Luceat!

This past weekend I spent time with some friends at Our Lady of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein, IL. During my prayer time on Friday, I came to the conviction of my need to be more generous, to be heroically generous. With my new found conviction to do generous deeds, I made a resolution to look for ways to serve my fellow brothers the rest of the weekend. This resolution led me on a great adventure in understanding the way of generosity.

I found myself immersed in a culture of generosity. It was amazing to see how my friends served one another, listen to one another, and gave advice to one another. I was being outdone in generosity by my saintly brothers. At first this discouraged me, thinking about how I failed to live out the resolution which was communicated to me by our Lord. But then my heart was comforted as I contemplated the Epiphany liturgy.

The Epiphany is the day that we celebrate in the liturgy where Christ revealed His light to all the nations. The three magi, who were rich, powerful, and gentile, came face to face with the Savior of the world on the day of the Epiphany. Christ had now revealed Himself to the poor and the rich, the helpless and the powerful, and to the Jews and to the Gentiles. The whole world would be blessed by the birth of this Child.

The Epiphany is when we come to God and offer him our gifts, whatever they may be. In today’s Mass we hear these words during the prayer over the gifts, “Lord, accept the offerings of your Church, not gold, frankincense, and myrrh, but the sacrifice and food they symbolize, Jesus Christ, who is Lord forever and ever.” Father Eric, our chaplain at UW-Madison, said that it is the gifts of bread and wine that we offer on the altar that symbolize the work of humanity that we offer to the Father during the Sacrifice of the Mass. These works of bread and wine will become for us the food of eternal life, the Eucharist.

After hearing the prayer over the gifts, I realized that the gifts of the magi were pointing to the Gift of all humanity, Jesus Christ! The acts of generosity of my brothers were made in Christ and were an extension of the Gift of the Incarnation to me. I was humbled and yet overjoyed that the Lord would give Himself to a sinner like me, to a world like ours.

It is still my resolution to do more deeds of generosity; in fact it is my resolution to pray for the grace of heroic generosity every day during my morning prayer. Today is a day for us to contemplate the Gift of the Incarnation. Let us join the three magi today in adoring and worshipping Jesus. During the Solemn Blessing at the end of today’s Mass these words are exclaimed, “Because you are followers of Christ, who appeared on this day as lights shining in darkness, may he make you a light to all your sisters and brothers.” We must take these words to heart and remember our Lord’s words, “You are the light of the world…” (Mt 5:14). We must encounter Jesus with the magi today. Take the Christ child in your arms today and have your hearts melted with love.