Today is the Feast of the Epiphany on which we remember the story of the visit by the Magi as accounted in the Gospel of Matthew. It is a story not found in any of the other three Gospels. Traditionally remembered as three wise men/astrologers, though the Gospel account does not mention their number, these Gentile men from foreign nations are led by a star to the birth place of the infant, Jesus, where they present gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the Holy Family. The story is Matthew’s way of telling his faith community, mainly Jewish Christians, that the revelation of who Jesus is, is revealed to the entirety of the world.
There have been many accounts of epiphanies in the Hebrew scriptures, all manifestations of God to humanity, focused primarily to the Hebrew people. However, as we read in the second chapter of Isaiah, God is not meant to be revealed solely to the Hebrew people but to the entire world, who will travel side by side to the mountain of God to feast, learn, and to end armed, violent conflict forever.
In a Christmas season filled with all sorts of epiphanies, it is important that we not just isolate epiphanies to scriptural stories. Within our lives there are multiple epiphanies that God shares with us. If we pay attention to the events of our lives, we will find, as I have, God’s revelations to us in uniquely personal ways. I would like to share one very personal and powerful epiphany that has directed my life for over forty years.
In summer of 1981, I was suffering from severe burnout, something not foreign to many of those who minister in the Church. For over two years, I worked seven days a week, often times from 7 am to 9:30 pm, teaching music or leading music at liturgies in the mornings and afternoons, and holding rehearsals or meetings in the evenings. I had only two weeks off a year. Because Ruthie had taken a leave from nursing, we were trying to race a family of five on an income of $9,000 a year. This was far below the poverty level in the United States. On the nights I didn’t have rehearsals or meetings, I worked part-time at a local liquor store, from 6 pm to 10 pm.
In the summer of 1981 I was in my second year of study at the University of St Thomas, St Paul School of Divinity working on masters degree in pastoral studies. Though the summer months were not as work intensive as they were in the other seasons, my time during the day was spent at the University taking classes and my evenings were spent studying and grinding out term papers and projects. My classes generally began at 8 am and often go to 3 pm. It was normally an hour drive from my home in New Prague to the University campus in St. Paul.
In the summer of 1981, suffering from severe burnout, I was driving up to St Paul, taking many country roads that curved and wound past the lakes and pastures, and fields of crops leading to the freeway. The day of one of my most significant epiphanies was in early June.
As I was driving on my way to the freeway, a journey of 20 minutes through these curvy, windy, roads littered with stop signs, I was praying to God to lift the burnout I was experiencing. The following is what occurred following that prayer on that journey.
As I drove, I suddenly found myself in a very dark place, blown about by high winds. The only thing that prevented me from being blown away was a piece of cloth that my right hand grasped. I looked to see what cloth I was grasping and discovered it was the hem of something that resembled a white alb. As I followed the cloth to its origin, I found that I was grasping the hem of the alb that clothed Jesus Christ, as imaged on the “risen Christ” crucifixes. Christ looked at me, and all I could utter to him was the word, “Help!” He smiled one of the kindest smiles I have ever seen, and with his right arm, he reached down and grasped me by my right wrist. He then pulled me up, but not on top of him, as one would lift a child. Rather, he lifted me up and pulled me up within himself, so that I soon discovered that I was looking through his eyes, my arms and hands encased in his arms and hands. I/we looked around me/us and as we looked down, I/we saw all these people being buffeted by the wind and hanging desperately onto the hem of my/our alb. I/we then began pulling people, one by one within us, just as I had been pulled up.
I suddenly came out of this vision and found myself driving north on the freeway, having no idea or remembrance of how I got there through all those curving country roads, and stop signs and merging onto the freeway. I found that my burnout was completely healed from my burnout that affliction totally absent. I, also, knew at that very moment what I was suppose to do for the rest of my life.
While I knew what my life’s work was to become, I still had no idea of how that would unfold in my life, but I knew that I was, at the very least, following the correct path. That path would lead me to another parish, and complete my graduate degree in pastoral studies, which would lead me to the diaconate and ordination as a Permanent deacon, to working with the poor, the disenfranchised, the LGBTQ community, the Latino community, those suffering from domestic violence, and later becoming a certified spiritual director.
Though I am now retired from active ministry with its 50 plus hour weeks, I have never “retired” from ministry. With all the many orthopedic surgeries since 2011, I am prevented from being as active as I once was, but I am still active, continuing my ministry to assist folks in many different ways. The epiphanies never cease, they just continue to evolve as I grow older, similar to driving on the curvy, winding roads through the countryside, never knowing what will be revealed around each curve.
Not all our “epiphanies” are as dramatic and profound as the one I had back in the summer of 1981, but if we pay attention to them, God will lead us as assuredly as God did the Magi which led them to that birth place of Jesus so long ago.