Richard Bollman, S.J.

HOMILY. Epiphany, 2007. "Traveling with the Magi"

Matthew 2:1-12

Let’s think of the Magi as people on the road. Pilgrims, you could say.

Gentiles, like us. Representative of a diverse culture beyond the boundaries.

Let's associate with them:

pilgrims who have lived life a bit,

who already have learned something of nature's patterns,

with answers to questions about the stars, healing arts,

who have some influence, talent, ability to handle things--

who have a bit of money for the trip.

People often enough talk to me

about their journey, the one that got them to Bellarmine,

a story of temporary settlements elsewhere,

following advice. On the way.

There’s probably that spirit in most Catholic parishes,

people who move around, looking:

"Here we are for a time, for now."

Pilgrim people: the Catholic Church!

We remember the expression from Vatican II?

Not an established group of the sure and settled;

not a power elite, nor a triumphal Church.

It’s not easy, this unfinished state of things, these last 10 years especially.

Sometimes, as we acknowledge how "religion" doesn't make it,

church as usual, very flawed;

and we want more essential grace, commitment, courage,

real contact with God.

Sometimes I’m sure we miss the certainties we once enjoyed.

People on the way sometimes feel like people who have lost the way--

it’s not always easy to sort out.

These are parts of the same story.

Our catechumen friend today, Andrew, is a kind of pilgrim.

Here he is having gotten along fine

without ever being baptized, but you know there is something else,

and then you notice this spark, this light that you have to check out,

and you look up at it,

and you look down the road, and life changes,

and at a certain point the star and the road come together,

and you knock on the door there.

Often enough, we more long-term Catholics, are amazed at this,

(why are people coming, why do they still come?)

maybe because we forget our own journey, think its finished.

It worries me sometimes when people say,

"well Bellarmine is my last stop in the Catholic church."

I want to suggest that being Catholic

is meant to be bigger than parish or church.

The Magi came from a world of knowledge, family, profession,

and they came as seekers with a deeply felt need and hope,

and they found Christ. Christ is the light.

You have to stay with this, the light you find,

and see where it takes you.

Not "Church" now and forever.

Rather: Christ in the good times, Christ too in the struggle.

Right away the Magi found that religious representatives were unreliable,

and they could not go back to Herod or the priests or the court,

but went home by another route.

They had a fleeting glimpse even of the trouble possible on the way,

trouble for themselves now that they saw through the king’s duplicities.

Trouble for the child himself, even he not free of threat,

and the community around him not free of dissension.

Just like ourselves, often coming here for a moment’s peace

but still grinding our teeth over the latest irritating news from Rome

or the disappointments we have with the chancery,

or new reminders of our own unfinished business.

But we dare not lose heart: pilgrimage is like that.

It exposes the troubles, and wears us out,

and even so we have to remember we are fellow travelers with Magi,

with shepherds, with tax-collectors and disciples of all kinds,

ardent or suspicious.

Being Catholic is a big thing. There are many landing places,

none of them complete. We go on.

There are light times, and dark times.

All of them are part of the road, leading to the doorway.

Yesterday I followed a call to the emergency room

where a premature birth gave rise to some anxiety among the family,

hope for the child, a sense of urgency and love, along with worry,

and so we held a baptism there in the ER,

a small circle of people: mother and dad, grandmother, myself.

And I said to them, I bring here the presence of this whole parish

to form a circle of faith and support for the baby (her name is Emma),

into which she enters now and where she always shall belong.

I didn’t say I brought only those of us who are orthodox or sinless

or ministry volunteers or big donors.

It’s everybody: and she in her life, I hope, shall find new places

where this will be real. Because it’s bigger than ourselves too.

After the baptism we said together the prayer of disciples, the Lord’s Prayer.

As we say it here.

It reminds me of an early moment in my own being Catholic

and being pilgrim. It was 1967, several years before I was ordained,

I attended summer school at Middlebury College in Vermont.

Just a few hours drive north was the city of Montreal, hosting Expo 67,

an astonishing world’s fair,

the first to include third world countries in depth,

and an array of media events, architecture, the arts and culture

that drew us up for a weekend visit.

We were staying at a Jesuit college in town,

and on Sunday my companions went back to the community for Mass,

but I had this instinct to find another place, a bigger place,

the Catholic cathedral in Montreal.

I didn’t care what the liturgy looked like:

I wanted to live out this new huge sense of belonging in this world,

to see it from within the core of my beliefs.

I don’t recall the liturgy at all, except it was in French.

But I remember belonging there with people from all over,

and I remember the Our Father prayer (the only French I knew),

and the vast procession of communion.

Fellow-travelers.

We live in a tense and often nervous church that can look small.

We live in a world that right now couldn’t pull of a world’s fair.

But we live in a world, and a faith community,

where God has already appeared!

That faith shall not leave us deserted, not at a dead end.

whether in dark times or starry nights.

We've each had our epiphanies, our hunches,

seen the light as it is shown to us.

We know this too: the clarity and meaning of Christ is always vulnerable

to those who would stamp it out,

always vulnerable to the world we live in that pushes other agenda.

And we know our own struggle to sort out our ego from our soul.

The light that guides this journey

is immense, continually reliable, in foreign countries, and very near.

So while we are here together,

let's open our treasure, offer ourselves and yield a little

to the steady light that is always with us,

the work of grace we don’t have to ever doubt or resist.