READING OF THE DAY First reading from the Book of Isaiah Is 60:1-6
Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem! Your light has come, the glory of the Lord shines upon you. See, darkness covers the earth, and thick clouds cover the peoples; but upon you the LORD shines, and over you appears his glory. Nations shall walk by your light, and kings by your shining radiance. Raise your eyes and look about; they all gather and come to you: your sons come from afar, and your daughters in the arms of their nurses.
Then you shall be radiant at what you see, your heart shall throb and overflow, for the riches of the sea shall be emptied out before you, the wealth of nations shall be brought to you. Caravans of camels shall fill you, dromedaries from Midian and Ephah; all from Sheba shall come bearing gold and frankincense, and proclaiming the praises of the LORD.
Second reading from the Letter to the Ephesians Eph 3:2-3a, 5-6
Brothers and sisters: You have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for your benefit, namely, that the mystery was made known to me by revelation. It was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: that the Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body, and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
GOSPEL OF THE DAY From the Gospel according to Matthew Mt 2:1-12
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, "Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage." When King Herod heard this, he was greatly troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. Assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, He inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They said to him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it has been written through the prophet: And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; since from you shall come a ruler, who is to shepherd my people Israel." Then Herod called the magi secretly and ascertained from them the time of the star's appearance. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and search diligently for the child. When you have found him, bring me word, that I too may go and do him homage." After their audience with the king they set out. And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them, until it came and stopped over the place where the child was. They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their country by another way.
WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER It is the invitation of Holy Mother Church to welcome this Word of salvation, this mystery of light. If we welcome Him, if we welcome Jesus, we will grow in the knowledge and the love of the Lord, we will learn to be merciful like Him. (Angelus, 3 January 2016)
To adore is to meet Jesus without a list of requests, but with the one request to be with Him. It is to discover that joy and peace grow with praise and thanksgiving. (...) To adore is a life-changing gesture of love. It is to do as the Magi did: it is to bring gold to the Lord, to tell Him that nothing is more precious than He is; it is to offer Him incense, to tell Him that only with Him does our life rise to the heights; it is to present Him with myrrh, with which they anointed the wounded and tortured bodies, to promise Jesus to help our marginalized and suffering neighbors, because He is there. (Epiphany Homily, January 6, 2020)
FAUSTI - "Being born": the God who saves is already here. Matthew describes how to find "where" He was born, so that His Christmas may also be mine. This is the city of David. Luke also tells how, because of the census, He was born in Bethlehem. "In the days of King Herod" Herod is the great despotic and dissolute king. He is the "king of Judea" of the land he owns; he is not the "king of the Jews," of the people who live there. Their king is Christ, the liberator! In this account, the Magi are seen in positive terms. They are not "magicians," but wise men who follow the directions of the star. Looking at the stars, marveling at the vastness of the sky and trying to understand it, scrutinizing its rhythm and harmony is the beginning of human knowledge. The sky reigns over the earth: it marks the succession of seasons, months, days and hours, it determines work and rest, sowing and harvesting, it separates and reunites, it mourns and celebrates. The measurement of time is the first science of man, aware that the time at his disposal is limited. The Magi are not content to observe the stars as they appear, persist and disappear: for them science is not only the observation of what is there, but also wondering what it means. Where was the Lord born, whom I must now and wish to find? Wisdom, a reflection of the uncreated light, guides the Magi to Jerusalem: there is the center of the people, the repository of promise and Scripture. Reason, in seeking salvation, opens itself to revelation wherever it is given. It is in Israel that Christ is found, for all and forever. To lose this root means to lose the fruit. The first temptation is to open oneself to God, but denying the "history" in which He reveals Himself and acts, reducing everything to an ideology and a symbol, without its content. This is what the various enlightenment and moralisms ancient and recent, such as the New Age, do. Those who do not recognize Jesus "in the flesh" do not have the Spirit of God (1Jn 4:2); they are simply deceived. Detaching oneself from Israel, old and new, from Mary and the Church, means losing "the Gospel": the flesh of God with us. As in Judea, then, in every corner of the earth, there are two opposite ways of being king: one powerful, oppressive, the other humble, saving. The two stand together like darkness and light. The Magi seek the king of the Jews, not the king of Judea. What king and what man, what God and what salvation are we looking for? At the time of Jesus, there was a conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn, the star of the Sabbath, the Feast of the Jews. Halley's Comet also appeared. Whatever the sign, it is a "theological star."
-->If science measures what is visible, wisdom seeks its invisible truth, and is satisfied only when it is open to the ultimate meaning: "every undead thought flourishes in transcendence" (Adorno). The star, light in the night, is the human reason that, never satisfied with what it knows and open to what it does not know, guides man towards an ever greater truth. Wisdom also guides the pagans in their exodus, as "the light of the stars in the night" (Wis 10:17). (Wisdom 10:17) It is not enough to see. We must move ahead and undertake a difficult way of searching, without never mistaking truth for our own certainty. Those who, like Herod and the scribes, are in the palace of their own interests or in the city of their beliefs-even the simplest ones! - does not encounter the truth. On the contrary, they destroy it wherever it is found. The arrival of the Magi in Jerusalem reminds us of IS 60:1-5. "Adoration": to adore is the desire that moves every journey from the beginning, the end of all understanding and action. To adore is to bring to the mouth, to embrace, in communion of love and breath. What the Magi do here, the apostles will do at the end. Herod and whole Jerusalem listen to question and search of the peoples for them. The general tumult is the surprise of those who must decide which king they want: whether Herod is the same as everyone has or the one that God has promised. The political authority summons the religious and intellectual authorities to find out "where" this king was born. They have the right answer. They move their eyes to the Scriptures, but the Scriptures do not move their feet to the Lord. They know the truth, but they turn away from it. How often we use knowledge to defend ourselves against what we know! They should "go out" to meet the Lord. Those who do not go out to meet Him become with their knowledge accomplices of those who kill. "The least", the minimum, is the criterion of God's choice, as opposed to that of Herod and every man. God chooses Israel as his people because it is the smallest of all peoples. He therefore chooses David as king, the youngest of his brothers (1 Sam 16:11). God chooses things that are not "to reduce to nothing the things that are" (1 Cor 1:28), which is why none of the mighty and wise of this world can recognize Him. To find "where" the Lord is, we must look in the direction in which He is. And He, the "least of the brethren," is among the least. Reason makes us look for the Savior, revelation tells us where to find Him: the former says He exists, the latter who He is, giving the former new criteria of evaluation, the same as God's. For this reason, the star disappears in Jerusalem - reason for a moment darkens before revelation, like the stars before the sun - but then reappears with more precise indications. "Herod, having secretly called the Magi, asked..." The King of Judea is an enemy of the King of the Jews. He uses for his plans both the "indifferent" science of the scribes and the "engaged" wisdom of the Magi. Evil is used for everything, especially good! He can always consider the "indifferent" in his service, and make the "committed" his most dangerous allies, because they do not know. An acquaintance who does not love is always "antichrist," but even unthinking love becomes Satan's tool (Peter 16:21-23). However, the Lord remains the only Lord of history and in the end all things fulfill His plan of love (Rom 8:28-Ac 4:27 - Rev 17:17). Herod makes his emissaries the Magi, in good faith. He wants to involve them in his intrigues, without them realizing it. Jesus is the King of the Jews, the Christ, Light of the Gentiles, born for all in Bethlehem of Judea. The light of reason and revelation leads humanity to Him, and in Him it finds its life.
--> The Church, in addition to Jews, is also made up of Gentiles who, like the Magi, travel the path of the quest until they find Him, embrace Him and open their treasure to Him.--> "They rejoiced with great joy" God is Love; there is joy in His fragrance, a sign of His presence. Wherever He is, there is joy; sadness is a sign of His absence. He is communicated to the one who loves, to the one who discovers the treasure (13:44), to the one who encounters the Living One (28:8). The joy of the heart indicates "where" the one you seek is: He is in you. Here, finally, you enter the home and find the King. The child is certainly worth a detour. Where is the child, if not in the heart of the one who loves Him, listens to Him, and rejoices in Him? The outward journey stops; with worship the inward journey begins. Three times we say "adore" The Child, you find Him if you enter the " Home," and He is always with the Mother. You find the Son in Israel, in Mary, in the Church, in the brothers, in yourselves, if you love Him and listen to Him! Matthew's treasure is the heart of man. Where your treasure is, there is your heart. The Magi open their hearts and offer what is in them. Gold, visible wealth, represents what one possesses; frankincense, invisible as God, represents what one desires; myrrh, an ointment that heals wounds and protects against corruption, represents what one is. The kingship, the divinity, the mortality proper to the creature, all that man has, but especially what he desires and lacks, is his treasure. He opens to God his goods, his desires and his difficulties. And God enters his treasure. It is "there" that the Son is begotten of the Father. By giving what they are, the Magi receive Him who is, and they themselves become like Him. God is born in man and man in God, and it is here that the journey takes place. The Magi, like Joseph, also receive God's message in a dream. God's dream affects history more than the power of the Almighty, and they don't care. They return to where they started. But "in another way." No longer the one who seeks the one who does not know, but the one who has found the One whom he seeks. In fact, they are no longer the same as before, they have found "where" the king was born. The "where" of God is the heart of man, and the "where" of man is the heart of God. They have withdrawn from the "anchorites," says the Greek text, to their own country. Now they have with them a new heaven and a new earth, a seed that they will take with them wherever they will walk.
READING OF THE DAY
RispondiEliminaFirst reading from the Book of Isaiah
Is 60:1-6
Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem! Your light has come,
the glory of the Lord shines upon you.
See, darkness covers the earth,
and thick clouds cover the peoples;
but upon you the LORD shines,
and over you appears his glory.
Nations shall walk by your light,
and kings by your shining radiance.
Raise your eyes and look about;
they all gather and come to you:
your sons come from afar,
and your daughters in the arms of their nurses.
Then you shall be radiant at what you see,
your heart shall throb and overflow,
for the riches of the sea shall be emptied out before you,
the wealth of nations shall be brought to you.
Caravans of camels shall fill you,
dromedaries from Midian and Ephah;
all from Sheba shall come
bearing gold and frankincense,
and proclaiming the praises of the LORD.
Second reading from the Letter to the Ephesians
Eph 3:2-3a, 5-6
Brothers and sisters:
You have heard of the stewardship of God's grace
that was given to me for your benefit,
namely, that the mystery was made known to me by revelation.
It was not made known to people in other generations
as it has now been revealed
to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit:
that the Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body,
and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
GOSPEL OF THE DAY
From the Gospel according to Matthew
Mt 2:1-12
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea,
in the days of King Herod,
behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying,
"Where is the newborn king of the Jews?
We saw his star at its rising
and have come to do him homage."
When King Herod heard this,
he was greatly troubled,
and all Jerusalem with him.
Assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people,
He inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.
They said to him, "In Bethlehem of Judea,
for thus it has been written through the prophet:
And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
since from you shall come a ruler,
who is to shepherd my people Israel."
Then Herod called the magi secretly
and ascertained from them the time of the star's appearance.
He sent them to Bethlehem and said,
"Go and search diligently for the child.
When you have found him, bring me word,
that I too may go and do him homage."
After their audience with the king they set out.
And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them,
until it came and stopped over the place where the child was.
They were overjoyed at seeing the star,
and on entering the house
they saw the child with Mary his mother.
They prostrated themselves and did him homage.
Then they opened their treasures
and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod,
they departed for their country by another way.
WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER
It is the invitation of Holy Mother Church to welcome this Word of salvation, this mystery of light. If we welcome Him, if we welcome Jesus, we will grow in the knowledge and the love of the Lord, we will learn to be merciful like Him. (Angelus, 3 January 2016)
WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER
RispondiEliminaTo adore is to meet Jesus without a list of requests, but with the one request to be with Him. It is to discover that joy and peace grow with praise and thanksgiving. (...) To adore is a life-changing gesture of love. It is to do as the Magi did: it is to bring gold to the Lord, to tell Him that nothing is more precious than He is; it is to offer Him incense, to tell Him that only with Him does our life rise to the heights; it is to present Him with myrrh, with which they anointed the wounded and tortured bodies, to promise Jesus to help our marginalized and suffering neighbors, because He is there. (Epiphany Homily, January 6, 2020)
FAUSTI - "Being born": the God who saves is already here. Matthew describes how to find "where" He was born, so that His Christmas may also be mine. This is the city of David. Luke also tells how, because of the census, He was born in Bethlehem. "In the days of King Herod" Herod is the great despotic and dissolute king. He is the "king of Judea" of the land he owns; he is not the "king of the Jews," of the people who live there. Their king is Christ, the liberator!
RispondiEliminaIn this account, the Magi are seen in positive terms. They are not "magicians," but wise men who follow the directions of the star. Looking at the stars, marveling at the vastness of the sky and trying to understand it, scrutinizing its rhythm and harmony is the beginning of human knowledge. The sky reigns over the earth: it marks the succession of seasons, months, days and hours, it determines work and rest, sowing and harvesting, it separates and reunites, it mourns and celebrates.
The measurement of time is the first science of man, aware that the time at his disposal is limited.
The Magi are not content to observe the stars as they appear, persist and disappear: for them science is not only the observation of what is there, but also wondering what it means.
Where was the Lord born, whom I must now and wish to find? Wisdom, a reflection of the uncreated light, guides the Magi to Jerusalem: there is the center of the people, the repository of promise and Scripture.
Reason, in seeking salvation, opens itself to revelation wherever it is given.
It is in Israel that Christ is found, for all and forever. To lose this root means to lose the fruit.
The first temptation is to open oneself to God, but denying the "history" in which He reveals Himself and acts, reducing everything to an ideology and a symbol, without its content. This is what the various enlightenment and moralisms ancient and recent, such as the New Age, do. Those who do not recognize Jesus "in the flesh" do not have the Spirit of God (1Jn 4:2); they are simply deceived. Detaching oneself from Israel, old and new, from Mary and the Church, means losing "the Gospel": the flesh of God with us.
As in Judea, then, in every corner of the earth, there are two opposite ways of being king: one powerful, oppressive, the other humble, saving. The two stand together like darkness and light. The Magi seek the king of the Jews, not the king of Judea. What king and what man, what God and what salvation are we looking for?
At the time of Jesus, there was a conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn, the star of the Sabbath, the Feast of the Jews. Halley's Comet also appeared. Whatever the sign, it is a "theological star."
-->If science measures what is visible, wisdom seeks its invisible truth, and is satisfied only when it is open to the ultimate meaning: "every undead thought flourishes in transcendence" (Adorno). The star, light in the night, is the human reason that, never satisfied with what it knows and open to what it does not know, guides man towards an ever greater truth.
RispondiEliminaWisdom also guides the pagans in their exodus, as "the light of the stars in the night" (Wis 10:17).
(Wisdom 10:17) It is not enough to see. We must move ahead and undertake a difficult way of searching, without never mistaking truth for our own certainty. Those who, like Herod and the scribes, are in the palace of their own interests or in the city of their beliefs-even the simplest ones! - does not encounter the truth. On the contrary, they destroy it wherever it is found. The arrival of the Magi in Jerusalem reminds us of IS 60:1-5.
"Adoration": to adore is the desire that moves every journey from the beginning, the end of all understanding and action. To adore is to bring to the mouth, to embrace, in communion of love and breath.
What the Magi do here, the apostles will do at the end.
Herod and whole Jerusalem listen to question and search of the peoples for them. The general tumult is the surprise of those who must decide which king they want: whether Herod is the same as everyone has or the one that God has promised.
The political authority summons the religious and intellectual authorities to find out "where" this king was born.
They have the right answer. They move their eyes to the Scriptures, but the Scriptures do not move their feet to the Lord. They know the truth, but they turn away from it. How often we use knowledge to defend ourselves against what we know! They should "go out" to meet the Lord. Those who do not go out to meet Him become with their knowledge accomplices of those who kill.
"The least", the minimum, is the criterion of God's choice, as opposed to that of Herod and every man. God chooses Israel as his people because it is the smallest of all peoples.
He therefore chooses David as king, the youngest of his brothers (1 Sam 16:11). God chooses things that are not "to reduce to nothing the things that are" (1 Cor 1:28), which is why none of the mighty and wise of this world can recognize Him.
To find "where" the Lord is, we must look in the direction in which He is. And He, the "least of the brethren," is among the least. Reason makes us look for the Savior, revelation tells us where to find Him: the former says He exists, the latter who He is, giving the former new criteria of evaluation, the same as God's.
For this reason, the star disappears in Jerusalem - reason for a moment darkens before revelation, like the stars before the sun - but then reappears with more precise indications.
"Herod, having secretly called the Magi, asked..." The King of Judea is an enemy of the King of the Jews. He uses for his plans both the "indifferent" science of the scribes and the "engaged" wisdom of the Magi. Evil is used for everything, especially good!
He can always consider the "indifferent" in his service, and make the "committed" his most dangerous allies, because they do not know. An acquaintance who does not love is always "antichrist," but even unthinking love becomes Satan's tool (Peter 16:21-23). However, the Lord remains the only Lord of history and in the end all things fulfill His plan of love (Rom 8:28-Ac 4:27 - Rev 17:17).
Herod makes his emissaries the Magi, in good faith. He wants to involve them in his intrigues, without them realizing it.
Jesus is the King of the Jews, the Christ, Light of the Gentiles, born for all in Bethlehem of Judea. The light of reason and revelation leads humanity to Him, and in Him it finds its life.
--> The Church, in addition to Jews, is also made up of Gentiles who, like the Magi, travel the path of the quest until they find Him, embrace Him and open their treasure to Him.-->
RispondiElimina"They rejoiced with great joy" God is Love; there is joy in His fragrance, a sign of His presence. Wherever He is, there is joy; sadness is a sign of His absence.
He is communicated to the one who loves, to the one who discovers the treasure (13:44), to the one who encounters the Living One (28:8). The joy of the heart indicates "where" the one you seek is: He is in you. Here, finally, you enter the home and find the King. The child is certainly worth a detour.
Where is the child, if not in the heart of the one who loves Him, listens to Him, and rejoices in Him? The outward journey stops; with worship the inward journey begins. Three times we say "adore"
The Child, you find Him if you enter the " Home," and He is always with the Mother.
You find the Son in Israel, in Mary, in the Church, in the brothers, in yourselves, if you love Him and listen to Him!
Matthew's treasure is the heart of man. Where your treasure is, there is your heart.
The Magi open their hearts and offer what is in them.
Gold, visible wealth, represents what one possesses; frankincense, invisible as God, represents what one desires; myrrh, an ointment that heals wounds and protects against corruption, represents what one is.
The kingship, the divinity, the mortality proper to the creature, all that man has, but especially what he desires and lacks, is his treasure. He opens to God his goods, his desires and his difficulties. And God enters his treasure.
It is "there" that the Son is begotten of the Father.
By giving what they are, the Magi receive Him who is, and they themselves become like Him.
God is born in man and man in God, and it is here that the journey takes place.
The Magi, like Joseph, also receive God's message in a dream. God's dream affects history more than the power of the Almighty, and they don't care.
They return to where they started. But "in another way."
No longer the one who seeks the one who does not know, but the one who has found the One whom he seeks.
In fact, they are no longer the same as before, they have found "where" the king was born.
The "where" of God is the heart of man, and the "where" of man is the heart of God.
They have withdrawn from the "anchorites," says the Greek text, to their own country.
Now they have with them a new heaven and a new earth, a seed that they will take with them wherever they will walk.