Epiphany and the Simple Movement of Love

While there are many wonderful means of holiness in the Church and many proven aids that may be employed, a wholly simple movement of love accesses these saving mysteries. What starts with a gentle opening of the eyes of our hearts remains the great task of the Christian life until our final breath. When the eyes of our heart are open, we finally begin to see things as they are and we become capable of responding to them as we should. It is a kind of search, vigilance, decision to look for something hidden from every other gaze but the gaze of love. Such a gaze believes that the world in all its poverty and suffering is still the place where God has chosen to manifest his goodness to humanity. So rather than fear or anxiety or resentment, this gaze sees with trust and confidence. In fact, without this wholly simple movement of faith, all other aids and means of the spiritual life avail the soul very little. Yet, under this very gaze, all the sacraments and spiritual wisdom of the Church are bringing to completion all the wonders that God is doing in the heart and in the world.

To open the eyes of the heart describes a contemplative moment. To contemplate, to behold, to see, to be vigilant is more than a physiological act. Indeed, many of those who see with bodily eyes remain in the dark about what is really going on in their lives and in the world around them. But the heart has its eyes. Those who open them truly understand what is at stake. They are able to take risks that others cannot because they know the risk is worth it. Above all, they are willing to risk love because they see the meaning and life that it holds in store. This is a gaze of love and this gaze alone is capable of seeing what is good. The heart is able to gaze with this love even when its bodily eyes have completely failed. Antoine de Saint Exubery writes that "one sees rightly only with the heart."

Epiphany is the feast where all that is good and meaningful is suddenly manifest to humanity. The Adoration of the Magi, the baptism in the River Jordan, and the Wedding Feast at Cana are all events in which heavenly realities show themselves in the unlikely poverty of the world. The King of Kings shows forth among animals in a cave. The Eternal Son of the Father is revealed in a bath of muddy water. The saving joy of the Bridegroom of Israel is manifest in the embarrassing humiliation of a failed wedding feast, Many who were there and saw these things with earthly eyes missed the great epiphany taking place before them. But those who open the eyes of their hearts, who by faith choose to see with a wholly loving and simply movement, no matter their distance in time of geography suddenly find themselves taken up in heavenly things even in the midst of the painful day-to-day difficulties of their lives. These are the souls who adore, who cry out, who participate in the very secret of what God is doing in the world.