Feast of the Epiphany- Bearing Gifts

I've been thinking of the Epiphany again today..

Mass readings  for this Sunday are here, 

and various commentaries here including a fine and timely one from Fr.Ron Rolheiser here titled The Bad Time Comes.

Looking back through my own posts since I began the blog, I was surprised to see that I have done quite a few posts on the theme of The Epiphany, so to make it easier to access them I have put the separate links to them all below.( Hope this helps.)

• Le Point Vierge and The Epiphany

• The Magi and The Ships Of The Desert

• Pier Paolo Pasolini's Film of Epiphany

• My 2011 post on The Epiphany

• My 2010 post on The Feast of the Epiphany 

The gifts of gold for Divinity, frankincense for Holiness and myrrh for reducing pain and embalming, ( a foreshadow of suffering and death), given by the Magi, were perfect for a King when compared to my own gifts that can often fall significantly short of the ideal offering. 

I fail to do my best ;  I fail to love others in the way I should.
Like the image above, I think I am like Dwayne on bad days when the going gets tough and U- turns abound.

The list of my own shortcomings and the world's mess seem to grow longer with each passing day. It's a humbling aspect of reality.

The "streets filled with broken hearts" in Bob Dylan's song  "Everything is Broken" form the real world I regularly see on the news  but Christ gave Himself and His light to show me the way back when I lose myself in the dark places.

Winter Blessing’ by Mary Palmer: 

“When sleet blinds you, hail drowns out voices, and snow hides your path,
May you discern in each flake a star, image of the one that guided the Magi,
And find that in the pain of birth, death or change
There is a light to guide you.”

The word Epiphany from the Greek is the sudden realization or comprehension of the (larger) essence or meaning of something.

The word originally referred to insight given from the divine which cannot be predicted, or controlled; the realization that Christ is the Son of God.

That is the opportunity the feast of the Epiphany allows me to renew.

Image by Wonderlane via Flickr

But epiphanies may often come too as an end result of hard work with many failures, wrong turns and dead ends; just like the long trip made by the Magi across the deserts it can take us all a whole lifetime before we can find God in the everyday.

Leonard Cohen's verse reminds me to keep trying even if my gifts are not gold, frankincense or myrrh..

Ring the bells that still can ring.

Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack in everything.

That's how the light gets in.

My gifts today are three poems and they all are about epiphanies of one kind or another..

If God is my usable past

the part worth saving,
 
the minutes, episodes,

chance in-counters
when I measure the moment
by soul standard,

an inward counting
of worth and meaning-

the past
stumbled upon

or given as an outright gift
to which I first said no

then later yes
with a bless-me-now
petition of recognition

instead of my normal
grudge;

yes!
that usable past

as even bruised fruit preserves
and shriveling grapes store sweet wine;

Then

out of the past, O God,

let the useless become usable,
the broken repaired,

the lost found
as when the prodigal’s nowhere
with a change of compass

becomes now here
at homecoming.

Warren L. Molton

Image : Salvador Dali Travels of the Three Kings

I Used To Run

I used to run from you

Afraid

that in your cool embrace there was an

absence

of all that I ached for

That wounds would sing louder

in your presence,

That smallness and insecurity would emerge

and engulf the self

I had spent so many earnest, neon hued hours

chiseling

into shape

It's not that I’m more courageous now

but perhaps this laboriously constructed ‘me’  has been pummelled

long and hard enough

to realise that

all the true words

really are

safe in your keeping

So here I am

unclothed and vulnerable

a naked sparrow at the mouth

of the ocean

Speak to me

Silence

Tell me what

the wise ones

know

Maithri Goonetilleke from here

PRICELESS GIFTS

An empty day without events.
And that is why
it grew immense
as space. And suddenly
happiness of being
entered me.

I heard
in my heartbeat
the birth of time
and each instant of life
one after the other
came rushing in
like priceless gifts.

~ Anna Swir (1909-1984), Polish poet.  

Christine Sine has a wonderful reflection on Epiphany below.

• Epiphany - An Invitation to Follow Jesus (godspace.wordpress.com) where she says :"The question that has revolved in my mind is What does the new life of God look like? Where am I following Christ to? These questions are particularly pertinent as I am also rereading Ann Voskamp’s wonderful book  One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are.  

•  Ann points out that the first sin of Adam and Eve in the garden was ingratitude, dissatisfaction with all that God had gifted them with. She contends that the key to finding the fullness of life that God intends for us is learning to be grateful for every moment and every circumstance.

• "I have lived pain, and my life can tell: I only deepen the wounds of the world when I neglect to give thanks for early light dappled through leaves and the heavy perfume of wild roses in early July… and all the good things that God gives…. rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn’t rescue the suffering. The converse does.

  The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest Light to all the world.

  When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices, life grows…..

  The only real prayers are the ones mouthed with thankful lips. Because gratitude ushers into the other side of prayer, into the heart of the God-love, and all power to change the world, me, resides here in his love. (p58,60)

  The season of Epiphany is an invitation to follow Jesus into the ways of gratitude and joy,. We are no longer bound by the dissatisfaction of our consumer culture that tells us to keep striving for more stuff, more success, more money, more of everything for myself. 
  
  Instead we are invited to learn to live in the joy and contentment of seeing every moment as a gift from God. As Paul encourages us:
  

  Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again – rejoice… Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace which exceeds anything we can understand. (Phil 4:4, 6-7)

  And again
  

  Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness. (Colossians 2:4,5)

  So as we move into Epiphany this year let us do so with joy and gratitude."