Rite and Reason: Archbishop Michael Courtney had been preparing a sermon before he was assassinated in Burundi at the end of 2003
Nenagh-born Archbishop Michael Courtney, whose life was remembered at a concelebrated Mass in Loughrea this weekend, was the papal nuncio to Burundi. This is the sermon he had prepared before his death for the Epiphany Mass in Burundi's capital Bujumbura on January 6th, 2004.
The word "Epiphany" means manifestation. God manifests himself to mankind. The world recognises his presence among us, the presence of the messenger of God, who had been awaited for centuries by the whole of humanity.
On the feast of Christmas, on this day of the Epiphany, there is a two-way movement - a two-way current:
God comes to us;
We go to Him.
The two worlds, the world of mankind and the world of God, meet. Earth and heaven unite.
First, it has to be emphasised that it is God who came to us. It is He, who took the initiative of coming to us. It was God, who wished, in the person of Jesus, to take part in our lot, to share in our hopes, our joys and our suffering.
Who were the first representatives of humanity who went to meet the infant-Lord: it was the shepherds, who went, with joy and astonishment, following the revelation of the angels, to welcome the newborn. On account of this revelation, they understood that something extraordinary was happening.
After the shepherds, it was the wise men of the East: the kings, who came from far to prostrate themselves before the infant Jesus: they were the representatives of all the nations of the earth.
There are two important aspects to this celebration, which should be emphasised:
firstly, the wise men made a voyage;
secondly, they were guided by a star.
The tangible details of the story are the journey and the star. They are also symbols of profound significance.
In effect, their symbolic value is of more importance than their historic detail.
This is what the celebration of the Epiphany teaches us: that to arrive at the truth, at the true sense of life, two things are essential:
a human initiative, and
a divine initiative.
Let me explain myself further. The journey is the human initiative. If you do not seek, you will never find! There are not only physical journeys. There are also psychical, or spiritual journeys.
It is the latter journeys that are the most profound! If you go from Bujumbura to Nairobi, from Bujumbura to Paris, of course you make a journey. But, without budging an inch, you can make an inner journey. This is the most profound journey you can make:
to move from a position of confusion towards the light;
to move from an indifferent belief to a sincere faith, or a faith of conviction;
to move from a life, led according to egoistic values of the world, to one committed to the values of the Gospel.
This is truly a profound journey!
The most significant characteristic of the journey of the wise men, was not the exhaustion of coming all the way from the East to Bethlehem; it was the spontaneous journey they made; the journey within, in their soul and in their heart, a journey in search of the truth and the blessing of God.
To arrive at the truth, to recognise God, to enter into communion with Him, one needs not only human initiative, which includes an outer and an inner journey, but also a divine initiative, symbolised in this Gospel, in this story, by the presence of a star.
The star is a manifestation of an extraordinary phenomenon, a divine initiative. It was God himself, who guided the wise men, representatives of all the nations of the earth, to discover Jesus, to meet with the saviour of mankind.
So, in as much as we seek, we shall be guided:
the first prerequisite is to get ourselves started on the journey of exploration
the second prerequisite is the star, the divine providence, which invites us, which guides us.
Faith is at the same time a human and a divine initiative. All the learned men of Jerusalem, whom King Herod called together, could never have arrived at the conclusion, which God, the creator, the Lord of history, arrived at, by coming with all the nobility and humility of the infant of Bethlehem.
This is the wonder we partake in; this is the mystery we celebrate. This is the beauty of our faith.
The Epiphany of the Lord is also an invitation to us to further this "epiphany" in the contemporary world, that is to say, to reveal the glory, the love and the truth of God in our society by our courageous and faithful testimony.
Archbishop Courtney's sermon, written in French, was translated by his sister Mary Spreng-Courtney