God is...

Today is the liturgical date of the great feast of the Epiphany,
though in the U.S. the celebration is transferred to a prior
Sunday. Unfortunately the making of this feast into a movable
feast makes the celebration of the 'twelve days of Christmas'
untenable.

But wrangling with the tangle of modern liturgical adjustments is
for another day.

Epiphany is the manifestation, the appearing of the Messiah to
the nations in the persons of the Magi. These Magi from the 'east'
seem to have come from Persia, which is both outside the bounds of
the Roman Empire and home to a robust Jewish diaspora community
that originated during the 6th century B.C. Babylonian exile of the Jews.

That exile was catastrophic, a veritable 'passion of the Jews.'

Interesting to note that it was the exile and its aftermath that
gave birth to a rich and ever-expanding hope for 'the Messiah' -
and so when the Messiah is born, seekers inspired by that hope
emerge from the east where the living memory of that exile perdures:
in the Jewish community left behind in Babylon.

And these Magi from the east were also astrologically savvy, seeing in the dome of the starry heavens, as the ancients did, portals to the divine dispensation of history; windows that leaked Heaven's glory into a darkened world. Indeed, the cosmos itself conspired to welcome its Maker's birth; even while it hid in shame at His death.

There is so much material for meditation in these mysterious Magi.
But I will resist the temptation.

I do want to dwell for just a brief moment, though, on one facet
of this appearing Epiphany. Yesterday's first reading from 1 John at Mass contained a phrase of incomparable beauty in Scripture:
"God is love."

So exquisite, it is worth seeing the Greek text of it:
ὁ θεός ἀγάπη εἰμί

What is it that has appeared in this helpless infant born in the
House of Bread, the City of David the Lowly Shepherd?

It is the spinner of the 500 billion galaxies, who knows of no
origin and whose power knows no horizon.

What has appeared?

God, who has come to radically redefine the word love by shattering the meanings it once cupped.

Not by argument or theory; not by a study of 'normality' extracted
from the lives of broken, fallen men and women.

Rather, love redefined by its appearing - or, better, by its unleashing
in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus would refill the newly fashioned Cup of Love with nothing other than His very self.

And this shattered and remade Cup is first poured into that stunning, singular and untainted re-echo of Christ: the woman who dared cradle the lowly Most High God.

As we enter the days of 'counting', unhappily named Ordinary time,
let us behold the unfolding of that untamed epiphany of infinite love
that will stretch our finite frame beyond our wildest imaginings.

On Sunday, watch for the rip in the skies....