Last week I was spending the evening at my father’s house when the inspiration for today’s homily appeared on their back lawn. In the course of our dinner, each member of my family was engaged in the type of different activities that occurs in practically every household you encounter. At this dinner, my father and I were sitting at the kitchen table, solving the problems of the world and getting into one of the great many debates this particular father and son have had in the past. My father’s wife was busily working at the stove, making final preparations for what turned out to be a quite excellent meal. My brother Julian was off to the side, immersed in a football game of no consequence, though Julian felt it necessary to interrupt the conversation I had with my father in order to provide us with frequent scoreboard updates.

In the midst of this normal family life, my father noticed a female deer (un ciervo) wandering through our backyard, sampling whatever foods she could find for herself and the small doe to which she gave birth. Now my father is the type of individual who, when his focus becomes transfixed on one thing, shuts down everything else around him, including the conversation we were having. When he saw the deer, my father ran to the patio door, called the family around and quietly stood still in order to enjoy the spectacle.

I guess my father had been focusing on this deer for quite a long time, to the point that he was now feeding the deer with grain and salt chips during the winter months. By providing the food, he essentially invited this doe to make her home in the backyard, like some type of safe haven from the violent elements of the world.

And so, as this deer was enjoying a peaceful lunch in the backyard of the Jankowski household, my father called the family around to take in this moment of serenity. The wife put the food aside for a moment to take in the view. The son, who expressed reservations at leaving a football game between two second-tier college teams, settled in for the view as well. And while they were watching the deer, I was watching them.

I began to think to myself how one event can make such a difference in a group’s life that each individual would drop everything else in order to focus on this event. All of us in society engage in the same type of habit. When a car becomes involved in some type of accident, the other drivers on the road slow down to examine what had just happened, causing a most annoying “gapers block.” When a sporting event or some type of concert takes place, groups of people will pull away from their individual activities to assemble together in order to experience this sport or concert together. Just this weekend, a parishioner raved about how she and thousands of strangers were to be enthralled this week in a musical extravaganza offered by the great visionary of lyrical verse… Barry Manilow. Barry Manilow? Great visionary? I guess there are groups in the world in need of great psychological counseling…

If you pay attention to the groups that come together at these moments, you will often notice that most of them consist of individuals who would normally not associate themselves with each other on a regular basis but nevertheless come together at these moments to share a particular experience together. Some events in life bring very different kinds of people together and at times the event can cause a change in the group that allows strangers to become friends.

On this feast of the Epiphany, this great manifestation (or appearance) of the divine being into the world, St. Matthew’s gospel presents us two groups of individuals who would normally have nothing to do with each other but come together at this particular moment to experience this life-changing moment together: the Jews and the Gentiles. Isaiah writes about the diverse groups of the world gathering to experience another type of Epiphany, this divine presence of light that came into the world. The prophet speaks of nations and kings gathering together, dromedaries from Midian and Ephah.

In Luke’s gospel, the author portrays the story of a group of unlearned shepherds who encounter such a force in their lives that they pull away from their daily activity in order to witness their God in the flesh among them in a manger. We read in today’s gospel from Matthew about learned Gentiles from the East who pull away from their normal lives to follow a star which leads them to Bethlehem. All these diverse factions, all these individuals who would normally not have anything to do with each other come together in order to experience this one event, this life-changing experience.

In my research for this homily, I came upon a summary statement by St. Augustine, who wrote some fifteen hundred years ago about the power of the Epiphany, who explains to us how this presence of God not only brought the factions of the world together in the first century, but bring all of us together in today’s age as well. For me, St. Augustine presents a theme that seems a tad harsh for us, but makes all the sense in the world. He tells us that in comparison to Jesus Christ, we all gather together to realize that none of us are very intelligent – all of us are sinners. And when we all gaze at the presence of the Lord, we all begin to grasp our purpose in life and the only means by which we can achieve this eternal rest in our Lord’s arms, through this Christ-child. St. Augustine writes,

These Wise Men, what were they but the first fruits of the Gentiles? The shepherds were Israelites, the Magi Gentiles. The former from close by, the latter from far away; both hasten to the Corner Stone. (Again, from Serm. 2.) Jesus is made manifest neither to the learned nor to the just. For ignorance dominated the rusticity of the shepherds, impiety the practices of the Magi. But that Corner Stone joins them both to Himself, Who came to select the foolish that He might confound the wise, and to call not the just but the sinners to repentance; so that no great one might take pride in himself, and no lowly one despair. St. Augustine, Sermon 4 on the Epiphany (De Temp. 42). From Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers, vol. 1, p. 198.

About a week and a half have transpired since the Solemnity of the Incarnation, our Christmas Feast here at St. Patrick’s Church. As we filled our church to capacity then in commemoration of our Lord’s Incarnation, sometimes we forget now that the same Lord reveals himself on this altar every time we gather for Mass. It is a moment that we are all commanded to gather by the Lord, as stated in the First Precept of the Church and the Third Commandment given to the Chosen People.

Some bible scholars point out that in our gospel reading for today, the focus of the reading centers on the joy expressed from the Gentile outsiders of the faith, as opposed to the indifference of the Jewish insiders who encounter this Christ-king in their midst. As followers of Christ who claim to be “in the know,” insiders of the faith, all of us have the obligation to gather individuals from every race, language and way of life to witness together this presence of the Lord and to realize the gift of salvation that this child offers us today.

And when we experience this Christ event together, as witnessed by the wise men and the shepherds and the people of faith, it is then that all of us are drawn into this event of salvation in which we have been invited to participate. We realize that Jews and Gentiles from Midian, Ephah, Rome or Joliet, are different in culture but one in the Spirit; we are one family of God. We become so affected by what Christ has done for us that we challenge ourselves to do the same for each other, thus understanding the words that Pope Benedict XVI spoke just last week in reference to this holy family of believers who dedicate themselves to God through their service of each other. Pope Benedict writes,

We do not live alongside one another purely by chance; all of us are progressing along a common path as men and women, and thus as brothers and sisters. Consequently, it is essential that we should all be committed to living our lives in an attitude of responsibility before God, acknowledging him as the deepest source of our own existence and that of others. By going back to this supreme principle we are able to perceive the unconditional worth of each human being, and thus to lay the premises for building a humanity at peace. Without this transcendent foundation society is a mere aggregation of neighbors, not a community of brothers and sisters called to form one great family. – Pope Benedict XVI, Message on the World Day for Peace #6, January 1, 2008

May we constantly experience this Epiphany of God, this presence of Jesus, together as one family of God. May we constantly invite others to experience this event of salvation together at this sacred liturgy. May our lives serve as a constant invitation to others to stop their daily activity in order to experience this life-changing presence together. This is our prayer.

No vivimos unos al lado de otros por casualidad; todos estamos recorriendo un mismo camino como hombres y, por tanto, como hermanos y hermanas. Por eso es esencial que cada uno se esfuerce en vivir la propia vida con una actitud responsable ante Dios, reconociendo en Él la fuente de la propia existencia y la de los demás. Sobre la base de este principio supremo se puede percibir el valor incondicionado de todo ser humano y, así, poner las premisas para la construcción de una humanidad pacificada. Sin este fundamento trascendente, la sociedad es sólo una agrupación de ciudadanos, y no una comunidad de hermanos y hermanas, llamados a formar una gran familia.