Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Welcome to the Blessed Sacrament Homilies podcast, where our mission is to help everyone recognize and experience the presence of God. We hope you are nourished and encouraged by the Word. Thank you for joining us.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: The Lord be with you and with your spirit. Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew.
[00:00:31] Speaker A: Glory to you, Lord.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod, behold Magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem saying, where is the newborn king of the Jews?
We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.
When King Herod heard this, he was greatly troubled, and all Jerusalem with him, assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people. He inquired of them where the child was to be born.
They said to him, in Bethlehem of Judea. For thus it has been written through the and you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, since from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.
Then Herod called the Magi secretly and ascertained from them the time of the star's appearance.
He sent them to Bethlehem and said, go and search diligently for the child.
When you have found him, bring me word that I too might go and do him homage.
After their audience with the king, they set out and behold the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them till it came and stopped over the place where the child was.
They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother.
They prostrated themselves and did him homage.
Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their country by another way, the Gospel of the Lord.
Praise God.
The story of the Magi can teach us something that's pretty important, but I think it's better instead of seeing them as magicians, going back to that term we're all used to of wise men.
And their wisdom can be seen in the fact that they had no clue what they were going to witness or what they were going to see.
They just had come to recognize that something special was happening, something that they didn't want to miss.
And so they made a journey to be a part of it.
And the reason why I say that's a critical lesson for all of us is that and this is more of a critique of our church, which I love, by the way, but we oftentimes try to have an answer for every single question that comes up, and I think it tends to be more in the younger clergy than the older clergy because we finally learn we don't have all the answers.
But there are some things that are just so far beyond our ability to comprehend them that to try to come up with words and answers to every question, I think makes us end up looking foolish.
Where instead, if we use those words that have always been part of our tradition, a mystery.
Now, a mystery doesn't mean that something isn't true.
A mystery means we don't have a solution or an answer.
And the best part of our God's love for us is that it is always bigger than our vocabularies or intellects are ever going to be able to fully describe.
And the Magi teach us that that's okay. They truly were wise men because they weren't looking for answers. They just knew something special was happening.
Well, that same special happening is constantly poured out for each one of us every day of our lives.
The mystery and the glory of God's love and God's mercy is always in our midst.
And rather than trying to explain it in a nice diagram, we simply need to accept it and be grateful for it.
