Emmanuel
EUCHARIST: LIVING & EVANGELIZING
Eucharistic Journey:
Epiphany — From the Outside In
by Aaron K. Kerr
Epiphany reminds us that there is a journey to be made, one of mystery, encounter,
and transformation.
Aaron K. Kerr
is Assistant
Professor of
Philosophy
at Gannon
University, Erie,
Pennsylvania,
and a new
contributor to
Emmanuel.
Christmas tends to be a festival of inwardness: family and friends,
intimate gatherings, connecting again with relatives. We may unbridle
our nostalgia and rehearse customs of familiarity. And just before the
feast of Epiphany, we celebrate the Holy Family and honor the roles
of father and mother and the holiness that the family will cultivate for
the good of all. These intimacies strengthen our identity and maintain
within us a confirmed truth, namely, that Jesus is with us in the most
cherished parts of our lives.
However, inwardness and the attempt to recapture past intimacies
can leave us disappointed. Time cannot be frozen; neither can our
souls. To grow, we must seek nourishment from without.
Today, what many have called the “therapeutic culture” strips us of our
desire to engage externals because we are so focused on some idea
of the self that we confine our experience, thus weakening our desire
to discover truth beyond ourselves. Certainly, the Eucharist is the
medicine or remedy for this tendency. And I suggest that Matthew’s
Gospel is a testimony to the truth that conversion moves us from the
outside in, not the inside out. The story of the Magi exemplifies this.
Epiphany expresses that the incarnate Word is on the move and the
whole world is set in motion by his self-emptying love. Matthew
captures this tremor when he describes wise ones who move out of
their familiarity, their certainty, their status as revered figures in order
to search for One who disrupts. Epiphany challenges us to question
what we think certain, to look to those different from ourselves in
order to gain wisdom, and to trust in the journey when we have no
clue about what is around the corner. That ambiguity manifests our