Epiphany: The Work of Christmas Commences

Here is a post on the Epiphany from a few years ago. It was quite popular and I thought I'd re-post it.

Yesterday we celebrated the Feast of the Epiphany at St. Mary's Church in Painesville, Ohio. Traditionally, the feast has been celebrated on January 6th, and our family has always left up the Christmas decorations and the manger scene until the Epiphany.

The word comes from the Greek, meaning "sudden appearance, manifestation." The Irish writer James Joyce and others used the word to mean "sudden insight." The Epiphany was the manifestation of Jesus to the magi and to the world outside the Holy Family.

Fr. Jenkins, in his homily yesterday, finished with a famous poem, that made me think of Tom Liszkay's Christmas card:

The Work of Christmas
Howard Thurman

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.

Goodbye to 2011 and Greetings to 2012

I was traveling and otherwise busy as the year changed from 2011 to 2012 and didn't get to write any reflections about the passing and new birth.

I guess the words that entered my mind on New Year's Eve were "Deo Gratias." The old Latin phrase, first learned as a kid attending Latin masses at St. William's back in the early 1950s. Thank You, Lord God, for my life, our lives, my family, friends. Thank you that we have health, a good job, so many gifts. And prayers for those sick in body or troubled in spirit (I know many, as do you!). Prayers for those suffering from the Great Recession, those needing money and work, those without health care. Especially for those without hope. Especially for those without hope.

We got an annual Christmas card from a friend, Tom Liszkay, a Clevelander exiled long ago to Columbus, who closed it by reminding us to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and shelter the homeless. Tom reminded us to live out the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, an injunction at the heart of our Catholic Christianity, and something I learned in my parents' home (where we fed the neighborhood kids, gave them companionship and love even if their parents neglected them, where my Mom and Dad offered a home to three alcoholic uncles and to my Grandmother in her old age); and learned from my teachers, both Ursuline nuns and lay teachers alike, in my Catholic grade school--St. Williams; and from our first pastor at St. William's, Monsignor John Flemming, who paid the family bills when my Dad was layed off from work; and from the wonderful teachers, both lay teachers and Marianist brothers and priests, at St. Joseph High School in Cleveland. All these wonderful teachers and models--who never saw what they wrought, the fruit of their works and their lives.

As Tom Liszkay said--Don't forget to practice the Works of Mercy.

And don't forget to say thank you to family, friends, and colleagues. And to the Lord--Deo Gratias.