Manifestations of Glory
The Christian Faith Beholds What God has Revealed
So much talk about blessings and the sacred this Christmas Season has directed attention to the Christian mystery as a manifestation of glory. It is a mysterious manifestation - glory is revealed only by the obedience of faith. Obedience involves a listening silence, a shared penetration of hearts, union of wills. No amount of calculation or clever argument can grasp it. The humble, the hungry, the poor and the sorrowing seem most inclined to this obedience, while those who exalt in themselves and are self-satisfied remain confounded. Woe to those who play games with the sacred and wink at evil - for the Greatness of God passes them by and they remain blind before the Beauty that made them.
The glory of God shines for the life of all of humanity because it reveals what is truly holy and no evil can hold it back. At the height, depth, beginning and end of all life, time and being is what is Sacred. The architecture of temples and ancient churches were built around this truth, vestiges of which survive in every culture if we look hard enough. Civilization rise and fall to the extent that the sacred is known and honored. Without the sacred, a society quickly passes from historical memory. But how do we know that what we hold as sacred is actually so?
Without the right reference point, life goes out of control and we lose a sense of who and why we are at all. Holiness is this reference point - until we become holy, we have not yet fully lived. If the sacred, in its eternal now, holds everything that is into being - even the heartbeat and breath that passes as you read these words - whether or not we actually possess it is a vital personal and social question. Without the sacred, everything falls into chaos. This is because only holiness makes sense of the world and holds it together. Someone who allows their existence to be stamped by the sacred participates in this life-giving coherence. The saint alone offers meaning in the chaos of life - and to help someone have a meaningful life is the greatest good one can offer another.
At the same time, notwithstanding many noble religious traditions throughout history, human efforts to grasp it are fragmented, very difficult, and often mixed with dangerous errors. Under these conditions, truly possessing the sacred is out of reach for ordinary men and women, especially those who circumstances most need access to what is holy: the poor and vulnerable, the sick and the dying. So contemporary culture is littered with sacrilegious pseudo-blessings, idolatrous religious substitutes and superstitious entrapments. So much of this spiritual innovation unveils hubris, anxiety and even despair before the holiness we are meant to know.
Epiphany reveals that holiness is not an achievement but a gift. It comes in the nature of a surprise - because it surpasses all religious industry and spiritual accomplishment. Humbly sought, it is freely given. This is why epiphany is a necessary moment in the Christian life - one as close as a movement of heart, a decision of the will, a determine perseverance in truth. What is only partly possible with great difficulty and error for unaided human reason is freely given to those who dare to believe and with repentant hearts, yearn to adore.
The truly Sacred has chosen to reveal Himself to those whom He has come to save. This manifestation is concrete and historical, in real places and in real time, and because of this particularity, also universal, in every place and every time. Whoever obediently believes in the Word of the Father knows this hidden glory whose manifestation in history continues in the Church through mystery - sign and sacrament, praise and silence, sacrifice and feast.
The manifestation was
through the obedience of shepherds to choirs of angels - that is, when humble vigilant protectors obeyed by faith heavenly powers, they discovered this glory in the poverty of an animal’s manger;
Through the obedience of the Baptist and the penitent at the Jordan to the Word of the Lord - that is when sinners obediently repented a prophet’s word, they discovered glory in the waters where Israel’s horses and chariots of fire arise before the Presence of God; and
Through the obedience of wisemen from the East to a star and the obedience of servants of the wedding feast in Cana - that is when magi were obedient to the signs of heaven and when obedient servants consoled sorrowful guests with inebriating joy, they contemplated in the shadow of the Messiah’s family a salvation that surpassed every hope.
What did they see?
They contemplated what the Eucharist reveals: silently guarded by the House of David, tenderly held by the Virgin of the Sign, magi, shepherds, angels, wedding guests, penitents, and prophets still behold God’s Son wrapped in swaddling clothes as if a lamb without blemish; the Bread of Life in a manger as if a banquet in the presence of His enemies; the Spirit anointed Son as if another Elijah and Moses through whom God speaks, the mysterious winemaker as if a New Adam recognizing the flesh of His Flesh and bone of His Bone. So each comes to adore this Savior, this hidden High King, and each finds in this Living Bread and mystic Wine a new crossing of the Jordan, the wedding feast of the Lamb, a surprising mystery of Divine paternity and Human maternity, the redemption of humanity and the recapitulation of the Cosmos, freedom from sin and life in the Holy Spirit.