Epiphany is the answer to why there are so many religions!
On Friday the Church celebrated the Solemnity of the Epiphany: "The Lord and ruler is coming; kingship is his, and government and power." The Coming of the Magi expresses the deepest desire of the human race as manifested in the fact that there are so many religions, namely, to meet their maker. Epiphany, therefore, marks the liturgical zenith of the Advent-Christmas season. It is why it is often called little Christmas. And it is why even in such secular times as ours, the pagans still want to enter the mystery of Christmas.
It is here that we find the search for God that is evidenced in history in those who have sought the meaning of the mystery of life. It is a search for God that lies also behind the many religions of the world, and yes, even the spiritualities of modern times. But the difference lies with what the Magi found at the end of their search. The Magi embody the human search for God but though they were star-gazers whose religious wisdom was based on reading the stars, still they had to go to Israel to find where the ‘messiah’, the King of the World, was to be born. They had to come out of a religious tradition of searching to an objective revelation that was given to the Jews about God and his purposes. When they find Jesus in Bethlehem, they bow down and give homage to him by handing over all the fruits of their wisdom to the King of Kings!
For alone of all the nations and alone of all the religions of the world, it was Israel that God had chosen to be a people to receive an objective revelation that was to be given to all the nations of the world. From them would come one who was to be king and ruler of a religious and spiritual empire that would embody the self-revelation of God and his will for all mankind. Thus, a specific people were formed to have a universal vocation to go out to all the nations and proclaim to all the nations the Kingship and the Kingdom of God and thereby make of them members of a Catholic, Universal people called the Catholic Church!
If Religion is man-made it is because it embodies man’s search for God and that is why there were and still are so many religions. Religions are an empirical proof that man is naturally a religious being! So much so that it must be said that it is artificial and unnatural for a man, a woman or a child not to be religious! With the coming of Jesus we find something new and something different. We find that in opposition to all other religions, which embodied man’s search for God, we find the history of Israel and its revelation is all about God’s search for man. A search that becomes personal with the birth of Jesus in whom God comes down personally into the world so that all mankind now comes face to face with it’s Creator, the God for whom they have always searched!
The modern attempts to have spirituality without religion, is really a flight from the objectivity of revelation. Instead of objective revelation which consists in God objectively revealing himself, they seek a subjective revelation where people make up their own ideas of God. Revelation for the modern mind is no longer something objective but rather something subjective that I find, I form, and I choose. It is for this reason that many today are scandalised by the claims of Jesus Christ and his Church. They run away from its realism, its objectivity and its moral demands by speaking of it as being dogmatic, imperialistic and authoritarian as it impinges on their subjective views of what God is like. What they are really saying is that God is made in my image rather than I am made in God’s image!
More recently this subjectivism has crept into the heart of the Church and Christian communities where we hear of people speaking of themselves as liberal Catholics, liberal Anglicans or liberal Christians! The only authority over scripture and tradition that they accept is basically ‘their own view of revelation!’ Simply put, they say it is my ego and my will that are the only authorities that really count! It is here that we find pick and mix Christians, supermarket Catholics and al la carte believers. They will not bend the knee like the Magi, nor will they do homage like the Magi, homage to the God who comes in real time and real space as a baby in Bethlehem.
As a result there are so many today who can no longer even contemplate what it is to worship; the idea of bowing, kneeling, praising, obeying or worshipping God on a Sunday becomes anathema and indeed something childish. It offends their status, their education and their dignity! In fact, today we see the rise of a cultural Narcissism unparalled in human history found in the Woke and Victim culture that wants to cancel everything that offends, challenges and hurts the ego. What a contrast to the Magi and the shepherds who embody both wisdom and humility. Wisdom is given to the humble whereas the proud only find folly, for the meek and not the proud will finally inherit the earth!
Check out this video from Dr Taylor Marshall which looks at Narcissism in the light of an anthropology and psychology founded on the philosophy of St Thomas Aquinas and is a great help to helping young and old, priests and laity, single or married deal with narcisists that they come across in their social lives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKA8NMD9mxU&ab_channel=DrTaylorMarshall [10 Christian Boundaries for Narcissists with Fr Dave Nix and Dr Taylor Marshall].
So let us all honour the wisdom of the Magi and the humility of the shepherds in our homes today. We can do this by activating an ancient tradition of Catholic homes on this day of the Epiphany. The tradition is one that involves the blessing of our homes. On the door lintels we are to inscribe the Cross of salvation, together with the indication of the year and the initials of the three wise men (C+M+B), which can also be interpreted to mean Christus Mansionem Benedicat - Christ bless this house. This custom is often accompanied by a procession of children who follow their parents to the door where C+M+B is written with the blessed chalk. It expresses the blessing of Christ through the intercession of the three wise men and is an occasion for gathering offerings for charitable and missionary purposes. So take home a piece of blessed chalk and the house blessing leaflet for the Epiphany so that as parents you can lead your children to welcome the wisdom of the Magi into your homes, who are icons for us of how to live wisely the life of Christ in a blessed and thus divinely protected home [see how to bless your home with Epiphany chalk: https://aleteia.org/2018/01/05/how-to-bless-your-home-with-epiphany-chalk/ ].
