Dear St. Theresa family, 

Even though we have taken down the tree, packed away the stockings and put thoughts of Christmas behind us, Epiphany is still here, and the nativity scene continues to reside in the sanctuary as a reminder. Epiphany being the revelation of who Jesus is will continue for some weeks. So, forgive me if this letter seems to find me stuck in the holidays! 

I believe it was Henry David Thoreau who claimed that for every virtuous person there were nine-hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue. In a similar way it may be said that for every person who is truly wise there are at least nine-hundred and ninety-nine who are merely clever. Since we have traditionally referred to the Magi as “wise men,” and as the difference between wisdom and cleverness is crucial, let’s see if we can find it by asking the question: “What made the Magi Wise men?” Surely they were educated, but it is just as certain that education alone cannot make a person wise. 

Often it’s all too obvious that the wisdom of those who are not educated is matched only by the folly of those who are.  In fact, in the rarefied reaches of today’s scholarship, wisdom is often lost in knowledge, as knowledge is lost in information.  T.S. Elliot wrote:

That’s the business of the wise; to rediscover that which has been lost and found and lost again and again: the meaning and deep purposes of life. These are not automatically uncovered or even sought for in today’s education, which is so often for a living, not for life. In school you can find out everything about the world, except “Why?” Why is a religious question, whether or not you give it a religious answer.  A wise person, then, is always looking for the meaning and deep purposes of life and knows that meaning is apprehended on a far deeper level than it is comprehended. That there are truths in the presence of which the mind can play an all-important legislative role, but not a creative role. 

A wise person knows that there are truths the mind can grasp, but there are others, more important ones, before which human beings can only bow down. Those wise men did not come to study the child, they came to worship. So let us say that they were wise because they recognized the importance of a religious question and were willing to go a long way to find the answer. Of course, they weren’t the only ones looking for the child. 

King Herod, too, was interested, if for very different reasons. He wanted to kill, not worship. Herod was certainly clever, but nobody had ever accused him of being wise. So perhaps we can go on to say that as opposed to cleverness, wisdom is always rooted in compassion. Someone once asked Gandhi, “What do you think of Western civilization?” He answered, “I think it would be a good idea.” His answer suggests that civilization is nothing more than a long process of learning to be kind. Someone once said that “The highest expression of civilization is not its technological or artistic achievement but the supreme tenderness that people are strong enough to feel and show to one another.” 

It’s interesting to note that according to this idea only the strong can be truly tender. If our civilization is breaking down, as it appears to be, it is not because we lack the brain power to meet its demands but because our feelings are being dulled. What our society needs is a massive and pervasive experience in re-sensitization. Rooted in compassion, wisdom always respects the importance and fragility of individual life, and cares for all individuals, in the manner of Christ, as if all were one.

According to tradition, the wise men came from different countries, and they came, of course to worship him who was to be the light to all the nations. A wise person, then, knows that the most significant thing you can say about human difference is that they are not that significant. What is significant, and needs desperately to be made manifest, is the oneness of humanity.                                                                           

Epiphany is our celebration of the light of Christ as it reaches its brightest point. But the light we remember and celebrate was no blazing sun. It was more like a laser-like pinpoint piercing the darkness. A wise person accepts the challenge of the darkness and develops an ability to see at night. 

It is safe to say that not much of significance is clearer in our world than it was in the world of the wise men. Good and evil continue their incestuous relationship. As always, nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer, and nothing more difficult than to understand him. It is of course emotionally satisfying to be righteous with that righteousness that nourishes itself in the blood of sinners. 

But God also knows that what is emotionally satisfying can also be spiritually devastating. And it is spiritually devastating to claim more light is shed by God upon the human situation, to project a brief, narrow vision of life as eternal truth. 

Life doesn’t sit around to have its portrait painted, and besides, who could ever catch its shimmering depths? The wise men do not pretend to know it all. They know that you don’t have to think alike to love alike. The message they read from the star is that only love makes sense, and not much else makes any difference. So, somewhere on the list of your New Year’s resolutions, resolve to be a new crop of wise men and women who will go to great lengths to find life’s meaning and deep purposes; who will never forget that wisdom is rooted in compassion; and who, instead of cursing the night, will develop an ability to see in the dark, in order to follow that God-given light that no darkness can overcome. 

Prayers for a hopeful New Year, 

Fr. Larry