The following is a transcript of Bishop Caggiano’s Sunday homily, given January 5 at St. Augustine
My dear sisters and brothers in the Lord,
We gather here on this most solemn day to reflect on the mystery of the epiphany, the revelation of who this child born in Bethlehem is for you, for me, and for the nations. So today, we reveal, we reflect, we wonder the mystery that this child came for all God’s children. The three wise men, Caspar, Balthazar, Melchior, they represent those peoples, my friends, who were not given the privilege of the covenant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They thought they were excluded from the mercy of God. And today, they represent the fact that this child has come for all God’s children.
And yet the epiphany is more than one event. The epiphany was all of the Lord’s ministry as we gradually come to understand who this child really is. And so next week, we will hear that He was the one baptized by John, not because He sinned, but to bless the waters of this world because He came to free us from our sin. And at the wedding feast of Cana, again, an epiphany, He came not simply to change water into wine, but that wine may be changed into His body, blood, soul, and divinity because He invites us to freedom from death in a place in a banquet that will never end.
You see, my friends, in faith, we look upon the face of the child of Bethlehem, and we see the Lord of all nations, the Lord who forgives all sins, the Lord who will give us eternal life.
We open the Holy Year, this Jubilee of Hope on this day because my friends, Pope Francis is inviting you and me to be the instruments of a new epiphany in our modern world, to bring the revelation of who Christ is to every waiting, broken heart. For that is our hope. And so I ask you to ponder, my friends, in these months to come, how can you and I shed light on those who are searching for meaning, for forgiveness, for purpose, for food, for drink, for shelter, for friendship, for hope? Where can you and I be the means of Christ’s epiphany?
There are many ways. Perhaps you and I need ponder just one. For if each of us in this church chose one means with Christ’s grace to bring His light to those who are searching for it, we can change the world. And so, my friends, who is it in your life and mine whom we have excluded, who believes they are outside of the mercy?
Their life is too messed up. Their life is too far afield, their life is lost. Who is it to whom we can go and be the bridge of understanding patience, mercy, and forgiveness, to be like the magi? Who is it that you and I can reach out in these days ahead and be the vessel of Christ’s mercy and forgiveness, who have offended us, and we will now forgive. Who wonder whether or not their sins could ever be forgiven and gently remind them that they can have that forgiveness only for the asking to be an epiphany of light in the chains, the slavery of sin. And who in our city, in our community, and in our lives is looking for someone to give them tangible hope, not just talk about hope?
Because my friends, oftentimes talk is easy it’s sometimes even cheap. But to talk about real freedom, freedom for someone who’s searching for work so that he or she may have food on the table. To reach out to those who today, tomorrow, next week, next month will be alone and always alone. To have a phone call ring or a doorbell ring and to spend time with those and bring them, that they are riced into a heart that may be tempted to give up. Or to simply in a world that is so divided, to be able to resurrect the great virtue of respect and to listen to one another, even when we don’t agree with each other. For that is where the light of Christ, the epiphany, epiphanos, comes forward in the world.
You see, my friends, we have begun the Jubilee of Hope, and Pope Francis is asking us to be ambassadors of hope, or if I may put it this way, to be like the Magi, to offer our gifts to Christ and offer them to our sisters and brothers so that they may see what we see and believe in whom we believe. The three Magi gave to this child gold, frankencense, and myr, to reveal light of Christ to the world. As we begin the Jubilee, what gift will you and I give to Him to show his light to the world?
