Friar’s Corner: Come, worship Jesus and receive his gifts
Fr. Bob Hilz, TOR
Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-13; Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6
I prayed you would have had a safe and good New Year’s celebration. In these days and weeks around the birth of Jesus, we have some amazing events and saints as they “came to see Jesus and come to tell us about him and his kingdom. This Sunday we in the Roman Church celebrate the Solemnity of the Epiphany.
In the Eastern Churches, they celebrate the coming of the long-awaited Messiah. In ancient times an epiphany meant either the showing of a god or the solemn visit of a ruler, considered to be a god, to the cities of his realm. So the birth of Christ was truly the coming of God to his people.
As Catholicism spread, the clergy in Alexandria, Egypt, picked January 5-6th to celebrate the birth of the Messiah, thus replacing the pagan celebration of the birthday of Aion, god of time and eternity. The pagan priests would draw water from the Nile and store it for ritual purposes. It was claimed to turn into wine using divine power. The Christian feast celebrated:
1) The birth of Christ
2) His baptism
3) The first miracle of Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding of Cana in Galilee, as Jesus began his public ministry.
They also added the practice of doing baptisms on that day thus further replacing the pagan water rites. In the second half of the 4th century, the Eastern and Western Churches accepted each other’s feast of celebrating Christ’s birthday yet with a different emphasis.
Since the Western Roman Church had Christ’s birth on December 25th to replace a Roman pagan celebration, their focus for the Epiphany was the visit of the Three Kings or Magi. This represented the pagan world coming to worship the true God.
The Wise Men’s vision
According to Blessed Ann Catherine Emmerich, in “The Life of Jesus Christ and Biblical Revelation,” Vol 1, the three Wise Men were given a vision of the birth of Christ as they watched the special star the night Jesus was born in Bethlehem. They knew from ancient prophecies that a new king was to be born who would change human history. So they left the next day, bringing Jesus their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Their journey, praising God, took them only 33 days on camels instead of 66. The star guided them by night and a bright angel by day. Their names were: Mensor, a Caldean, and Seir and Theokeno, who were Medianite.
After the death of Jesus, the apostle Thomas baptized the first and last Magi. Seir desired baptism had already passed away. The designation of “kings” first came from Caesarius of Arles in the 6th century and the names: Caspar, Melchoir and Balthasar came in the 9th century from a Polish tradition. The first letter of their names also stands for the Latin abbreviation CMB, meaning Christ bless this mansion (house).
How to bless your home
Since the Middle Ages there has been the custom of blessing homes with holy water, incense and marking the top main entrance doorframe of the home with blessed chalk and the designation (I’ll use an English interpretation} Christ, Bless this Mansion or home, 20+C+B+M+19, for the year. Since I am not present in your home physically, I offer this blessing for your dwelling.
Father God, I bless all the homes or apartments of those reading this prayer. May their homes or apartments be places of goodness, humility, self-control, purity of mind, body and spirit, mutual respect for one another, hospitality for strangers and loving obedience to your Word, for those living there and all those who will come to visit them this year. I pray in Jesus holy Name as we worship Jesus, Emmanuel, God always with us, Isaiah 7:11 and Matthew 1:23.
Now sprinkle your home with holy water.
If you want to know more about the early Christian practice of Christmas and the Epiphany just put “early Christmas” or “Epiphany practices” in your search engine.
Jesus Fire Groups
This is an invitation from Jesus, as he wants to bless you. God wants to pour out more of the “Fire of his love” on you and your parish or area. He desires those of you who attend some daily Masses to gather with two or three others, in some part of the church, to softly praise and worship him with ordinary songs from your parish songbooks for about 15 minutes. At the end sing “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” or “Angels We Have Heard on High.” Jesus promises to fill your hearts with more of his love, and he will show you how he is empowering you for how he wants you to bring others to him and fill up his churches.
You know Jesus a little already, but he wants to show you much more. He wants to see the fire of your groups aglow all over the world, Jesus Fire Groups. People will see your joy glowing and ask you how they can have that. This will draw more people to come into deeper faith and understanding.
My New Year’s resolution is to encourage as many people as I can to pray at least one Chaplet of Divine Mercy each day for the end of the wars around the world and for the resolution of our U.S. Congress “fiasco.” Many people are being hurt by this government shutdown. Praying a chaplet only takes 6 minutes out of our twenty-four hour day.
Have a blessed and abundant New Year.
+ Fr. Bob Hilz
fbhilz@gmail.com
(© 2019 Fr. Bob Hilz, TOR)
