Short Talks
This section of the website comprises short stand-alone talks and articles on different aspects of the Christian Faith, including the teaching of Jesus, the seasons of the Church’s Year and Feasts and Festivals. More talks/sermons/homilies/articles will be added in due course.
The section of the website entitled The Christian Faith provides more extended teaching on larger content areas, such as the Creed and the Sacraments.
The Epiphany
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem he was visited first by the shepherds and later by the Wise Men. They came from the East to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage” (NRSV, Matthew 2:1-2).
The Star of Bethlehem
“…there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him’ “ (Matthew 2:1,2).
The Star of Bethlehem has caught and stirred the imagination of the centuries. There is always a sense of mystery and wonder about the stars which makes itself felt with an even greater intensity in the East, when the night comes silently and suddenly upon the deserts of Asia. This quality of all stars attached in a supreme degree to the Star of Bethlehem. It may have been caused by the conjunction of the planets Jupiter and Saturn or possibly more likely it was a comet with a long tail. (1) Whatever it was, it led the Wise Men from a distant country to worship the Infant Christ and the world received its earliest assurance that he was born to save, not the Jews alone, but all humankind of every people and nation, including ourselves.
The three gifts
“…they fell down and worshipped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.” (Catholic edition RSV, Matthew 2:11)
The Wise Men’s journey to Bethlehem was a pilgrimage, not an excursion. They traversed the desert not to satisfy their curiosity, nor to give themselves a foreign holiday, but to offer their homage and worship to One whom they knew to be more worthy of it than anyone else in the world.