"…Jesus Christ is better." – UPDATED

A profile of three young Dominican sisters from the Ann Arbor-based teaching order, the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, yields some good things:

Sister Maria, a native of the Bronx, a first-year novitiate…gave up a successful corporate career in the car business to enter the convent. She chose the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, she said, because of their devotion to Mary, traditional lifestyle and sense of humor.

“I knew that to go to heaven, I needed to be in a convent!” she said with a laugh. “I knew that I could slip into being greedy. I wanted more than a house on the lake and a closet full of shoes. Life is empty without Christ. It doesn’t make any sense without him.”

In the end, she said, she felt compelled to stand up for what she believed in, regardless of what other people thought she should do.

“Go big or go home,” she said. “No one will live my life but me.”

Sister Maria Jose, a second-year novice, grew up in a strong, Catholic, Mexican-American family and graduated from the University of Texas-El Paso. After working as a software engineer for six years, she entered the convent.

“I loved my career, but Jesus Christ is better,” she said. “I realized that there was more to life than going to a job. There was a lot of emptiness there. I could either do something to distract me, like going out to the bars, or I could pursue prayer, seek Jesus, and see what it was that Jesus was calling me to do.”

This jibes rather nicely with Deacon Greg’s homily for The Epiphany of the Lord, which we celebrate this weekend – we finally get to sing We Three Kings – my favorite!

Writes the Deacon:

…the magi, the wise men, in today’s 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.

They followed a star to the savior of the world.

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.

The biologist J.B.S. Haldane once said, “The world will not perish for want of wonders…but for want of wonder.”

Wonder. That is the great well-spring that nourishes us on this particular feast, the feast of the Epiphany. That word comes from Latin, “epiphania,” meaning “manifestation.” A revelation. Or, as Webster’s puts it, an “illuminating discovery.”

The magi discovered the greatest illumination of all: Christ.
…
The magi had no idea where the star would take them. They didn’t know what their final destination would be. They couldn’t anticipate what they would find, or that it would all end up in Bethlehem.

The journey to Jesus was, for them, as it is for all of us: unpredictable, uncharted, unknowable.

And it left them changed.

As Matthew writes: “They departed for their country by another way.”

After encountering Christ, they couldn’t travel the same road.

It should be that way for all of us. After discovering Jesus, after our own epiphanies, nothing can be quite the same.

The Magi caught sight of something, and it led them away from everything that was “usual, – to Christ, and to wonder – and everything changed for them. These young women caught sight of something, and it let them away from everything “usual,” – to Christ and to wonder. The story happens over and over again, every day.

Next week we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord, and then we head back into Ordinary Time until Lent. But the Christmas story is still going on; it is still being read at daily mass. We have read about the slaughter of the Holy Innocents, and the Presentation of Christ, at the Temple, where Simeon and Anna recognise the Messiah, and where Simeon told Mary about the sword.

Because Christmas and Easter, in their way, always come together, as this nun-blogger shares in this wonderful poem

If you feel like Christmas is over, and it all went by a little too fast, pick up your scripture and read Luke, and keep reading Chapter 2 for a little while. It’s okay to linger, a bit, when you have caught sight of a star and found something that changes everything. In fact, without lingering a while – to wonder at it all – we may miss the point.

UPDATE: I like this last paragraph here.

Deacon Greg has a story about a fellow following the star via the Capuchin route. The Caps are exceedingly good men, and many of them are the brightest lights of the priesthood in the current age. Bro. Vito’s blog is here