Abbot Paul's Homily for Epiphany

"Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh."

Anyone who has sung Epiphany carols, such as "We three kings", knows perfectly well what the three gifts symbolise, or rather who it is they reveal. The Child in the manger, though a king, is no ordinary king, like Herod, or even an emperor, like Caesar Augustus. To quote the First Letter to Timothy, he is "the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of Lords, who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honour and eternal dominion. Amen."

He is a god, though no ordinary god, like the gods of the Greeks and Romans, the gods of the pagan nations. He is the Lord Jesus Christ, the anointed One, the only-begotten Son of the Father, the Kyrios, the Saviour. The Prologue to St John's Gospel puts it succinctly and eloquently: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being."

Like all mortals, all creatures born on earth, this Child is doomed to die and yet his death would be no ordinary death. Again to quote St John, "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." It is the Crucified One who breathes on his disciples, saying, "Receive the Holy Spirit." The death of Jesus will be a redemptive death. He can say to the dying thief, asking to be remembered in his kingdom, "Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise." More than this, his death and resurrection complete, as it were, the Mystery of the Incarnation with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. This Child is truly "the Light of the World", "the Bread of life", the "Resurrection and the Life", "God from God and Light from Light".

Now in the Mystery of Salvation, we the disciples, the friends of Jesus, are not merely passive recipients. To be sure, everything is God's gift, but we, too, have our part to play, if you like, our way of saying thank you. Like Adam who, at the dawn of creation, walked with God in the garden naming the plants and the animals, and who, even after the fall, was told to "go forth and multiply" and to subdue the earth and all it contains, in Christ and through the Spirit, we cooperate fully with the Father in the salvation of the world. That work, the true "opus Dei", has to begin with ourselves, with our own lives.

Let me explain this further. On an ordinary Sunday, when I'm either the cantor or a concelebrant, the moment that strikes me more and more is when the thurifer incenses the abbot. I turn to face which ever brother it is and he hallows me with incense, just as the altar, the Gospel, the gifts of bread and wine, the celebrant, the monks and the congregation are hallowed. It is the recognition of God's presence, that he is truly Emmanuel, the God who is with us and in us. Only between me and the smoke of the incense there is a crucifix. I see the incense through the crucifix and the smoke passes through Christ crucified on its way to me, and that, if you'll forgive the pun, is the crux of the matter, the explanation of the mystery we celebrate today.

The three gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh, are inseparable and have no meaning one without the other. They refer to the mystery of Man as much as to the mystery of God, for we are created in the image and likeness of God and salvation is the fullest possible restoration of that image and likeness. Adam's sin, like that of Eve and the serpent who beguiled her, was that they wanted to become as gods, but independent from and disobedient to the God who made them. But God, in his loving mercy and through the redeeming sacrifice of Christ, in which we participate through the Eucharist, the work of the Holy Spirit, wants us to become not like tin-pot gods but one with God himself. That union with God can come about only in and through and with the mystery of the Cross, the mystery of suffering and death.

Looked at from the other side, it is in suffering, whatever form that suffering may take and we all have our share of it, though some more than others, it is in suffering that we share in Christ's Passion and Death so as to share in the glory and joy of his Resurrection. Suffering is not a punishment but God's precious gift to us and a proof of his love. It is our own contribution to the Mystery of Salvation. If we accept, as the Christ Child did and his blessed Mother with him, the myrrh of suffering and death, then we will share with him the gold of his kingship and the frankincense of his divinity. That is what the Christian faith is all about. In suffering we, in Christ and with Christ, redeem the world.

So today, think of yourself as that Babe in the manger, recognise the extraordinary dignity of your Christian vocation and the depth of God's love for you. As Christ Jesus gave and continues to give himself unreservedly and wholly for us, let us, with God's help, give ourselves wholly and unreservedly to him, saying with St Paul, "It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me". In the Incarnation the Lord has said clearly to us, "It is no longer I who live, but you, my brothers and sisters, my dearest friends, who live in me."
I wish you all the happiest of feast days.