Recently we celebrated the feast of the Epiphany. While sourcing through some homily notes I read something by Fr Flor McCarthy SDB. A key aspect of the Epiphany was the gifts the Magi were bringing to the Christ child.
Fr McCarthy says that we all come (in any situation) learning gifts – gifts wrapped up inside ourselves. I share his story because he makes some very good points about our treasures.
‘One of Aesop’s fables goes like this. A child was sitting by a wall when suddenly a toad emerged from a hole. The child quickly spread out her silk scarf in front of the toad, the kind which toads love to walk on. As soon as the toad saw the scarf, it went back into the hole and soon returned carrying a little gold crown which it laid on the scarf, and went back into the hole again.
The girl immediately picked up the crown and put it into her pocket. Before long the toad came out again, but when it did not see the crown on the scarf, it crept to the wall and from sorrow beat its little head against the wall until it finally collapsed and died. Had the girl let the crown lie where it was, the toad would surely have brought out more of its treasures from the cave.
The purpose of this little story is to show that everybody has a treasure to share. The question is: how to get them to share that treasure. A lot of patience is called for. The secret lies in getting them to share it voluntarily. There’s no point forcing people to make sacrifices. If you take things from people, they are impoverished; but if you can get them to give them up, they are enriched. People are essentially good, but this goodness has to be awakened and called forth, if they are to enter the kingdom of love.
Here, Christmas comes to our aid. If God’s Son had come in wealth, he would have made us aware of our own poverty. Thus he would have evoked a feeling of envy in us, and done serious damage to our hearts. But he came in weakness, thereby making us aware of our own riches. His poverty evolved in us a feeling of compassion, thereby bringing our hearts to life. To look at the poverty of the infant King of the Universe causes us to open our hearts.
It was the poverty of Jesus that caused the magi to open their treasures of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and lay them before him. And instead of being impoverished, the Magi were enriched. It is through giving that we are enriched, because through giving we discover our own riches.
The lovely feast of the Epiphany challenges us to open our hearts. To open one’s heart is to begin to live. Jesus no longer needs our gifts. Bu other people may. He wants us to share ourselves with one another. And we too will find ourselves enriched, if as a result of knowing Jesus, we are able to open the treasures of our hearts and share them with others.
Fr Michael Morley
Parish Priest
1st February 2019
