By Deacon John Kren

Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, those three kings of orient are. They came from far away, from the east by the guidance of a star based on a prophesy of an unnamed prophet. It is the basis of countless Christmas stories, nativity scenes and pageants.

This Solemnity of Epiphany is much more complicated though than gold, frankincense and myrrh. We romanticize it with beautiful songs and statues and paintings and images, but the journey for those astrologers must have been brutal.

So often the star must have faded from sight so that they could not see it. And yet, on they pressed. That star promised something they could not know, except their need to see whatever, whoever it was, driven to encounter the king. “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.” This might also be our world.

How like them we are? We struggle in the world strain-ing from darkness to see the shining light. We engage the deserts that surround us. Deserts of addiction, loneliness, hunger, families, fighting to keep things together. We are blinded by the storms of self-doubt, we may not believe that we are following the right path, even when we are. We are waylaid by the clouds of indifference, of pain, of sickness, or political turmoil and yet onward we must press; we must go forth; we must follow a star that we can sometimes lose sight of.

We saw his star and have come to do him homage. We must follow that star, and we must do it without compromise because this Epiphany is the journey of life and we are called to travel it bearing gifts for the newborn king, the light coming into the world.

The gold of our wealth, our talent, our persons, our energy, whatever that gold may be. The frankincense of our prayer, rising like incense above the fires and ruin of the world. The myrrh of our weakness and disappointments, poured out like soothing balm upon the Body of Christ. Dying to sin, to experience forgiveness and mercy. We are called to be the Magi of our time.