Let us be the change we want to see in the world
(Adaptation of Mahatma Ghandi’s quote)
The journey of the Magi is our story. It is our Dehonian faith story (Gal. 2:20). The Magi search for God in places and events they would not expect and encounter the self-gift of God in “the gift of the unexpected” (His Way is Our Way). Immediately falling on their knees, they worship and offer gift. Their encounter awakens within us as Dehonians the consciousness that all is gift freely given and that our task is to receive in poverty of spirit and give thanks. Coming from the East, the Magi urge us today to be spiritual sentinels for all of humanity.
Epiphanies require community. The Magi are a threesome. They seek the Holy Child as a community and as a community they worship and offer gift.
INVITATION: Please read and discuss with the members of your local community: “Starting Afresh from Christ”
Epiphanies nudge us towards the margins of the world where the gift of divinity is to be found: in the poor, the excluded, the forgotten, the suffering, the laborer, the refugee, the unwed, the old and the young, and as one theologian writes even in “the dumb ox and the reeking sheep”. “Tu eres mi otro yo”, the solidarity of our sacred oneness, urges us to be “prophets of love and servants of reconciliation of people and the world” (CsT: 7). It will be through the eyes of the refugee that we will see what Jesus sees: a life rich in beauty, value and meaning. Dom Hélder Câmara experienced solidarity as meaning that refugees are not just a group of people, they are Juan, Senait, Mohammed. They need to eat at our table and we eat at their table, for it is then that ‘we will be the change that we want to see in the world’. If we do not personally know a refugee, we are missing the opportunity to meet Jesus among us.
INVITATION: Please read and pray with the “Pact of the Catacombs for the Common Home”: For a Church with an Amazonian face, poor and servant, prophetic and Samaritan”, signed by 40 Bishops attending the Amazon Synod and 150 leaders of male religious congregations.
Reflection Question
Based upon your own experience and what you have prayerfully received in reading, what is the request that God is asking of you and your local Dehonian community at this moment?
