Our Spiritual Journey!

Some of our journeys in life have no sense of direction or destination. This pastor began to preach the homily when suddenly two men came with machine guns one in front and one at the back of the church. The man in the front spoke up, “Those who want to take a bullet for Jesus remain in your seats.” Within seconds the people ran for their lives including the assistant priests. Only 20 or more people were left in the church. The man spoke again, “Ok Father! The hypocrites have all gone, please begin your homily.” If our spiritual journey is not planned we would not have any goals to achieve in life.

One of the parables for the religious educators narrated by Fr. Anthony De Mello is that of a sheep found a hole in the fence and crept through it and wandered far off and lost his way back. Then he realized that he was being followed by a wolf. He ran and ran, but the wolf kept chasing him, until the shepherd came and rescued him and brought him back to the fold. In spite of everyone’s urgings to the contrary, the shepherd refused to nail up the hole in the fence. God respects us and gives us freedom to choose. Life is full of choices. God’s love is the freedom we enjoy in choosing.

Magi Caspar from Tarsus, Melchior from Arabia and Balthazar from Sheba were to come together as a unit, a community. This unity from different backgrounds sometimes opposing backgrounds were not work of people. The 12 disciples of Jesus and their differences so unique but in the presence of Jesus could work together. Husbands and wives coming from different family backgrounds, mindsets, and other numerous differences were joined in marriage by God. Begins the journey of life: to search for meaning, to search for happiness, to search for inner peace and love.

We all need a Star to guide us on our way. It could be the power of the Bible, Marian devotion, Daily Eucharist, Power of the sacraments or just a simple personal prayer, but we all need some form of spirituality for our day-to-day sustenance. Most of our wandering and losing ways could be avoided through this.

We all will experience a TIME WITH HEROD. Most lives confusion starts there. All the violation of the commandments, all the power and glory of the nature of God’s love will be blurry or even diminished and forgotten. Temptations rule us. Power of sin takes possession of us. We decide whatever we see and hear are facts and truth. We don’t ask God to guide us to the truth. Our hasty decisions were about to bury us alive! But God still guides us through all those confusions.

After numerous attempts, struggles, trials and temptations, we find God. We realize the importance of giving in the presence of God. Myrrh is a symbol of human vulnerability. It is symbolic of the humanity of Jesus. Like us, he experienced joy, sorrow, fear, frustration, loneliness. The gift of incense is symbolic of the divinity of Jesus. Gold is an ideal gift for a King. The ideal king led by love. Epiphany is after all realizing that we should have something to give to God. It is not just the epiphany of God, rather our own epiphanies.

The more we bring the best in us to the benefit of the other and God, the more we are blessed with the wisdom and love of God. Wise men were guided by the Wisdom of God. Wise men would have spoilt the whole salvation history. They would have killed Jesus. After all the wisdom of man is never enough when it comes to loving other and loving God.

Where am I going? What am I searching for in life? What are my Herod-times? Do I feel the need to model my own Epiphany with that of Jesus? How wise am I? Do I value God’s wisdom as an anchor in my spirituality and way of life?