I\u2019m heading to snowy Willimantic, CT this afternoon, to the Immaculata Retreat House<\/a><\/strong>, where I\u2019ll lead the convocation of deacons for the Diocese of Norwich this weekend. I won\u2019t be preaching for Epiphany (or, chanting the date of Easter<\/a><\/strong>, alas), but here\u2019s something from the vault:<\/em><\/p>\n +<\/p>\n On a summer\u2019s day in 1879, an amateur archeologist named Marcelino de Satuola went into a cave in Altamira, Spain, looking for prehistoric artifacts.<\/strong> He\u2019d been there several times before, and hadn\u2019t found much of interest. But this day, he brought with him his five-year-old daughter. The two of them began to explore the cave. Marcelino was studying the ground, when he heard his little girl cry out. \u201cLook, papa,\u201d she said, \u201coxen!\u201d<\/p>\n He couldn\u2019t imagine what she was talking about, until he looked in her direction and saw she was pointing to the ceiling.<\/p>\n There, Marcelino saw the most incredible images: pictures of animals and people that had been left there over 10,000 years earlier. What his little girl spotted was later hailed as one of the greatest artistic discoveries ever. In the 1920s, Picasso visited the caves and came away awed. To this day, thousands visit Altamira every year to see what many consider to be the very beginnings of art<\/p>\n And it happened because a five-year-old didn\u2019t look down.<\/p>\n She looked up.<\/p>\n She brought to that adventure a sense of wonder. Just like the magi, the wise men, in today\u2019s gospel reading. They also looked up. And then looked forward. And then followed. They discovered something far more valuable than anything painted on the ceiling of an ancient cave.<\/p>\n They followed a star to the savior of the world.<\/strong><\/p>\n And what led them there was more than astronomy. They were led by fascination, moved by wonder. They needed to find where that star would take them.<\/p>\n The biologist J.B.S. Haldane once said, \u201cThe world will not perish for want of wonders\u2026but for want of wonder.\u201d<\/p>\n Wonder.<\/strong> That is the great well-spring that nourishes us on this particular feast, the feast of the Epiphany. That word comes from Latin, \u201cepiphania,\u201d meaning \u201cmanifestation.\u201d A revelation. Or, as Webster\u2019s puts it, an \u201cilluminating discovery.\u201d<\/p>\n The magi discovered the greatest illumination of all: Christ.<\/p>\n Isaiah describes it this way: \u201cRise up in splendor, Jerusalem! Your light has come.\u201d<\/p>\n And it has. The birth of Christ means we will finally see what was hidden. What was in shadow is bathed in light.<\/p>\n And it begins with the infinite light of a star.<\/p>\n But to see it, to experience it, to discover it, we need to do what the magi did. We need to have wonder. And we need to travel \u2013 to journey outside our \u201ccomfort zones\u201d and be open to the unexpected or the unplanned.<\/p>\n The magi had no idea where the star would take them. They didn\u2019t know what their final destination would be. They couldn\u2019t anticipate what they would find, or that it would all end up in Bethlehem.<\/p>\n The journey to Jesus was, for them, as it is for all of us: unpredictable, uncharted, unknowable.<\/p>\n And it left them changed.<\/strong><\/p>\n As Matthew writes: \u201cThey departed for their country by another way.\u201d<\/p>\n After encountering Christ, they couldn\u2019t travel the same road.<\/p>\n It should be that way for all of us. After discovering Jesus, after our own epiphanies, nothing can be quite the same.<\/p>\n John Henry Newman once wrote that \u201cTo live is to change.\u201d It\u2019s a beautiful thought for this season, when we\u2019re starting a new year and many of us are struggling to change old habits \u2013 or maybe lose old weight.<\/p>\n Living is about growing, and changing \u2013 Newman embodied that with his conversion. So did other great converts of our own day, people like Edith Stein, Thomas Merton and Avery Dulles. They understood that life isn\u2019t a destination. It\u2019s a journey. No matter the problems, or detours or setbacks, we continue to move forward, seeking Truth.<\/p>\n The other day I read the remarkable story of two Anglican men, a father and son in England, who converted to Catholicism. That\u2019s unusual enough. But then, just before Christmas both of them were ordained to the priesthood. It\u2019s believed that\u2019s the first time that\u2019s ever happened. The son put it simply, but eloquently: \u201cIt was time to come home.\u201d<\/p>\n What a homecoming.<\/p>\n This is a time, the holidays, when many of us have had homecomings of one kind or another. For some of us, that homecoming has also meant returning to the faith. Maybe you found yourself suddenly back in the pews for Christmas Mass \u2014 trying to remember the prayers you used to know by heart, feeling a little out of place, wondering if you\u2019ll fit in. It\u2019s okay.<\/p>\n The most important thing \u2013 like with the magi \u2013 is that you made the trip.<\/p>\n The fact is: all of us, like the magi, are pilgrims, on journey.<\/strong> But where will the journey take us?<\/p>\n Remember the wise men, the journey they took, the star they followed, the epiphany they made. They traveled to places unknown, guided by wonder. And they discovered the Son of God.<\/p>\n And remember, too, that little girl in Altamira.<\/p>\n So often, we spend our lives looking at the ground, studying the dirt, checking out the broken remnants of life that lie at our feet. We can miss the glory that is just above us.<\/p>\n We can miss epiphanies.<\/p>\n So: Look up! Look forward. And follow. Follow the light, the light that is Christ.<\/p>\n It leads us to grace.<\/p>\n And after that, we have no choice but to live differently \u2013 like the magi, returning to our lives \u201cby another way.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014Preached Epiphany Sunday 2009<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019m heading to snowy Willimantic, CT this afternoon, to the Immaculata Retreat House, where I\u2019ll lead the convocation of deacons for the Diocese of Norwich this weekend. I won\u2019t be preaching for Epiphany (or, chanting the date of Easter, alas), but here\u2019s something from the vault: + On a summer\u2019s day in 1879, an amateur […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":267966,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11252],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-267965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-open-mind"],"yoast_head":"\n