The Epiphany is one of the great stories of the Bible. It is not only the story of the Wise Men. It is also our story.  Life is a journey.

The Bible tells the story of many journeys - the journey of Abraham from his homeland, of Moses and his journey to the Promised Land, of Jesus as he made his own life’s journey.

Literature is full of stories of journeys - Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table looking for the Holy Grail, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Every man, woman and child on this earth is on a journey.

It is not solely a Catholic or a Christian experience. It is the human story. The longest and probably the most difficult journey in life is our inward journey.

On the journey of life we need others. We meet good, kind people, often strangers, who help us and give us information and point us in the right direction, like the chief priests and scribes of the people.

There are those who give us good advice like the angels who warned the wise men in a dream not to go back to Herod. However, we sometimes lose our way and get lost. Sometimes we encounter evil like Herod who summoned the wise men to see him privately.

Herod was perturbed when he heard about the Wise Men's search - Herod represents all the evil elements we experience in our lives - pride, drugs, alcoholism, craving for riches, abuse of power, complacency, disillusionment – anyone or anything that destroys us or diverts us from continuing our journey and reaching our destination.

On our journey we all follow a star. The wise men saw the star as it rose and followed it. Stars are not only in the sky. They are within us - our hopes, our dreams, our aspirations, our desire for wholeness, fulfillment, for happiness.

On a fundamental level, our star is our yearning for God. All life, all religion is about the continuous search for God. The Wise men asked, “where is the Infant King of the Jews, for we saw his star as it rose and have come to do him homage”.

This Gospel reminds us that we are the Wise Men, that we follow our star so that we may become the people we are meant to be.

Sometimes we lose our star - we get bored, discouraged, depressed.  Sometimes the sight of the star no longer fills us with delight and we stop following it.

At these moments we have really ceased to live. So many people today seem to have no star - no ambition, no curiosity, no excitement. Just imagine if everyone in the world was like the wise men – “the sight of the star filled them with delight”- excited about living, this world would be a very different place - it would be so much more alive.

We are the modern day Magi, as men, women and children who follow our star, we make life more interesting for ourselves and bring enthusiasm into the world.

In the Gospel, the star led the wise men to “the place where the child was” and “opening their treasures, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh'”.

The child is Jesus, but he is also the symbol of all goodness. In life when we find something worth living for - a marriage, a child, a commitment to a good cause, we also open our treasures and give it all our gold, frankincense and myrrh.

The text tells us that after they had seen the child “they returned by a different way”. When we find something great in life, something sacred, we cannot go on living as before, we are forever changed, our direction in life changes and we too go a different way. This is life.

Lord, we thank you for our parents, teachers and friends who, when we sought direction from them, led us to a Bethlehem in Judaea, where we found the place where the Child was. We opened our treasures and offered our gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
We thank you for those in life that warn us not to go back to Herod and all he symbolises. They allow us to return to our country by a different way.
Amen

Gospel Meditations for January are by Patricia Elie of Santa Rosa parish, Arima