The Wisdom of the Little Way: Homily for Sunday, January 7, 2024

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The Magi brought gifts that symbolize the gifts of your baptism.

The Wisdom of the Little Way

There are some saints in the Church that really emphasize that the pathway to holiness is something ordinary. Saint Therese of Lesieux talked about her little way. Brother Lawrence, who wrote The Practice of the Presence of God, similarly talked about how the real part of our lives is to find God in the ordinary things that we do.

And when we consider this story of the Magi, foreigners who are coming because they’ve seen something they interpret to be a great sign, were reminded of the importance of attention, of watchfulness. They saw something in the sky, and for them it became something that signified an event that was great, not an unusual understanding of the world in the time of the Gospels.

I think it’s a challenge for you and me on this day that we celebrate the Epiphany, the manifestation of Jesus, the showing forth where he becomes clear for who he is and what he’s about. The gifts that the Magi bring are not simply things they found lying around the house. They’re very symbolic gifts, indicative of our own baptism. Gold, the gift of a king. Frankincense, the gift of a prophet. Myrrh, which really is more like embalming fluid, the gift of a priest.

And when you and I were baptized, we were anointed priest, prophet, and king. And so there is something about the fact that this little baby is going to deliver the pathway to salvation to all people. That this gift of new life is going to be available to everyone. And it came about because of the attention of the Magi.

What about our own lives? There to me is something to be said about the gift of being able to find God in the ordinary and in the things that we consider maybe not terribly important. For example, if you’re married, can you find God in the ordinary events of your married life?

My mother, for example, one of the things I know about my mother was that I was one of those rare kids that never had to wash the dishes. She didn’t want to have a dishwasher, and she wanted to wash the dishes herself because it was a time she used for prayer. We certainly weren’t hanging around to figure out whether we might be asked to wash dishes, and that’s exactly what she wanted. It was an easy, repetitive task that enabled her to open her mind to God.

Can we find God in the way in which we interact with our children? Can we see the high gift of raising our children, whether they are little children or whether they are grown children? Can we see the many ways in which we interact as invitations to find and recognize the presence of God?

If you’re someone who is in school, we probably all have those classes we don’t like. Can it be that we find what God is trying to teach us in the class that we don’t see any value in? What about the ways we interact with someone when we’re out shopping?

I remember—I have to say I haven’t been as good at this lately—but I used to try when I was out shopping and I was at the cash register to use the name of the person who was checking me out. In some ways, to say something as simple as, thank you, Joseph.

Now, there are some dangers with that. There was one time I did that, and the person didn’t react at all, and I was now kind of taken aback. So I said it again, and I said it a third time. And then finally, the young man said, oh, oh, I’m sorry, I just borrowed this. I forgot my name tag. My name is Adam, not Bill.

But can we use that as an opportunity to witness to the ways in which Jesus has helped us? To show the ways in which this is an encounter where we can recognize the person of Jesus in a very ordinary event? Can we recognize that the events of our lives are not accidental? They’re events of the providence of God.

They’re events that, as we’ve seen over this Christmas time, all of these things did not happen out of the thin air or out of the blue. These were events that were planned by God from all eternity. We get it in today’s gospel.

Bethlehem was the place for the Messiah, because Bethlehem was the town of King David. David was the one who was promised a house, a dynasty. And then ultimately from David and from his lineage would come the Lord Jesus. And we know that Joseph is of the house of David. He is a relative, albeit quite distant in time from King David.

There was the providence that inspired these magi not to dismiss something that might have seemed coincidental. There’s a saying with God, there is no accident. Where is it that God is calling you to recognize his presence? For some, there can be very dramatic moments. I remember a friend of mine.

There was a feature in a newspaper where a child who was particularly challenging to place because of whatever reason. In this instance, it was medical needs of this particular child. And she happened to read it on this particular day and at breakfast said to her husband, God wants us to adopt this child. And they did. Not exactly what her husband was expecting.

Where is God calling you to do something dramatic? How is it that God is calling you to bring the gifts of your baptism, gold, frankincense and myrrh, to witness to the world the power of the risen Christ? We ask the Lord today to help us to be very attentive to those ordinary events of our lives, our relationships, our friendships, our errands, anything that we need to do, and to ask God to help us to find the presence of Jesus in our lives.

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