Celebrating the "Epiphanies" in Our Own Lives

My wife and I spent this Christmas season traveling through Europe, which, while always a wonderful time, comes with the often stressful experience of finding places of worship in foreign countries we are unfamiliar with in foreign languages we don't speak. The first half of our trip was in the UK, which provided the luxury of being an English-speaking country, so finding ourselves at a beautiful Christmas Eve Midnight Mass at the London Oratory and Mass for the Solemnity of the Holy Family at the Edinburgh Cathedral was a straightforward yet profoundly rewarding task. However, with our trip ending in the German-speaking Zurich, Switzerland, the mission of finding a parish to celebrate the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God on New Year's Eve proved to be a bit more complicated.

After hours of switching between local parish websites and Google Translate, we finally located a parish a few bus stops away from us that offered a Mass we could attend before our 3 am flight back to the United States. When we arrived at the church, however, we faced our next problem: despite the church being open, no one was inside, and nothing indicated that Mass was about to be offered. As our confusion turned to disappointment and defeat, an older woman appeared seemingly out of nowhere and began to speak to us in German and gesture for us to follow her outside. At first, my wife and I tried to explain to her that we spoke absolutely no German (much to my high school German teacher's disappointment), and then we tried to convey that we understood that there was no Mass and that we would leave the church as soon as we offered a quick prayer inside in a small attempt to make up for our poor planning on not finding a Mass ahead of time. However, the woman continued to speak to us and pleaded to follow her. With seemingly no other option we followed the women outside. Much to our surprise, she led us outside the church, around the corner, down the street, and then finally down a set of stairs to an unmarked door behind the church. I would be lying if I told you that, at this point, the thought that we were being kidnapped didn't cross both of our minds. Yet, against our better judgment, we followed the women inside the doors to find ourselves inside a small basement chapel where we were met with a few small pews filled with about a dozen people in quiet prayer before an altar being prepared for Mass. The woman turned back and left us with a gentle smile as if to say, "You're welcome," as she continued to her pew. My wife and I knelt in the back, thanking the Lord for bringing us to Him, even if it was in the most unexpected way.

I share this story today as the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord because it is precisely what this celebration is about. Not only does our Lord give us the beautiful gift of His Incarnation, but he goes even further, makes His presence known to us, and lays out the path by which we can come to worship him. The celebration of the Epiphany is the celebration of our God's unceasing desire to lead us to our Savior. At the historical Incarnation, this manifested as the star that led the Magi to the Holy Family in the manger, and to us now, it is through the generosity of strangers like the older women who led my wife and me to this hidden chapel in the alleys of Switzerland. The beautiful reality of this Solemnity is that regardless of where we find ourselves, our Savior will give us what we need to find Him so that we may rejoice in the presence of our Savior.