Star of Hope (Epiphany Sunday A)

When did giving hope become wrong?

I recall an episode of the TV series Honesto . In one powerful scene, Lourdes—the adoptive mother—is anxious because her son longs to know his real father. She is disturbed that people around the child are giving him hope. Then her old father, Lemuel, gently but firmly confronts her and asks: "When did it become bad to give hope?" Lourdes answers defensively, "When you know there is no hope!" But Lemuel looks at her and says with wisdom: "There is always hope. Just be afraid of losing the child."

That question echoes in our hearts today: When did hope become something to fear?

The Feast of the Epiphany gives us a clear answer: it is never wrong to give hope. What is wrong is extinguishing hope out of fear, insecurity, or selfishness.

Star of Hope in a Dark World. In today's Gospel (Mt 2:1-12), a star appears—a star of hope . It leads the wise men through darkness, uncertainty, and long journeys until they find the Child, Jesus. This star announces that God has entered history , that light has broken into the night, and that salvation is not only for Israel but for all nations .

Yet not everyone welcomed this hope.

King Herod, the most powerful man in the land, was deeply troubled. Why? Because hope threatens those who cling to power, control, and fear. What was good news for the poor and the searching became a danger for the insecure. So Herod plotted death instead of welcoming life.

Here we see a painful truth: hope can be resisted —especially by those who benefit from darkness.

The Enemies of Hope: Fear, Resignation, and Pessimism. If we are honest, sometimes we are like Herod . Sometimes we are like Lourdes before her awakening. We hesitate to allow others to hope.

What are the enemies of hope today?

Fatalistic resignation : "This is just life." We tell ourselves and others that poverty, corruption, injustice, and violence are unchangeable—that this is our destiny.

Defeatist pessimism : We no longer believe that honesty can triumph, that leaders can be accountable, that peace is possible. Everything is mocked, doubted, and dismissed.

Crab mentality and fear of being left behind : When someone tries to rise, to change, to dream, we pull them down—because their hope exposes our own fear.

These attitudes become especially dangerous amid the current struggles of our country--- corruption that steals from the future of our children;  workers and farmers barely surviving;  families burdened by rising prices and job insecurity;  young people tempted to leave the country—or worse, to give up on life.

When hope is crushed, despair grows. And despair is not from God.

Becoming Missionaries and Stars of Hope. The Epiphany invites us to make a choice: Will we be Herods—or wise men?

The wise men did not stop at darkness. They journeyed . They searched . They trusted the light they were given , even if it was just a star.
Hope is not passive. Hope walks. Hope seeks. Hope believes that God is already at work, even when we do not yet see the full picture.

Pope Francis, in his Bull for the Jubilee of Hope, reminds us: "Hope does not disappoint, because it is born of love and grounded in the love that flows from the pierced heart of Jesus." This is why Christian hope survives corruption, poverty, and suffering—because it is anchored not in politics or power, but in Christ.

To be Christians today is to be missionaries of hope : In our families, by refusing to give up on one another; in our communities, by choosing honesty over convenience; in our nation, by believing that change is possible and working for it; in our Church, by pointing people not to ourselves, but to Christ.

When we carry Christ in our hearts, we ourselves become stars —guiding those who are lost, comforting those who are tired, and reminding those in darkness that God has not abandoned them.

It is never wrong to give hope. Hope is lost only when we surrender to fear and despair. As we celebrate this Epiphany, may we seek the Lord like the wise men and dare to become bearers of hope in a wounded world. To those walking in darkness today, may they find light in us.

When did it become a bad thing to give hope? Never. Because our hope is the Lord.

Gifts of the Magi (Epiphany C)

Christmas gift-giving in the early centuries was originally done on the Feast of Epiphany understandably on account of the Magi’s presentation of gifts to the infant Jesus as we hear in the Gospel reading today.  With our present practice though, all the exchanging of gifts have been done by now and what’s left probably are the piles and litters of gift wrappers and boxes in our rooms (or in my room particularly).

But we can still take this Feast of Epiphany as an opportunity to make sense of our experience of gift-giving on Christmas.  Is there still sense to it?

The Lettermen’s “What Can I Give You this Christmas?” is one of my favourite Christmas songs. Some lines stand out for me as meaningful:

What can I give you this Christmas?
Not a thing that I’ve seen will do
So I’ll give you my heart and my own true love
That will last the whole year through.

I resonate not so much with the Lettermen’s genre as with the song’s expression of the existential ache common to us all to give no less our heart when we love.  Love compels us to give. One cannot love without giving. Giving is an act of love. Gifts then are signs of love, symbols of our hearts.  Oftentimes, however, we find the Christmas exchange of gifts a mere routine for merry-making, an activity to fill in the Christmas parties we have organized.  So that after all the parties, the real gift-giving happens in a less conspicuous way when we approach the people we truly care for and hand them what represents our love for them or when we quietly reach out  in charity to those who are less fortunate.

In today’s gospel (Mt. 2:1-12), the wise men from the east inspire our practice of gift-giving.  After travelling far and wide in search of the Lord, the Magi, led by a brightly shining star, found the infant Jesus 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” (v. 11).

Again, gifts are symbols of love.  In this particular event, the gifts of the Magi highlighted the great irony in the history of salvation:  The pagan people, represented by the wise men from the east, had come to express their love to Jesus and to receive the Messiah while the chosen people of Israel who had been waiting for their promised saviour would eventually hate and reject him.

Gold is a gift befitting a king for gold stands as the king of metals. With this gift the Magi expressed their love and acceptance of Jesus as King. This was in stark contrast to the evil intent of Herod, Israel’s King, against the child whom he saw as threat to his kingship. The frankincense, moreover, is high quality incense, the aroma and smoke of which goes up heavenward and exudes divinity.  With this gift, the magi expressed their love and worship of Jesus as God.  The God of Israel became then the God of all nations.  The third gift, myrrh, is used as a perfume in the preparation of the dead for burial. This gift foreshadowed the passion and death of our Lord as human being. With this gift, the magi expressed their love and acceptance of the humanity of Jesus and his obedience unto death.

On this Feast of Epiphany then, we may do well to pose some reflective questions pertaining to our experience of gift-giving this Christmas:

What gift did I receive that I am most grateful for? Right now my place is still in shambles as I come back from Christmas break.  As I start to get rid of the litters of gift wrappers, ribbons, boxes and what not, I realize it is not for a particular gift which has come with the wrappings that I am most thankful.  It is the gift of friendship, of love and of family that has made the Christmas season not just merry but truly happy for me. For others, there may be some outstanding gifts that they can easily be grateful for.  In whatever case, this Feast of Epiphany invites us to relish our sense of gratitude and just be thankful.

What gift have I given that bears the sign of my heart? How have I given this Christmas? Have I given with love? Have I reached out to those who are in need? Our honest answer to this will allow us either to appreciate our own capacity to share and to be selfless or to be aware of our tendency to be close to ourselves and to our own needs.  Let Epiphany be a manifestation for us of our own capacity to give love or our need to grow more in it.

What gift have I given to Jesus who is the be-all-and-end-all of this season? Despite the widespread annual celebration of Christmas, our societies have given way to secularism. God and His precepts have been increasingly brushed aside from public affairs. There is even talk of renaming the Christmas tree into holiday tree to avoid the religious connotation of Christmas! While the present day Herods reject God, can we continue to stand by Jesus as our King, worship Him as our God, love Him and suffer with Him as one among us?

We may have crooned and belted out Christmas songs this season including my favorite, promising to give even our hearts as gift, but the real challenge is that on this Feast of the Epiphany we are called to offer to the Lord once more the gifts of the Magi.

God is Not Afraid to Tell Us Who He Is (Epiphany B)

John Powell’s Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am? is one of my earliest favorites.  I read this interesting book at a time when I was beginning to feel the need to go out of my shell and find people who would lovingly accept me as I am.  Self-disclosure can be frightening.  In John Powell’s words: “I am afraid to tell you who I am, because, if I tell you who I am, you may not like who I am, and it’s all that I have.”  To reveal one’s self openly and honestly takes the rawest kind of courage as one exposes one’s self to a possible pain of rejection.  Yet one will have to risk because only through the process of revealing oneself that one can break free from an even more cruel experience of pain—the prison of isolation. John Powell’s words again come to mind: “To refuse the invitation to interpersonal encounter is to be an isolated dot in the center of a great circle... a small island in a vast ocean.”

We are relational beings.  We wither and perish in isolation. I’m beginning to realize that this is another aspect of being created in the image and likeness of God.  Our God is Himself a relational God.  He is the God of the Covenant.  As such, He cannot be in isolation.  In order to forge a loving relationship with humankind, He has to make himself known.  In Jesus Christ, in that mystery of incarnation we have joyfully celebrated in the season of Christmas, God has definitively revealed himself to human beings in the manner most intelligible to us—as a human being.

Epiphany is the Greek word for revelation or manifestation.  Today’s liturgical celebration of the Epiphany of the Lord calls to mind God’s risky act of manifesting himself to the world.  Indeed, the gospel reading (Mt. 2: 1-12) describes, in that creative story of the visit of the Magi, God’s act of self-revelation and the great irony that accompanied this epiphany in the history of salvation. The Son of God has been rejected by the Chosen People of God, the very people from among whom, ages and ages ago, He was prophesied to come and for whom He was believed to be sent!  Ironically, the wise men from the east, representing the pagan people, were the ones who travelled far and wide in search for the new born King and ended up accepting and worshipping him.  The Lord was rejected by his own people, only to be adored by all nations!

Some points for our reflection:

Self-disclosure and the longing for acceptance. Our relationships, including the relationship with God, are built upon the courageous act of self-disclosure which is met either with rejection or acceptance.  God, who loves us so dearly, cannot but go out of his own comfort zone as God in order to reach out to us in self-revelation.  Any acts of self-manifestation longs for acceptance.  God longs for our acceptance. All too often though, God is met with refusal.  In Jesus Christ, God experienced the utmost rejection on the cross.

In what ways have I refused God’s offer of himself?  King Herod, in today’s gospel, pretended to be interested in searching for the new born King.  But in fact, in his heart of hearts he rejected Jesus as he saw the child as a threat to his power.  King Herod refused to accept Jesus. King Herod was full of himself.  There was no room in his heart for the manifestation of God’s love.  There is room only for his poor self. Is this not the same reason that I refuse God sometimes in my life?  Am I not too full of myself to allow God to communicate his love for me? Am I not closing my heart because of fear that I might lose myself and God might take over the controls in my life?

Beyond the trauma of rejection. God can turn the pain of rejection into the blessing of salvation.  When the Chosen People did not welcome the Messiah, the blessed irony in salvation history transpired.  It was to the gentile world that the glory of the Lord was manifested.  When the Lord was rejected by his own nation, all the nations on earth adored him. In Matthew’s narrative story of the visit of the Magi, the wise men from the east saw his star and understood in it God’s universal invitation for salvation. Hence, the Church today proclaims the revelation of God to the whole world. God reveals and makes Himself known to all men and women.

We can be paralyzed by our traumatic experiences of rejection.  We can spend our lives hiding inside ourselves seeing to it that we will never be hurt again. So we refuse invitations to authentic relationships—sometimes even relationship with God.  But this is the surest way to the prison of isolation. 

Invitation to mutual self-disclosure with God. God allows in himself and in us the experience of being rejected, but he makes sure another door is opened for us.  Epiphany invites us to trust in the God of relationships.  His own act of self-disclosure encourages us to go out of our protective shells and reach out to him and to others.  True worship and adoration can only come from someone and from a people who have the courage to venture out of the familiar self in order to accept the invitation to a mutual self-disclosure with God—the God who is not afraid to tell us who He is.