Today’s Office of Readings includes a writing from St. Peter Chrysologus on the relationship between the Incarnation, the Epiphany, the Baptism of the Lord, the wedding feast at Cana, and the Eucharist.
All of these events in our Lord’s life were epiphanies. They all were revelations of the person and natures of Jesus.
My translation of the Italian text I use.
“In fact, he who willed to be born for us, did not want to remain hidden from us, and thus, he manifested himself in this way so that this great mystery of our piety may not be an occasion for error. Today the Magi… found him who was wailing in the crib. Today the Magi saw clearly, wrapped in clothes, he whom they for so long had to only contemplate in an obscure way in the stars…. he who the world cannot contain within the little body of a baby…. Today Christ is descended in the bed of the Jordan to wash away the sins of the world. The same John that had affirmed that he had come into the world exactly for this: ‘Behold the Lamb of God; behold him that takes away the sin of the world’. Today, the servant has in his hand the Lord; the man, God; John, Christ. He held him to receive forgiveness not give it to him….. Today Christ begins the heavenly signs, changing water into wine; but the water must then be changed into the sacrament of his blood so that Christ would pour out to he who wished to drink a pure chalice of the fullness of his grace.” Discourses of St. Peter Chrysologus Disc. 160.
We celebrate in rather rapid order several feasts of the Lord at the end of the year and the beginning of the next: Christmas, Epiphany and the Baptism of the Lord. Later comes the Transfiguration and the wedding feast of Cana. All these accounts of the events of our Lord’s life are epiphanies for us, times when the mystery becomes seen, when the divine person of Jesus Christ is made evident.
Let us open our eyes in awe and wonder and experience the wonders of the Incarnation— God with us.
