Feast of Epiphany: A cold coming we had of it...

That is how T.S.Eliot opens his story of the Journey of the Magi.  It was cold, long, miserable, difficult and alien.  But they persevered, and eventually found the Infant Christ in Bethlehem.  Most people who know about journeys at that time, and the distance between the Arabian countries the Kings lived in and the inhospitable hills of Judea, would say that it must have taken the best part of a year for these Eastern kings to arrive at their destination.  Months of hardship, months of missing their homes and the comforts of civilised living, months of putting up with strange customs, and even stranger languages.  A whole year of wanting to turn back, thinking they must have been mistaken!! 

Not our image is it?  We usually put the Kings beside the Crib, picturing them as waiting with their exotic presents, surrounded by their camel boys and their charges, those rather strange-looking animals with their humped backs and long, narrow aristocratic faces which seem to disdain human beings.  We see the silken coverings the kings wore, the splendour and uniqueness of the presents of gold, francincense and myrrh the servants carried for them, the  colourful turbans, the gleaming white teeth in the dark faces...  It is all so exciting and so different.

But the reality?  It would seem to be more in tune with Thomas Stearn Eliot's view than with our own,  more romanticised one.  Look at the familiar lines of the opening stanzas:

A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year for a journey, and what a journey!

The ways deep, and the weather sharp.

the very dead of Winter.

And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,

lying down in the melting snow.

There were times when we regretted

the Summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,

and the silken girls bringing sherbet.

Then the camel men, cursing and grumbling

and running away, and wanting their liquour and their women

 And the night fires going out,  and the lack of shelters.

and the cities hostile, and the towns unfriendly.

and the villages dirty, and charging high prices.

A hard time we had of it.

So the quest to find the King of Judea was not an easy one.  Is it ever?  If we look at the journey of the Magi, then we have to say that, like all of us, they set out in hope and a certain excitement to follow this unusual star that had appeared in the East, but, as the journey progressed and reality bit in, they almost gave up.  They were obviously intelligent and gently-nurtured men who were not used to the rigours of such a journey.  They missed their homeland, and the comforts it offered them.  That of course is natural, but what is remarkable about their journey is that they were faithful to the inner prompting that made them go on when they were dog tired, cold, hungry and disillusioned  That is courage.

Their courage was rewarded by the  sight of the star stopping over, of all things, a stable.  What an exercise of faith that was required of these three royals! They went in and saw the child Jesus with his Mother, and they offered their gifts, the best that their country had to offer, to her for the support of this refugee family.  It must have been a wonderful experience for them, the fulfillment of all their hopes and dreams.  When they got back to their old country, according to the poem, they "were no longer at ease in the old dispensations". In other words, they were so changed by meeting Jesus in the flesh that they realised that the things they had believed in before meeeting him were no longer of  use to them.

 

They saw their own people through new eyes, as "an alien people clutching their gods".

Isn't that part of our journey too?  Aren't we so touched by Jesus and his teachings that, to quote the New Testament account of the Transfiguration , we too "see no one but only Jesus." The following of our star is also our conversion experience.  At the end of it, we are led to the beginning, the coming of our Saviour to meet us and to bring us to his world.  Then our journey is complete.

Until then, we have to go through the rigours of the journey, searching for signs of his presence in our lives.  We see them in the most unexpected places, and in the most surprising people.  Jesus isn't fussy where he lives - he speaks to us all the time, but especially in the poor, the lonely, the disenfranchised, the ones who, to use Liverpool parlance "aren't much cop."  They are of no account in our world, but Jesus loves to show them the way to him, so that we can, in turn, be evangelised by them.  Try it some day!  


In the meantime, have a lovely Epiphany and remember to follow that star, no matter where it leads. Wise men did so and look what they found.  Wise people still do so, and they too have found Jesus with his mother Mary . Not forgetting the wise and gentle Joseph.

So with the three Kings, now enjoying the delights of Heaven, we pray: 

"Guide us to thy wondrous light! "

Brave New Year!

I wish each of you a very happy, hopeful and brave New Year!  Why do I add the word 'brave' to the list?  Well, it seems to me that we are on a new journey, and for that we need most of all, courage!  They say that even the longest journey starts with the first step, and it is that first, tentative step into the unknown that requires courage.  The second thing we need for our journey into 2013 is support - people around us whom we can trust, companions who will be there for us and see us through the bad times and laugh with us in the good times.  Together we can do great things.  I believe that, don't you? 

To be an optimist is not usually to be naive, although of course it may be, but essentially it is to look at the reality of our situation and find a path through it that is possible to traverse safely.  Optimists look at possibilities and take risks. Pessimists see only the negative side and are afraid to risk being wrong!

We need role models don't we, leaders who have the courage to take the first step on a new, untried road, and beckon us to follow. 

There are many role models we can take through this New Year, many saints, many people in our own lives, perhaps.  I'm going to ask you to take a fictional character, a figment of a gifted writer's imagination, if you like. And when I tell you who he is, don't say "But he isn't a real person!"  He is an intrinsic part of an allegory, and allegories are very important in showing us something about ourselves.  Jesus used that device in his teaching - we call them parables.



JRR Tolkien



Have you seen "The Hobbit"?  If you haven't, do try to do so  The film version of Tolkien's "Unexpected Journey" is really three stories intertwined and focuses on one character in its title, a hobbit.  Let me tell you how a genius's mind works.  This genius was a lecturer at Oxford.  He was correcting some student's essays. When he got to the last one in the pile, he found that  there was a blank page at the end of the examination paper, which this particular student had not filled in.  Absent-mindedly, Tolkien scribbled something on the paper.  When he looked at it, he realised that it had nothing whatever to do with the essay he was supposed to be marking.  He had written:

In the earth was a hole and a hobbit lived in it...

He looked at it,  bemused.  But, being Tolkien, he wondered "Hole?" "Where is it?"  And he proceeded to find out what a hobbit was, and where he lived. He peopled his world with amazing characters - dwarves, wizards, magicians, the stuff of fantasy.  But he gave us Middle Earth, The Lord of the Rings, and now this Unexpected Journey we call The Hobbit for screen purposes. You may not like fantasy films, I don't think I like them usually, but this one, like the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe series, says something important, especially for us facing a new beginning, an adventure if you like.

The Hobbit

The main character is called Bilbo Baggins, who is the hobbit.  He lives in Bag End, and he loves nothing more than to sit by his fire quietly enjoying his solitude or entertaining his friends. He was shy and not very charismatic, if you know what I mean.  Then one night, he is visited by thirteen noisy and demanding dwarves, and Gandalf, who asks him to go on a journey with the dwarves to regain their lost kingdom.  He is an unexpected hero, yet the story is about his finding in himself the ability to lead and to find the lost home of the dwarves, and also to fight the dragon who guards it.  He is a hopeless fighter, and in the beginning has no confidence in himself. Yet he succeeds. One might say that he was naive.  Yes he was, but what he had was a sense of adventure and a growing belief in his mission. As well as that, he had unselfishness. After all, he had a home which he loved, and didn't want to leave, but he felt sorry for the dwarves who had lost theirs, and he wanted to help them to regain it. 

He also held on to his beliefs.  He arrived at the end, battered and bruised, almost dead, but he held on to the ring.  Maybe Tolkien saw that ring as not good.  I don't know.  But if we are looking for an allegorical meaning, then we can say that, to be faithful to what we believe in is good, and to hold on to what we have been given to guard is life-giving for us.  Tolkien was a devout Catholic, and he too believed that faith is very important, and without it we live a half-life.  Little Bilbo Baggins believed that someone was helping him to keep going on a journey that was well-nigh impossible, and he clutched the ring as a talisman. 

In our Congregation we have what we call our charism which is the spirit and values which our Founder, Mother Magdalen lived by and passed on to us.  We try to pass them on to others as Good News.  To be faithful to them is our challenge. We are Christ-bearers to the people of our time, being asked to bring Christ to every situation, especially where there is conflict or lack of forgiveness.  In his own way, little Bilbo did the same, although he would not realise what he was doing.

The Hobbit is also something of an allegory of leadership.  Perhaps we are reading too much into it, but I can see what people mean when they say that.  No one with any judgement would choose Bilbo Baggins as a leader, still less would they have confidence in his ability to lead others through hard times, and show them the way forward.  Yet he did it where others failed. 

So this New Year is about facing whatever comes with courage, even with a spirit of adventure, like Bilbo.  It is about helping others on the journey and finding enough courage within ourselves to pick ourselves up when things go wrong, and start again.  Those are New Year challenges!

I wish each of you once more a lovely 2013 and a special Year of Faith.  Think of Bilbo. He set out on a journey of adventure, probably found it terribly hard, but kept on, didn't turn back and came to the end of his journey stronger, more in tune with himself and others, and more at peace!  I wish the same for each one of you and for myself and each member of my Congregation.  See you next year!

(Photos courtesy of http://thehobbit.sqpn.com/, http://biographyonline.net)

(Photos/Graphics courtesy of Sr. Agnes Kavanagh and BMJL)