Feast of Epiphany

Monaleen Church, 6 January 2026

Homily Notes of Bishop Brendan Leahy

Today is a wonderful feast day. It celebrates the manifestation of Jesus to all the nations. The story of the three Wise men coming to Bethlehem, seeing Mary and the child Jesus and worshipping him has much to say to us. It is about the Light becoming manifest for all of humanity. Let’s just take three points to guide us today.

Searching. The wise men were educated and men of culture. They were astrologers, probably famous and wealthy and yet they were searching for something more in their lives. It has been said that their pilgrimage to Jerusalem and Bethlehem was an expression of their inward journey, the inner pilgrimage of their hearts. St. John Chrysostom says the Wise men did not set out because they had seen the star, but they saw the star because they had already set out. In their hearts they didn’t settle for a smug, superficial existence, closing out or cauterising, as Pope Francis once put it, the deeper questions of life. It was by pursuing truth that Truth made itself manifest to them. And that search involved obstacles and even the deception of Herod.

The experience of the Wise Men is a reminder to each of us to recognise how faith is a journey, a pilgrimage. It is rooted in our search for truth. It’s not always easy. We can get tired, experience setbacks and failures. We can become discouraged. And we too have to avoid temptations – just like the Wise men had to avoid the temptation of Herod’s scheming. But it is a journey worth pursuing because the star, the Gospel, the Truth, is leading us onwards to the wonderful truth and beauty that is Jesus Christ.

Worshipping. The Gospel tells us that when they found the child Jesus, they fell on their knees and worship him. They opened their treasure chests and offered him gold, frankincense and myrrh. These gifts are very significant. With the gift of gold, the wise men are declaring that Jesus is a King. With the gift of frankincense, they are declaring that he is God. With the gift of myrrh, they are declaring he is destined to die. So much said in just three gifts as they worshipped the Son of God.

 

The Feast Day today invites us too to worship Jesus and bring our gifts. He is to be the king of our hearts. We worship him who is the Son of God by putting God in the first place in our lives. And we are to become disciples of Jesus who will lead us on the journey of life that involves laying down our lives, like Jesus on the Cross, for our brothers and sisters. We can bring many gifts – our desire to follow him, our talents, our families, our successes but also our failures, our worries and our concerns for ourselves and the world today. And we can simply bring the gift of our time. I noticed in the last years of his life how much Pope Francis used to say we need to worship more, we need to spend more time in adoration in our lives, making time for moments of quiet where we declare in our heart to God: “You are God, You are everything, I am nothing without you”.

Looking around you. A third point that we can think about from today’s readings has to do with how we see the world around us. In the First Reading, we hear the words of the prophet Isaiah addressed the community of Jerusalem. It was centuries before Jesus. The people of Israel had just recently returned from Exile with all its difficulties and challenges. The prophet wanted to encourage them, saying: “Lift up your eyes and look around” (60:4). They were to lift up their heads in trust and follow the light, recognising their vocation as a people was to reach out to all of humanity.

In today’s Feast Day those words of the prophet are repeated because this Feast Day comes as an invitation to us too to lift up our eyes and look around. The Wise Men represent humanity. We are to recognise how all of humanity is called to encounter Christ. Everyone is a candidate for the love and light of God. Indeed, we can also say that everyone is a presence of Christ to be loved. Christian faith is that Jesus is to be found in everyone, perhaps a Jesus who has to be helped to be born, to grow, to mature, but always Jesus.

There’s a legend that says there was a fourth King who didn’t arrive with the other three. He arrived years later in Jerusalem, and it was at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion. It seems he had stopped along the way to help those in need, sharing with them the precious gifts he had brought for Jesus. But now he is an old man arriving in Jerusalem. But Jesus from the Cross says to him: “In truth I say to you, all that you have done for the least of your brothers and sisters, you have done it for me”.

Today, with these three points I’ve mentioned, let’s renew our own decision in this new year to go deeper in our journey of faith. Let’s decide we are going to spend more time in adoration – silent moments of prayer, a visit to the church, a reading of the Gospel. And, thirdly, that we will share our gifts with Jesus in our neighbour. He is there in every neighbour waiting for us. And let’s ask Mary, the Mother of Jesus to help us.