Year B
Discover the deeper meaning and connections found in this week's readings, through these great commentaries written by our priests.
Explore this week's readings and hear what God is saying to us through His Word.
Find out more about how we can mark this special day in our liturgy.
See our music recommendations for the liturgy.
Epiphany is one of the most ancient feasts of the Church and of the highest importance. It has its origins in the East where it is called Theophany, which, like Epiphany, of course, means the showing forth of God in the person of the Christ-child; as the Letter to the Colossians has it, ‘a mystery hidden for generations and centuries’ that ‘has now been revealed to [God’s] holy people’ and which now means, as the reading from Ephesians tells us today, ‘that pagans share the same inheritance, that they are parts of the same body, and that the same promise has been made to them, in Jesus Christ, through the Gospel’. So, at the beginning of the Church’s year just as at its end we celebrate Jesus as the Light of the World and its Universal Saviour and King.
Every human, I believe, encounters in his or her very depths a longing for the most profound fulfilment which, as St Augustine found, cannot be satisfied by worldly pursuits or the pleasures of the flesh but by God alone. And He can be glimpsed, by anyone rightly disposed, in contemplating the wonder and beauty of the natural world. It is through this graced openness to nature and a sense of its sacred awesomeness that the Magi first caught sight of God as it were ‘through a glass in a dark manner’ and were drawn, through the appearance of a star, to the fullness of the revelation of God in Christ, a Light for the world greater by far than the radiance of any star.
Today Jesus is revealed as the Light of the world who brings salvation for all peoples on earth, ushering in God’s kingdom of justice, love and peace . On the threshold of this New Year our faith in this truth is being sorely tested by wars and conflicts between peoples in the Middle East, Ukraine, Yemen and elsewhere. But as we contemplate Jesus at his first appearing on earth with these dark thoughts in mind, let us not lose heart, rather let us take courage from and remember in hope and trust his words at his last appearing on earth: “Remember I am with you always, yes, to the end of time”.
The Epiphany of the Lord
Catholicism of the Catholic Church References:
CCC 528, 724: the Epiphany
CCC 280, 529, 748, 1165, 2466, 2715: Christ the light of the nations
CCC 60, 442, 674, 755, 767, 774-776, 781, 831: the Church, sacrament of humanity
This year, the Epiphany of the Lord (usually 6th January) is transferred to Sunday 7th January. This means that the Baptism of the Lord, usually celebrated (in the Roman Rite) the Sunday after Epiphany, is moved to Monday 8th. Epiphany (Twelfth Night) marks the end of the Christmas Season. Ordinary Time then commences.
The Epiphany has its own separate Vigil Mass, though the readings are the same as the Day Mass.
At Mass during the Day, “Where it is the practice, if appropriate, the moveable Feasts of the current year may be proclaimed after the Gospel” (Roman Missal, rubric for the Mass). This is sung by a deacon or a cantor. These days are Ash Wednesday, Easter Day, Ascension, Pentecost, Corpus Christi, and the First Sunday of Advent. (See end of RM Appendix I)
The optional Solemn Blessing acts as a neat summation of the texts for Mass.
“Epiphany” means “manifestation”. Key words in the texts for Mass are therefore: revealed, faith, beauty, glory, proclaimed, seen, perceive, sight, mystery, light, appeared, shining, brightness, knowledge.
Notes These hymns have been picked and chosen from different sources.
As with gladness men of old (CFE55, L166, LHON144, TCH41)
O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness (CFE560, L169, LHON569, TCH46)
The first Nowell (CFE692, L150, LHON651, TCH37)
What child is this? (CFE794, L145, LHON723)
Key
CFE - Celebration Hymnal for Everyone
L – Laudate
LHON – Liturgical Hymns Old and New (Mayhew, 1999)
TCH – The Catholic Hymnbook (Gracewing)
Do you have questions about the liturgy and how we are called to participate in it? Explore how the Church councils, saints, and popes have answered this key question and many more.
Every movement of the Mass is rich in meaning but we can become over-familiar with it. Rediscover the Mass and explore how it relates to the Exodus story, where many of its rituals come from, and how it makes Jesus present to us today.
