Homily for The Epiphany of the Lord Sunday (Year ABC) January 4, 2026

In honor of the the universal Church celebrating the Epiphany on its traditional date of January 6, here’s my homily from the past Sunday (the US celebrates this feast day on the Sunday following the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God.)

The following transcript of the homily is in the original formatting that was used for the sake of live delivery with all cues, emphasis, and notes included.

Reading for The Epiphany of the Lord (ABC)

• 1st Reading: Isaiah 60:1-6
• 2nd Reading: Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6
• Gospel: Matthew 2:1-12

Transcript:

“Your light has come, the glory of the Lord shines upon you,” and we “have come to do him homage.” Words from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah and the Gospel According to Matthew.

In the Name of the Father + and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Allow me to take a wild guess, but I will hazard to say that the vast majority of us, if not all of us, are Gentiles – meaning non-Jewish folks.

In that case, allow me to say mozel tov!

For in terms of salvation history, today is OUR day.

The feast day of the Epiphany is OUR feast day as Gentiles.

We should throw a party.

We should be celebrating.

We should go do something crazy like, I don’t know, get up and start writing on the walls with chalk, or something. (Oh look, we just happen to have some in the back).

Yes, right above the entrance to our homes and rooms so that everyone will know that: Christus mansionem benedicat,

That Christ has blessed us from the tips our souls down to the very homes we reside in both in this new year and every year.

For, today is the day of our salvation.

Today is the dawn of our intimacy with God.

Epiphany marks the day when us Gentiles began the journey to being official grafted on to the saving branch of God’s people, Israel, alongside our Jewish brothers and sisters.

Epiphany marks the day when we began to be let in on all the light and the glory.

The light and the glory of Israel that we simply didn’t have access to beforehand.

Now let me explain what I mean.

By “the light and the glory” that first belonged to Israel I mean all that Sacred Scripture records concerning them from the moment the one true God chose Abraham and decided to make his descendants as numerous as the stars of the sky.

This light and glory included access to Sacred Scripture itself through the Old Testament, which no other people had until the New Testament came.

For Israel had the light and glory of:

• The public revelations and manifestations of God,
• The patriarchs,
• The prophets,
• The promises,
• The worship,
• The Temple,
• The Messiah to come,
• The knowledge of the LORD,
• The glory of the LORD.
• And, by heavens, they had the LORD HIMSELF!

But it was the LORD who made heaven and earth and all the people in it.

It was the LORD who made every person of every nation (Jew and Gentile) in His Image.

And it was all of humanity that was in danger of perishing.

And God desired that no one should parish but that all might turn to Him and live.

Scripture clearly indicates that though in the beginning He dealt primarily with the Israelites in the Old Covenant,

He still had all the nations of the world in His mind and in His ultimate plan for mankind,

Because “darkness covers the earth” in the form of “the clouds [that] cover the peoples.”

The darkness and the clouds are:

• The darkness of sin,
• The clouds of error,
• And the pitch-blackness of death.

The Israelites dealt with the same effects of this darkness that plagues the whole human race surely.

But the rest of us (or at least our ancestors) did not have what they had, which helped them see and walk through the darkness.

Israel had the LORD Himself, the one true God, who made all things including the human heart that longs for Him and for the light of His glory.

And if Gentiles had the LORD, then they would have shared in Israel’s light and glory.

They did not, and so the Gentiles stumbled in darkness,

Pining for true direction.

But the same God who took Israel by the hand,

Still had another hand to spare!

And, to borrow, from the prophet Isaiah: Those “who walked in darkness have seen a great light.”

And this “great light”?

A star arose in the sky on a winter night in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago.

And it led three magi – three wise men,

(whatever you want to call them – they were still Gentiles),

In the darkness.

The light of the star led them to stumble upon a Holy Family.

Then the star faded away,

And they were left with a Baby who Himself was Light itself.

And the gifts they brought might as well have stood in for the whole world beyond the sands of the Holy Land.

Because this is what they truly brought:

For the gold they brought gleamed with the shine of Asians and Caucasians.

The rising smoke from the frankincense would contain the uplifted hands of every African tribe and Indian clan.

And the myrrh had the pleasing aroma of the peoples of Indonesia and Samoa.

And so Epiphany celebrates when,

The three Gentiles from the East brought the nations from every direction.

For their first contact with Jesus meant the first contact of the nations with the God of Israel, the God who made them too.

And the God that they met then,

Has brought us through them,

To worship the God we know now.

So THIS is the salvation of the Gentile:

To know and love the LORD God of Israel!

And, in Christ, this means to be grafted on to saving branch of God’s people,

The redeemed true Temple of His glory,

The coming Kingdom of Heaven,

The mystical Body that now goes by the name of the Catholic Church.

And so this is the day of our salvation!

So “rise up in splendor, Jerusalem!  Your light has come [and] the glory of the Lord shines upon you.”

The light to the nations,

And the glory of His people Israel!

Alongside the three magi, we shall bring gifts to Jesus too,

And they are far more precious than gold, frankincense and myrrh.

We shall bring to the holy Child in the arms of His Jewish Mother,

The gifts of:

Our Gentile souls!

In the Name of the Father + of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Given at Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church in Hendersonville, TN.