Today we celebrate the Epiphany. The popular carol “We Three Kings” echoes in our heads and exotic images of the East swirl around us. It’s easy to distance ourselves from the story of the Epiphany, to see it as a movie set or a grand opera. But our tradition and our Scriptures remind us that we, too, have a part to play in the great story of salvation.
Our roles might not be center stage, but we each have unique gifts to offer the world. We are called, first and foremost, to bring those gifts to the newborn King, the Messiah, the Christ Child, the Lord of all who was born in a humble stable in Bethlehem. If we take away the costumes and the drama and the decorations of this feast, we see the story at its finest: the gifts we offer to God are transformed into something far greater than anything we could ever imagine: the gift of eternal life in communion with the divine.
— from the book Advent with St. Francis: Daily Reflections by Diane M. Houdek
