Adore Him with a complete surrender of your life. Lastly, the Magi bring gold, frankincense, and myrrh. These three gifts, presented to our Lord, show that they acknowledged this Child as the Divine King who would die to save us from sin. Gold is for a King, frankincense is a burnt offering to God, and myrrh is used for one who would die.
Thus, their adoration is grounded in the truths of who this Child is. If we are to adore Christ properly, we must also honor Him in this threefold way. Reflect, today, upon these Magi and see them as a symbol of what you are called to do. You are called from the foreign place of this world to seek out the Messiah. What is God using to call you to Himself? When you discover Him, do not hesitate to acknowledge the full truth of who He is, lying prostrate before Him in complete and humble submission.
Lord, I love You and adore You. Their coming means that pagans can discover Jesus and worship him as Son of God and Saviour of the world only by turning towards the Jews and receiving from them the messianic promise as contained in the Old Testament. In some countries, Epiphany is a holy day of obligation Canon Can. Where that is the case, it is celebrated on Jan. In the United States, Epiphany is not a holy day of obligation, and its celebration is transferred to the first Sunday after Jan.
It is hard to say how far back the beginnings of the Christmas feast go. It assumed its definitive form in the third century. At about the same time the feast of the Epiphany emerged in the East on January 6 and the feast of Christmas in the West on December The two feasts had different emphases because of the different religious and cultural contexts in which they arose, but essentially their meaning was the same: the celebration of the birth of Christ as the dawning of the new light, the true sun, of history [ The Spirit of the Liturgy , pp.
Eventually, however, the emphasis on Jan. To the first of the four principal meanings, Magi are understood to be members of the Persian priestly caste. No doubt this view contains some not easily definable element of truth: after all, Aristotle himself spoke of the philosophical work of the Magi cf. The other meanings listed by Gerhard Delling are as follows: possessors and users of supernatural knowledge and ability, magicians, and finally deceivers and seducers.
For the Magi in Matthew 2, it is the first of the four meanings that applies, at least in a broad sense. Even if they were not exactly members of the Persian priesthood, they were nevertheless custodians of religious and philosophical knowledge that had developed in that area and continued to be cultivated there [ Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives ]. They apparently had material of a prophetic nature some have suggested that they got it from an eastern Jewish community, such as the one in Babylon that allowed them to identify the birth of the new "king of the Jews" astronomically.
They may have been especially motivated to come see this king of the Jews since there was an expectation at the time that a universal ruler would shortly come from Israel. Pope Benedict explains:. Probably, because they assumed the newborn king would be a son of Herod — the current "king of the Jews. That, surely, is where the future king must have been born [ Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives ]. This, of course, played into Herod's paranoia for his throne and led to the slaughter of the innocents.
Click here for more information on all that. It is hard to know. Some question whether the star was a natural phenomenon at all, pointing out that it seems to lead the magi to Jerusalem, disappear, and then reappear and hover over the house in Bethlehem. While epiphany may cover some similar semantic terrain particularly the sense meaning "an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure" , in terms of its function in a sentence, it is a noun.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'epiphany. Send us feedback. See more words from the same century. Accessed 12 Nov.
Nglish: Translation of epiphany for Spanish Speakers. Britannica English: Translation of epiphany for Arabic Speakers. Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free! Log in Sign Up. Save Word. And in the United States in recent years, some Catholics have tried to revive the fullness of Christmastide. Our family, for instance, opens gifts "from Santa" on Christmas Day, and then, on each of the 12 days of Christmas, the children receive one small gift, before we open all of our gifts to one another on Epiphany after attending Mass for the feast.
Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads.
0コメント