To be "magi"

Solemnity of the Epiphany
Gospel: Matthew 2: 1-12

In this solemn feast of the Epiphany, or the manifestation, we recognize that all paths lead to Jesus as King, Lord, Messiah, and the God of our lives. And it takes one to be a "magus" to be able to recognize the King.

Are we still interested in becoming magi, wise in every way and able to detect the Lord? With the presence of concepts, ideologies, and instruments, like mass media, science, and globalization, all these seem to dampen our sensibilities to recognize the "divine" and render Him irrelevant in our lives.

To be magus, one has to turn one's orientation totally to the Lord, to see His world, not ours, and to respond to live out His will. This will need a discerning heart, lest we fall into the darkness of being lost along the way.

What is needed is a pilgrimage of faith, to constantly on a lookout for that star on where it would lie. In a pilgrimage, everything of ourselves is required.

And finally, we should trust the "star" that leads to Christ. That star is everything we hope for in this world till the next. For the Church, it is the vision of a renewed humanism as Pope Benedict puts it in his message last year regarding Epiphany. As the light is the main cause to recognize the poor child in the manger is the Son of God, we trust it to lead us to recognize the Lord in our pilgrimage of faith toward salvation.