January 3, 2021: Solemnity of Epiphany
Isaiah 60: 1-6; Ephesians 2: 2-7 a, 5-6; Matthew 2: 1-12
The Light came to the earth; the Lord came unto His own but His own received him not! We are people of the Light and that is the feast we celebrate today! The feast which reminds us that we are the people of the Revelation. God has revealed Godself to us and awaits our response.
I remember an experience that I had a few years back. Two of us were sent to pick up a priest from the railway station. This is no strange experience! How many times we would have received people in the airports and railway stations! But the twitch here was. ..we did not know the person we are going to pick up. All that we know was that we are going to pick up a middle aged priest from another State, who was coming to Chennai. We positioned ourselves in a prominent spot and awaited the guest as the crowd started spilling into the platform from the train. Crowds and crowds of people were passing by but we did not spot our guest. Many who were standing alongside with us waiting for their guests were gone. There was one standing beside me for quite sometime. A man with a dhoti and a white shirt with a long grey beard! He didn't even seem to be looking out for someone. The best surprise was when he asked us. ..'so are you waiting for a priest from this particular State? , 'yes'! And when he said. .."I am the one", we didn't know really how to react!
At times, the Lord reveals Godself but we have certain preconceived ideas that don't allow us to see the Lord. Today we are invited to be people of the light., that is people who live in light always, people who are ready and prepared to receive the revelations that God wishes to give us.
The Lord reveals himself to us constantly. ..first of all through extraordinary means: let's pray that God gives that gift to many of us! But there is another way God reveals, the ordinary means: through prayer experiences, spiritual direction, liturgical celebrations, etc. Let's take care when we celebrate these moments in life so that we don't miss the revelations involved.
There is the third way which is more subtle and more challenging: the Daily means. The fact is that the Lord constantly reveals himself through every day experiences...through people we encounter, through challenging situations we face, through successful experiments we have, through people who come to us in need, through persons who demand our responsibility and so on. Let's open our eyes, our ears, our hearts. ..that we may receive the Light that encounters us daily in our life.
The texts begin to orient us towards the Baptism of Jesus, which is the next major event we would be soon commemorating. Today the Word speaks to us of two key elements: Belonging to God and Proclaiming God! These are the two fundamental marks of identity that we should have as Christians: to belong to God and be God's children and to proclaim God and invite everyone to a life worthy of God who has gifted that life to each of us. 
