The Epiphany!

Happy Epiphany! Throughout most of the world, today is the great Feast of the Epiphany. Most of my American readers, however, will have to wait until tomorrow. For reasons I can’t quite fathom, in the dioceses of the United States this feast has been moved to the Sunday between January 2 and January 8. Why you would want to move one of the holiest days of the year is something I have never been able to understand.

We don’t move Christmas to the nearest Sunday, after all! And the Epiphany has been celebrated on January 6 for just as long. It’s the reason we sing about the twelve days of Christmas. In the United States, I reckon this is the thirteenth day of Christmas. We’ll just have to add (or subtract!) verses to the song depending on where the day falls. Thirteen ukuleles strumming?

Of course, if you catch Mass at tonight’s vigil, you can have the best of both worlds, and celebrate the Epiphany on the Epiphany.

In a sense, the Feast of the Epiphany is the culmination (if not quite the end) of the Christmas Season. This was traditionally a time of feasting and festivity (all of which seem to include various varieties of enormous pastries) marking the end of Christmastide and the beginning of Epiphanytide.

These days, of course, the calendar has been moved around a bit and the Christmas Season doesn’t end until the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which this year is on Monday, but which can be as late at the 13th.

Sadly, Epiphanytide itself no longer exists. It was originally the Octave of the Epiphany, running to 13 January. After various changes over the last century, this vanished as an official (sub)season, but in the years where it occurs, that last bit of Christmas between the Epiphany and the Baptism of the Lord certainly has a different character than the previous twelve-ish days even still. I see no reason that one couldn’t refer to the time between the Epiphany and the Baptism of the Lord as Epiphanytide. At least unofficially.

Again, this particular year it would only be a single day, but that’s not normal. The goofiness regarding the ever-moving Christmastime feast days is one of the more unsatisfactory elements of the current calendar, and I sincerely hope this gets fixed in my lifetime. Mind you, there’s no reason to not have the pastries anyway.

In the popular imagination, the Feast of the Epiphany is all about the Magi from the East who traveled to worship the Christ child and gift him gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

But that’s not the whole story, for the Epiphany actually celebrates three separate events, only one of which is Magi with their three gifts.

In the Monastic Diurnal, Epiphany morning’s Benedictus antiphon speaks of all three:

Each of these events is an epiphany:

In the River Jordan, Christ is revealed as the Son of God.

In the story of the pilgrim Magi, Christ is revealed as the Light to the Gentiles.

In the wedding feast at Cana, Christ is revealed as a Worker of Miracles.

Notice first the thread throughout of the wedding of Christ the bridegroom with the Church, His spouse.

Then take a look at these three epiphanies. It’s as if Christ is teaching us who He is a step at a time; as our understanding deepens, a new revelation is granted us.

And really, if you look at Salvation history, this is exactly how God operates, bringing along His people step by step into a deeper understanding and an ever more moral and spiritual state.

God teaches us as a Father should, by bringing us along bit by bit. You need to know your letters before you can learn to read. You need to know how to read before you can learn to write a novel. Step by step. Epiphany by epiphany.

A very blessed Feast of Epiphany to all of you, whenever you celebrate it!