Elsa Chaney, in her article “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” gives a comprehensive layman’s discussion of the feast of the Epiphany, which we celebrate today.
She raises the point that in Christmas, we celebrate the humanity of Christ, God becoming man in this child, and in the Epiphany we celebrate the divinity of Christ and thus complete the celebration of the entire season of Christmas. (Liturgically, the Christmas Season ends with the feast of the Baptism of Christ.)
She further writes that while Christmas has become a time for family and friends, Epiphany is the “world feast of the Catholic Church” as Christ, the God-with-us, is manifested to the Gentiles, represented by the three magis from the East or the Three Kings.
The term epiphany has an interesting history from the Greek meaning “to manifest,” which developed into “a divine manifestation.” The Christian usage is the manifestation of the divinity of Christ to the Gentiles. Later on, James Joyce secularized and further popularized the term as an experience of a dramatic moment of enlightenment, realization or insight that is surrounded by a magical atmosphere.
These epiphanies can range from the simplest snapshot story of daily life that gives us some insight, to an almost mystical vision resulting in a deep transformation. As Joyce would put it, no matter how simple or how profound the epiphany, all are harmoniously beautiful.
Rhyme and reason
Harmoniously beautiful—perhaps this is the grace of an epiphany. It is a moment when things fall into place in one’s life and one realizes the rhyme and reason of one’s life or even just the beauty of the moment when we realize there is harmony.
I had shared in a previous article my 2003 Holy Week retreat experience when, on the second day of my eight-day retreat, I went back to a memory when I was 5 or 6 years old and from that moment I retraced the story of my life, the significant moments of my life line. Then, at the end of it all, the epiphany was realizing that through it all God is present. His presence is providential. His providence is loving.
This is the epiphany. My life, at that moment, was harmoniously beautiful, realizing God is lovingly, providentially present. For the first time in my life, I was able to say to myself that I had a happy childhood and had lived a happy life, because God is lovingly, providentially present.
This is the epiphany I always considered as the experience that made me “go back” and pursue again my “dreams” to teach, to help form young men and women. Two years later, I resigned from the Ateneo and asked to be dismissed from the Jesuits to do what I had discerned and was confirmed by my spiritual director as God’s mission for me.
Family devotion
Another story I shared in a homily last year was the experience of ABS-CBN newscaster Ginger Conejero in the Quiapo procession back in 2010. Ginger’s family have been devotees from the time of her grandparents. She was aware of this family devotion while she was growing up, but never got to participate in the procession until 2010.
That year her, father was home from the US where the had family migrated years earlier when Ginger was a child. Her father took the opportunity to join the procession, which he had not joined for close to a decade since his visits here never coincided with the procession. Ginger told her father that she also wanted to join the procession and experience it for the first time.
Come procession day, there she was with her cousins standing with the crowd, waiting for the carroza to pass by. They were standing in the Arlegui area near their ancestral home, barefooted, as the tradition of the procession was.
Her father had coached her on what to do when the procession passed by. Ginger was to jump on top of the men accompanying the carroza with the image of the Black Nazarene, hand over her piece of cloth, a small face towel, which was to be wiped on the image, and then jump back into the crowd on the streets to allow others to go up. Her father told her this was all to happen in a few seconds.
The moment came. She did as instructed. At the moment she was handing over her piece of cloth, she was overcome with emotions she could not explain. It was an experience of the presence of grace. In the midst of the crowds and the noise, she could hear her father calling to her. “Ginger, jump! Jump! I will be here to catch you! Jump! I will catch you.”
At that moment, she broke down and cried. She had an epiphany. Her life shifted into a harmonious beauty of realizing that all throughout her life her father had been there for her, loving her.
Harmonious beauty
Our lives are blessed with epiphanies. We are blessed with moments when we experience the harmonious beauty of our life. We experience God’s presence. We experience love. We experience a deep joy and peace.
Paulo Coelho in “By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept” writes:
“We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen. Every day, God gives us the sun—and also one moment in which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy. Every day, we pretend we do not perceive that moment, that it doesn’t exist… But if people really pay attention to their everyday lives, they will discover the magic moment. It may arrive in the instant when we are doing something mundane…
“It may lie hidden in the quiet that follows the lunch hour, or in the thousand and one things that all seem the same. But that moment exists—a moment when all the power of the stars becomes part of us and enables us to perform miracles.”
Magic moments
There are magic moments in our life. These are the epiphanies of our life. At this moment, things fall into place and we are not the same again. We experience a sense of wholeness—the harmony that James Joyce talks about. We are able to see some meaning in, or the meaning of our life, and our life assumes a beauty found in one lived with purpose.
We become whole and integrated and this allows us to act with integrity. Our action becomes an expression of the deepest meaning of our life, the values we believe in and the good we want to do. This is the harmony.
In one of the songs from the musical “Les Miserables,” Jean Valjean sings the line “To love another person is to see the face of God.” This is the epiphany. This is discovering God in our ability to love others, God and other people. It is discovering that in our own life, the harmoniously beautiful is to live a life of loving service.