(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: https://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Mass-Blog-for-the-Epiphany-2026.mp3)
Here’s an Epiphany: Herod the Great’s temple renovation project was irrelevant. Herod hoped the temple he was renovating would make him the focus of worship among the Jewish people. The arrival of the magi made him realize a new temple was about to rise and overshadow the one he turned into a vanity project. The new temple would offer ALL people a new way to worship.
Matthew’s account tells us that once the magi found and worshipped the newborn King they were seeking, they returned home, avoiding the corrupted form of worship Herod represented. They “departed for their country by another way,” our gospel reading for this Sunday concludes. (Matthew 2:1-12)
That “other way” represents a place to worship God that’s open to all souls seeking His peace. Christ’s dying and rising would put all of humanity on the road to the site of a new renovation project. Their own. We are to become tabernacles of worship housing God’s Holy Spirit, and our lives are to be the gifts we bring, just as the magi did.
The magi were the first Gentiles to worship Jesus, but they wouldn’t be the last. We modern-day magi may follow Herod the Great’s lead by seeking greatness, but that’s where we part ways from him, as the original magi did. Rather than grasping for a greatness built of earth’s finite raw materials, the perfection we achieve must make our temple worthy to become a permanent spiritual retreat where we can find God’s peace. As Paul tells us, such an oasis is both an inheritance and a responsibility.
“The Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body, and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” {Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6)
Building God’s temple using the Scriptures’ raw materials and the gifts we bring to it is a renovation project imagined long before Christ’s birth. This Sunday we are called to live Isaiah’s vision of a place as real to us now as it was to him then:
“Nations shall walk by your light, and kings by your shining radiance. Raise your eyes and look about; they all gather and come to you.” (Isaiah 60:1-6}
How do we get there? Follow the Star.
–Tom Andel
The star does not coerce; it simply shines, inviting the magi and us. It meets the magi where they are, in the dark, and gives them just enough light to take the next step. That is often how God’s peace comes to us—not as a grand solution, but as a quiet invitation to keep moving toward Him.
To follow the star today is to trust that God is already guiding our steps, even when the road feels uncertain. His peace grows as we walk, not because everything is resolved, but because we are no longer walking alone. Each small act of faith—listening, forgiving, loving—lets that light pass through us to others.
When we follow the star, we discover that God’s peace is not only something we receive. It becomes something we carry, illuminating the way for those still searching in the night.
Beautifully said, George. I guess when it comes to God’s light, we are both prisms that help others appreciate God’s many colors and reflectors that God uses to fill shadows, soften harshness and add warmth to this world.
Following the star offers real insight and exposes the reality of our life’s objective.
The Magi came seeking something tangible, yet mysterious. We on the other hand know the rest of the story and are clearly given the direction and objective of our life.
Following Christ is the singular and essential force behind our mission as his followers. Why else would He have created us?
Follow the star!
Thomas, it seems the challenge with following the star on an annual basis rather than a lifelong one is that our faith becomes like the Winter: seasonal and cold. After December 25th many of us can’t wait to put our Christmas trees out on the tree lawn for recycling or disposal. THEN, right before next Thanksgiving, we can’t wait to find a new tree. If only we could maintain our faith to be like a living Christmas tree: Ever green.
The story of the Magi can show us the way in which God can meet us where we are while also leading us to where he wants to go. It is fitting that God would provide the Magi with a star to follow even though this practice would have been offensive to God since it really was a form of astrology that they were specializing in.
It is plausible that the star that the Magi followed that night may have been the last star that they ever contemplated because no star in the sky would ever compare to the infant Jesus lying in the manger (Acts 1:11). Now the Magi are out of a job and in search of a new place to live. However, they can move forward because they now have something that maybe they didn’t have before…peace, real joy and hope.
By which they could guide others to their find!