The Mass As Our Weekly Epiphany

I am writing this about eight miles from the tomb my Confirmation Saint, Bede the Venerable, from whose work the Holy Father has taken his motto, Miserando atque eligendo, and who first gave the traditional names and colours to the Three Wise Men. People here in the North East of England tend to think of Saint Bede as an essentially regional figure, and people in the rest of England tend not to think of him at all, but they are both wrong.

Like the Wise Men, we encounter God first in His Creation, the Star. That leads us to our encounter with God in Scripture, the Prophecy. And that in turns leads us to our encounter with God in the Person of Jesus Christ, the Christ Child, the Blessed Sacrament. Like the Wise Men, we fall down and worship Him. Indeed, following that journey is what it is to be wise, and it includes the presentation of our gifts, which is the presentation of ourselves in tribute to our King, to our God, and to the Sacrifice offered for us. Hence the importance of gold vessels at Mass and in the Adoration, Procession and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, and hence, in part, the importance on all of those occasions of incense, which is therefore made from both frankincense and myrrh. Like the processional Cross and candles, it ought at the very least to be used on all Sundays and Solemnities unless that were somehow utterly impractical, which it is impossible to see how it could be in a properly functioning parish. As with all these things, the only argument against it is a denial of its theological meaning, and no quarter must be given to that as a matter of iron principle.

And both that journey and that presentation have a further stage. Having been transformed by the encounter with Jesus Christ, then we, like the Wise Men, depart to our own country by another way, by another road, by another route. Or own country is the rest of our lives, which we can never again approach in the same way as before. We depart for that country each time that we attend Mass, each time that we receive Holy Communion, and each time that we adore the Blessed Sacrament. Each of those events is an Epiphany of the Lord to us, an Epiphany of the Lord for us, and an Epiphany of the Lord through us to the world.