Reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. After Jesus' birth in Bethlehem of Judea, during the reign of king Herod, astrologers from the East arrived one day in Jerusalem asking, where is the newborn king of the Jews? We have seen his star at his rising and have come to pay him homage. At this news, king Herod became greatly disturbed. And with Herod, all Jerusalem summoning all the chief priests and the scribes of the people of the Jews, Herod asked them where the Messiah was to be born.
And they replied, in Bethlehem Of Judea. Here actually is what the prophet wrote. And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the princes of Judah. Since from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people, Israel. Herod then called the astrologers aside and found out from them the exact time of the star's appearance.
Then he sent them on to Bethlehem. That's not far from Jerusalem. Then he sent them on to Bethlehem after having instructed them, go and get all the information you can about the child. When you have discovered anything, report it back to me so that I may go and offer the child homage also. Well, after their audience with the king, the astrologers set out for Bethlehem.
The star, which they had seen at his rising, went ahead of them until it came to a standstill over the place where the child was. They were overjoyed at seeing the star and on entering the house, found the child with Mary, his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. And then they opened their coffers and presented the child with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. After all of this was over, the ir own country by another road.
And this is the gospel, the good news of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. Well, we're celebrating the feast of the epiphany. And whenever this sort of thing comes up, I ask myself, what is it all about?
What does it mean in my life? How does it touch me? Because if it doesn't come through to me, as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't exist. Do you understand that? Far as I'm concerned, if I don't hear it, if I don't take it in, if it has no meaning, if it doesn't show up in my daily living, if it doesn't have some consequences upon my decisions or how I face life, all of it, good and bad, then it's as if it hadn't happened.
Now, usually, on this day of epiphany, we hear a lot about the astrologers and what it meant and who they were and where they came from and the meaning of frankincense, gold, and myrrh, and all that. I'm going to ask the question, where is Jesus manifest today for us? Where do you find Jesus? Tangible. Tangible.
Concrete. Now I'm not talking about some kind of a personal revelation. For example, I just finished reading a very good biography about Joy David, David man David man. She, of course, eventually, after she married Brescia, married CS Lewis. And she was a good, god fearing, atheist, Jew, communist.
And then one day, she had an experience of the presence of Christ. You can't debate this whether it was myth or whether it's a fiction, whether it was some kind of hysteria. I don't know. I could care less. It changed her whole life.
And that see, that's it's that kind of thing is not extraordinary. Where do we find Jesus? Because he when epiphany means, as far as we're using it here in a scriptural sense, it means the concrete notice, concrete, you get a hold of it, tangible manifestation of the personal god in the world. Not a private affair. It's not a revelation or an appearance or manifestation to me or to you.
I admit these things are possible. Absolutely. But whether they actually occur in a given instance, I don't know. Secondly, I don't care. God does not make my salvation rest upon his personal manifestation to individuals.
That's putting it in a nutshell. Now where do we find the tangible, concrete Christ, son of god? Do we? Well, remember this. Before our Lord ascended into heaven, his last words to his apostles, not to a crowd, to his apostles was, going therefore, teach ye all nations, baptizing them and so forth, teaching them everything that I have commanded you.
Now listen. And behold, I am with you until the end of time. Where is Jesus Christ tangibly present to me now? Here, Garrett Park, 1992, fifth of January. Where?
Where can I reach out and and touch him? Well, the first thing I think of is just said that. I thought of mother Teresa. I don't know whether she's dead yet or not, but she's in pretty bad shape, as you know. I thought of her right away.
Right away. Not in when I prepared these chosen remarks. There we have Christ walking among us, tangible, concrete. Now the thought struck me this week as I was thinking over this. This is gonna be I mean, I most Catholics don't go to mass every Sunday.
And even if they do, they don't follow the liturgical feasts and all that. But we're we with this twelve days since Christmas. Now the church is the visible mystical body of Christ. That's the church of Christ is perfectly tangible. Not on Luther or Calvin, but the Catholic church is a tangible concrete reality made up of of very, very definitely human beings, men and women and so forth.
It's a visible tangible reality, concrete. And Christ said that he represented it, that it was his body, his mystical body. Who hears you, hears me. He wasn't talking about some kind of a voice from the clouds. Now what does the church show us show us?
Epiphany. What does the Catholic church show us on these twelve days in between Christmas and the manifestation of Christ? It's extremely significant. And it's taken me eighty five and a and nine months to find it out. But it struck me very forcefully this.
And the more I thought about it, the more the more dramatic it becomes. Now just look at this. Here we have Christmas day. Now I'm talking about the manifestation of Christ to us living in Garrett Park in the year 1992 USA. I'm not talking about the universal world because it's gotta be for me.
I've gotta be able to touch and reach out and touch the living Christ. And I'm not talking about a private revelation or manifestation. What do we have? Here we have on Christmas day all the hellabaloo, all the worldly celebrations. And, you know, a lot of it is good.
It is really good. I don't buy all this con condemnation of commercialism. Of course, it's commercial. Of course, a lot of businesses depend for their whole net grow net income, their gain, their profit from Christmas. I know that.
You know that. But that doesn't destroy the good part of it. And there is a good part in Christmas USA. And what happens the next day? Here we go from all the glamour, the Hosannas, the Glorias, and all that.
What do we have? The martyrdom of Saint Stephen. A martyrdom of Saint Stephen. Why do you think the church does that? That's remember, that was the choice of some churchmen.
Here we go from all the exaltation and the glorious and the hosannas and the celebrations and the lights and the music of Christmas, wham, we go down into the trough of the wave, and there is martyr, Saint Stephen martyr being stoned because he spoke of Jesus Christ. Does that tell you something about the tangible Christ? And then for four or five days, we have commemorations of Christmas. We have the feast of the that is the feast of the incarnation. The church keeps bringing that that day after day that God became man, a human being, clay of our clay.
Then we have the feast of the of the holy family of Mary, mother of God. Notice, Mary, mother of God, the divinity of Christ, the motherhood of a woman, the mother of God. Then we have the feast of two Greek saints, Basil and and and the Gregory Nazianza. Fourth fourth century, Greek speaking, Constantinople, bishops of the church who practically had hell on earth with the Arians. Notice why did the church bring them in at this time?
Then we have the feast of Saint John the evangelist and the apostle. Why why John? Why why not one of the synoptics? It was John who said that God so loved the world that he gave his son for it. The answer to God's becoming man, the answer to God's dying on the cross is love, l o v e.
And we know what it means when we talk about God. We sure do. Notice that's in this week. And then here is the what I wanna emphasize this morning. Yesterday, we had the feast of saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, maiden name Bailey.
That was yesterday. And what do you think we're gonna have tomorrow? Saint John Neumann. Saint John Neumann. And what's in between?
Epiphany. Now I don't know. I don't know whether this was meant, but isn't it to me, it's become terribly significant. Ann Elizabeth Seaton Elizabeth Ann Seaton is buried right up the road. John Norman, I think, is buried in Philadelphia.
He was bishop of Philadelphia. What a terrible contrast in those two lines. Elizabeth Ann Seaton died in about 1820 and Neumann about 1860. Now I don't know how much you know about their lives, but for us in Garrett Park, USA, January 5, that is today, isn't it? We are touching Christ in these saints.
They are tangible. They are concrete. They lived and what lives they lived. Just think of Elizabeth Ann's seat. I wanna remember her name Bailey.
She she because that name Bailey was a big name in New York at the time of her birth and her of her death. She came from mighty fine stock. And, of course, they were first rate Episcopalians. She made a very fashionable marriage. Very fashionable, very rich young man.
Alright. Named Seaton, William Seaton. They had five children, one after the other, and then he ups and dies. At the age of 29, here this young woman was left a widow with five children. Now to make matters worse, to make them infinitely worse, because of certain arrangements that happened when her husband was taken ill, they moved over to Italy where they got in where they became were mightily befriended by a Catholic family in Italy, the upshot of it was that this daughter, this very fashionable young woman, widowed with five children, became a Catholic, a Catholic, her family threw her out.
She was left practically destitute. She didn't have any way of making a living. In those days, what could she do? She wasn't about to take up the oldest profession. So she was actually destitute.
That's how that's how severe they were to her. So she got in touch with some some selfish and fathers up in Canada. She thought they'd be a little bit more friendly. And the up and then they got in touch with the selfishings over at Saint Mary's in Baltimore, and the upshot of it was that she moved down to Saint Mary's on Packet Street right over in Baltimore with her five children and opened up a little school. Her little school attracted other women to that kind of thing.
Remember, such a thing as that kind of a school didn't exist. And then she moved it up to Emmitsburg, and out of that became the whole parochial school system of The United States Of which there was never anything in the world and of which we have seen its destruction or almost its destruction. You talk about there's nobody in these pews this morning who can't relate to that good woman. She was only 40 years old when she died. Everything seemed to happen to her for the worst.
And yet look what happened. Look what her life meant. Look what her life meant to America, to the culture of America. And she's her body is just up the road from here. Very tangible.
You can see the shrine very tangible on the skyline. Some don't like it. And then you turn to John Neumann. Absolutely the opposite. Here's a young guy from Bohemia who has been ordained a deacon over in Bohemia, and his bishop says, we have no room for you.
This is not an uncommon was a it used to be in The United States too. It was not common now. So he said so the bishop says, go do what you can. So John decides to come to The USA. He had no knowledge of English.
He was a well educated man. He knew German and a couple other languages, Latin and so forth. He wasn't much of a good looking man, far from it. That's important to remember. And, of course, he had no English, and he looked scrubby.
He landed in New York practically penniless. And I'm not exaggerating this. This is the god's honest truth. He landed up there in New York shabby, knowing nobody. So he went to the he went to the archbishop of New York who took him in, finished his education, and ordained him, made him a priest.
And then he set out to sort of be a missionary up in in Pennsylvania, up in New York, and in Maryland. This is John Neumann, n e u m a n. His feast is tomorrow. Elizabeth's was yesterday. Epiphany's in between.
And then he joined the Redemptorists. And then lo and behold, this this very nondescript, non English speaking, very very poor personality was made bishop of Philadelphia, and a lot of good Philadelphia Catholics didn't like him at all. He didn't even speak English. He's a saint today, one of ours. That man gave his life to building up parishes, building parochial schools.
Notice he comes quite a bit after Elizabeth and Seaton. He and and above all, for for immigrants that are not speaking English, he devoted a lot of his time and his very definite intellectual ability to writing catechisms, translating so that they would get a knowledge, notice, knowledge, information of their Catholicity. Of course, we've thrown that over the board today too, you know. Now that man was so I I I don't wanna say persecuted. That's not true.
But he had a hard life. He was never accepted in many ways around Philadelphia. But, you know, that was the great city. So much so that he offered his resignation to the holy father. But he said, I will not resign.
I love that. But he says, if you don't want me to stay here, I'll leave. He's a saint today. And here's my point for us. I this may be out.
You can judge for yourself. But, de facto, I don't know how it came to be. We have the feast of Epiphany sandwiched between the feast yesterday of Elizabeth Ann Seaton and tomorrow John Neumann. And if that if you wanna see Jesus Christ in the world, look at their lives. Look at the feasts that we had during this did you remember the feast of Saint Stephen?
I mentioned that. Did I mention the feast of the holy innocence? Where at the whim now whether this actually happened or not is irrelevant. The point is this is a a a an idea that's being presented to us during this this twelfth night that here at the whim of a tyrant, not operating under the under the law of Rome, orders, we don't know how many, babies slaughtered to eliminate what might be a rival. You think about what that I have never I have with all this talk about god and how you reconcile god to evil in the world, especially to what dear innocent children suffer, I have never heard this brought up.
And yet it is right in Christmas week. Saint Stephen, martyr and the martyrdom of the holy innocence. Then we have Saint John telling us about God and the world and God's coming into this world because he so loved the world. And then we have these Greek fathers and bishops and teachers and doctors. These this is the church.
This is Jesus Christ present in the world. And for us in Garrett Park 1992