’s promised light that will come to dispel the darkness. Christmas praises God for His light that has been born into the darkness. Epiphany rejoices that God’s light has come to the world and has manifest itself to those living in darkness. And so, with Isaiah, on Epiphany the Church proclaims: “Arise, shine out, Jerusalem, for your light has come, the glory of the Lord is rising on you.”

Yes, the feast of Epiphany is rightly called the festival of light, although there are many other contenders for this title. I would like to think of it as more a festival of twilight, rather than a blast of sunlight. The most picturesque scene is never captured when the sun is high in the sky or when the land is covered in the darkness of the night. The most beautiful painting on God’s canvas of nature is often wrought in the twilight hours of sunset and sunrise, where both light and darkness mingle and produce the most amazing myriad of colours. And thus, twilight often marks the significant hours of our Lord’s life: His birth in Bethlehem in the darkness of the night of Christmas; His death on a cross on Good Friday where daylight was darkened by an eclipse; His resurrection in the darkness before the dawn of Easter; and when His birth and presence was manifested by the star which shone in the dark and led the magi to His bedside on this feast.

In Isaiah’s prophecy in the first reading, we witness the intermingling of light and darkness. The prophecy announces that the “light has come” and yet “night still covers the earth and darkness the peoples.” How could this be? How could light coexist with darkness side-by-side? Well, darkness is not a “thing” which exist. Just like evil does not ontologically exist as an entity, evil is the mere absence of good. Likewise, darkness is the absence of light, without it, we would never know what it means to not have light. That is to say, we would take the presence of light for granted, we would never fully see how lucky we are to have light. So anytime you find yourself in a difficult situation, anytime you find yourself in darkness, always remember that brighter days will come, and when they do, you will find and appreciate joy more than you would have if joy had been a simple daily occurrence without interruption.

In the account of the visit of the magi in the gospel, we see the fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah: “The nations come to your light and kings to your dawning brightness.” It is this association with the “kings” and “nations” of Isaiah’s prophecy and not from our gospel text, which had inspired the tradition that the magi were three kings representing three continents in the ancient world - Europe, Africa and Asia. Once again in this familiar tale that has been immortalised in Christmas pageants, carols and crèche scenes, we see the intermingling of light and darkness. While the visit of the Magi—representing the nations of the world—is an unmistakable sign that the salvation offered by the newborn King is for all times and peoples, writers through the ages saw the Magi’s journey as a metaphor for conversion and the journey of faith that each of us is traveling, a journey that often passes through the valley of darkness. It is precisely the darkness of antagonists like the politically insecure Herod or the religious leaders of his time which makes the story of Epiphany and our story so much brighter. How could virtue shine more valiantly, if it was not surrounded by the darkness of vice and sin?

Following the inspiration of God, the story of Epiphany and our own story move from the darkness of doubt and sin, entering into the light and freedom of God’s children. This inspired Pope Benedict XVI’s reflexion on this feast, when he wrote: “How important it is that we Christians are faithful to our vocation! Every authentic believer is always traveling his own personal itinerary of faith, and at the same time, with the little light that he carries within himself, can and must be a help to those alongside him, and even help the one for whom finding the way that leads to Christ is difficult.”

The “night still covers the earth and darkness the peoples,” but the light of Christ has come into the world, and that has made all the difference. Our lives may now be covered in darkness, but dawn is on the way, the night of doubt and uncertainty would soon be over. But even in this experience of darkness, even in the dark night of the soul, the heavenly light that guided the Magi still shines in the Gospel, which continues to guide us along our pilgrim way. As we look upon the crèche, we cannot stay there. Like the shepherds and the magi, we too are called to move away and take the light of Jesus with us. We are asked not only to admire the light, but to be people of light. As Jesus Himself tells us, you are the light of the world and your light must shine. The gift of this great Christmas feast reminds us that the Church, and every person of faith, has been entrusted with that same light and we are called to carry that light into the dark places of the world in our prayer, words, and acts of charity.