In his praise for the mist at the epiphany ceremony, Pope Francis says, “We must learn even better how to meditate on the Lord,” from the example of the Magi.
By Christopher Wells
“In our time, it is especially necessary for us, as individuals and communities, to devote more time to worship,” Pope Francis said during the Mass on Epiphany. “We must still better learn how to think of the Lord,” following the example of the Wise Men, the Magicians, who came to Bethlehem to worship the Baby Jesus. “Like them,” said the pope, “we want to fall down and worship the Lord.”
Pope Francis paid attention to the liturgical readings for the day and focused on three phrases’ that can help us better understand what it means to be worshipers of the Lord: ‘to raise our eyes’, to on a journey, ‘and’ to see. ‘”
To raise our eyes
The first expression was taken from the prophet Isaiah, who urged the people of Israel, after returning from exile, to “look up” and look around, despite their problems.
This prophetic call to ‘look around’ does not mean that you ignore problems and troubles, much less deny reality. On the contrary, “it is to look at problems and worries in a new way, knowing that God is aware of our problems, attentive to our prayers and not indifferent to the tears we shed.”
It is an invitation to continually trust in God, which in turn leads to ‘subsidiary gratitude’, the pope said. “When we look up to God, our problems do not go away, but we feel confident that the Lord is giving us the strength to deal with them.” Delightful gratitude and joy based on trust in God “awakens in us a desire to worship the Lord.”
To travel
Pope Francis noted that before the Magi could worship Jesus in Bethlehem, they had to make a long journey. “A journey,” he said, “always involves a change.” For us, too, our life journey involves many changes, even mistakes and failures that can become learning experiences. “Over time,” the pope said, “life’s trials and tribulations, faith experience, help us to purify our hearts, and make them more humble and therefore more open to God.”
Instead of becoming discouraged by the problems we are experiencing in life, he continued, ‘we must give them opportunities to progress to the Lord Jesus … By focusing our gaze on the Lord, we will have the strength find to endure with new joy. ‘
To see
This leads to the third phrase: “to see.” When the magicians arrived in Bethlehem and found Jesus with his mother Mary, “they fell down and worshiped him.”
Pope Francis emphasized how remarkable it was: “Worship was a tribute to sovereign and high dignitaries.” But although the Magi knew that Jesus was the King of the Jews, they only saw ‘a poor child and his mother’. “They could ‘look further,'” the pope said.
To worship the Lord, Pope Francis explained, we must also “see” beyond the veil of visible things, which is “deceptive.” In the Gospel, Herod and the inhabitants of Jerusalem represent “a worldly man who is addicted to appearances and immediate sights,” and therefore cannot recognize Jesus for who He really is.
“Theological realism”
However, the Magicians look at things differently, with an approach that the pope describes as’ theological realism ‘:’ a way of perceiving the objective reality of things … a way of ‘seeing’ that which is beyond the visible go and make it possible to worship the Lord who is often hidden in everyday situations, in the poor and in the outside … a way to see things that are not impressed by sound and anger, but in every situation the looking for things that really matter. ‘
Pope Francis concluded his praise with the prayer that the Lord ‘may make us true worshipers and be able to show his loving plan for all mankind through our lives’.