We have seen the star of the Lord rise and we come with gifts to adore him1.
The light of Bethlehem shines for all people and its radiance is seen throughout the earth. Jesus, as soon as he was born, "began to communicate his light and his riches to the world, bringing with his star men from so distant a land. On this feast - one of the most ancient - we celebrate the universality of the Redemption. The inhabitants of Jerusalem who on that day saw these people arrive on the road to the East could well have understood the proclamation of the Prophet Isaiah, which we read today in the First Reading of the Mass: Arise, shine, O Jerusalem, for your light is coming, the glory of the Lord is dawning upon you. Behold: darkness covers the earth, darkness the peoples, but the Lord will dawn upon you, his glory will appear over you; and the peoples will walk in your light, and kings in the brightness of your dawn. Lift up your eyes all around, look: all these are gathered together, they come to you: your children come from afar....
The Magi, in whom all races and nations are represented, have reached the end of their long journey. They are men with a thirst for God who put aside comfort, earthly goods and personal satisfactions to adore the Lord God.
They let themselves be guided by an external sign, a star that perhaps shone with a different radiance, "clearer and brighter than the others, and such that it attracted the eyes and hearts of all who contemplated it, to show that something so marvelous could not be meaningless "4. They were men dedicated to the study of the sky, accustomed to look for signs in it. We have seen his star, they say, and we have come to seek the king of the Jews. Perhaps the messianic hope of the Jews of the Diaspora had reached them, but we must think that they were illuminated at the same time by an interior grace that set them on their way. The one who guided them," comments St. Bernard, "also instructed them, and the same one who warned them externally by means of a star, enlightened them in the depths of their hearts5. The feast of these Saints, who corresponded to the graces that the Lord bestowed on them, is a good opportunity for us to consider whether life is really for us a path that leads straight to Jesus, and to examine whether we correspond to the graces that in every situation we receive from the Holy Spirit, in a particular way to the immense gift of the Christian vocation.
We look at the Child in Mary's arms and we say: "My Lord Jesus: make me feel, so that I may so second your grace, that I may empty my heart... so that you may fill it, you, my Friend, my Brother, my King, my God, my Love!