Every Sunday, Bishop Edward Malesic writes a Scripture reflection for the faithful. Follow the bishop on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Click HERE for the readings.
Happy New Year, everyone! As we begin this new year, let us allow God to make it a year filled with grace—and let us allow God to surprise us. Because God often does surprise us.
When the Magi from the East set out in search of the newborn king, I doubt they imagined what they would actually find. They were looking for someone powerful, someone important. Surely, they expected a palace, or at least the great city of Jerusalem. Instead, they were led to an insignificant town on the outskirts, to a child born not into wealth or influence, but into poverty.
Jesus, the Son of God, was born to Mary, a humble handmaid of the Lord, and to Joseph, an ordinary carpenter. He was laid in a manger—a feeding trough for animals—and surrounded not by courtiers or soldiers, but by shepherds and simple folk. This was not a scene of kingly power. And yet, this is how God chose to unite divinity with our humanity. God humbled himself. God entered our world quietly, simply, unexpectedly as one of us. Surprise!
Thank goodness the Magi were persistent. It would have been easy for them to give up or to lose their way, but they stayed the course. They followed the star wherever it led—even to a place that seemed unlikely—and that is where they found the Christ.
They offered him gifts we have long understood symbolically: gold, acknowledging his kingship; incense, honoring his divinity; and myrrh, foreshadowing his suffering and death for us.
In a very real sense, every human being is on a search for God—even if we don’t realize it. Anyone who longs for a better life, who seeks beauty, who searches for meaning and truth, is ultimately searching for the source of all goodness, beauty, and truth: God
So let us seek the Lord while he may be found. Let us look for him in surprising places. He is close to the poor. He speaks to us through Sacred Scripture. He reveals himself in the quiet spaces of our hearts. And he is uniquely present to us—Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity—in the Eucharist. God continues to surprise us by meeting us in unlikely places: among those who suffer, in the words of a holy book, in moments of silence, and under the simple signs of bread and wine.
And when he reveals himself to us—when we have our own epiphany moment—then we are called to respond as the Magi did: by offering him our very best.
Have a blessed week, everyone.