EPIPHANY

To Understand the meaning of this feast, it might be helpful to explore the definition of the word Epiphany:

Merriam Webster Definition of Epiphany:
1) a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something
2) an intuitive grasp of reality through something (as an event) usually simple and striking
an illuminating discovery b : a revealing scene or moment.

Epiphany is when 'we finally get it'. It is the gut reaction we have when a problem, a situation, a puzzle, etc. is finally understood. For the Jewish Christians it was that defining moment when they understood and accepted that Jesus was not just the God of the Jews, but the God of all. At the Council of Jerusalem in 66A.D., the church finally understood that we do not need to be Jews to be Christians. Today, many are having a reverse epiphany, in that many are realizing how important it is to understand our Jewish roots.

The Gospel account of the Magi visiting the manger is a celebration of Jesus' invitation to all people to follow and be saved.

All of us experience epiphanies in our lives. Propably, the most common epiphany is when we look back on our lives, and remember something a parent or grandparent said to us when we were younger. Many years, later, we finally understand the meaning of the situation, as we discover what it means to grow older. In a way, we have partially walked in the footsteps of this parent or grandparent, and now we understand.

On a barber Shop wall an old German Barber in his broken English had this sign posted: We grow too old fast, and too smart late. None of us is gauranteed either a long life, or smartness in old age, but many who do grow old recognize the kernel of truth captured by this little statement.

THREE EPIPHANIES (The first two, as told by Fr. Michel Dibbly, the third my own)

1) First Epiphany Story: ALFRED HITCOCK by Fr. Michael Dibbly

He was a Catholic in a neighborhood where he was the only Catholic. He was an only child. His parents were very strict Catholics, loving but strict. And even as a little boy of six, he was very, very pudgy... and timid. And one dusk, around five o'clock, on a very dark foggy London evening, his dad said to this little Alfred Hitchcock, "Alf, here is a note. You take the note around the corner to the magistrate" (the policeman) "and you give the note to the magistrate and he'll read it and then you come home."
And Hitchcock, always obedient, stepped into the London fog and walked, (It was cold and dark.) and he came to the magistrate, the police station, and he walked up to the desk and he handed... (Now Hitchcock told this story several times. It's true, and he told it when he was over eighty. He had just been knighted by the queen. He was eighty years old, talking on a London BBC talk interview.) And when he was six, seventy-four years ago, he remembered, he handed the note to the magistrate and the magistrate opened it and read it and closed it and put it back in the envelope and took Hitchcock by his five pudgy digits and led him down the spiral staircase of the police station to the long corridor where there were the cells. And that particular night all the prison cells were empty. And the magistrate led the little boy into one cell... and closed the cell... and locked the cell...and went back the spiral staircase and turned out all the lights.
And Hitchcock, all those years later, remembered terror and spinning around in his fear. And most Hitchcock movies have a scene of an innocent person in a small space, spinning around. And he pulled out his little six-year-old rosary and he started to say a Hail Mary....and the lights came on! It was only five minutes later, he estimated, but, at the time, he said, "It was five hundred years!" And the policeman came down and opened the cell and took him by his pudgy fingers and brought him up the spiral staircase and ushered him back into the London fog. And he said, "Alf, you go home now. Your father wrote in the note that I was to show you what happens to little boys who grow up to be bad boys."
And the interviewer on the radio (You can even hear his voice sink.) said, "I don't think we'd agree with that method." But Hitchcock said, "You see, I recognize that in so much of our lives, even when we grow up, we have so little control...." (His words, cause I wrote it down. I always have a little pad and I write... "So little control...even when we're grown up...") "...and that, finally, sometimes our last resort is prayer."
Now the BBC British commentator, somewhat superciliously, said, "Oh, well. You were just lucky that you started to pray and the man came and let you out. Most people don't get such fast answers." And Hitchcock paused a long time and he said, "No," he says. "You see, God, in His plan for us, sometimes there is a long suspense." And that, as a lot of you, if not everybody here knows, that takes a lot of courage to get through that suspense, hanging on just to the prayer. For Hitchcock at six, it was an Epiphany and he spent the rest of his life scaring us!

2) Second Epiphany Story: HOLDING ONTO GOD'S HAND by Fr. Micael Dibbly

And the last... at last... is my brother who's in recovery from alcohol and drugs. I told you that before. In 1987, he was talking to me about his Catholicism. He said, "When I was a Catholic, I was a good Catholic despite my addictions. I mean I tried to get to Mass and avoid terrible sins..." He said, "Now I've made a distinction." (Now, some of you might know this phrase, but I didn't hear it til 1987.) He said, "Before, my faith was religious. Now, my faith is spiritual." And I, ever the straight man, said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Well, religious is all in the melon", meaning the head, cerebral, conceptual, "Well, I was brought up a Catholic".... "But now it's in the gut also. So it's spiritual. It goes deeper." By "the gut" he meant "the lifestyle." He said, "I got to hold onto God's hand every day after day to keep my disease in check. I have to need His hand and need His help." It went from the melon to the gut. And then he said, (Now he's still a Catholic.) but he said, "Religion used to be for me because I didn't want to go to hell. Spirituality, holding His hand every day, is for me because I've been to hell and I don't want to go back." Anyhow, "Epiphany" means to recognize or have revealed in a fresh, vivid way, and for some of us, the only way we get it is by a spiritual "Heimlich Maneuver."

3) Third Epiphany Story: WHERE IS GOD?

As, I relected on Fr. Dibbly's epiphany stories, the unending number of headlines speaking of man's inhumnaity to man and human suffering, the state the church and declining attendance, I peered out a second storey window of the rectory with a view of the graveyard. It was about 11:30 a.m.. As the days are so short this time of the year, the sun was still clinging to the horizon, and it cast a yellowish glow over the tombstones partially buried beneath the snow. Long 8-12 foot shadows fell from the tombstones, and an eerie sense of stillness pervaded the surreal scene. Nothing seemed to move, absolute quietness and stillness. I heard my self praying to live in joyful hope, and wondered how long we would have to wait until the Lord came in glory. When in a flash, I recognized that the Lord was waiting too. He was waiting for Christians to say 'enough is enough' and to rise up in faith conviction and action. GOD IS WAITING!