Well, what better place to talk about the Epiphany of Our Lord than on a blog like mine, so interested in beauty? John Paul II addressed his “Letter to Artists” to all those who are “passionately dedicated to the search for new ‘epiphanies‘ of beauty.”  John Paul the Great here defines the artist as one who is devoted to the search for epiphanies!
An epiphany is a sudden insight, a revelation, a manifestation. Typically on this feast we celebrate the arrival of the Magi at Jesus’ birth: his revelation as King and Messiah to all those outside the House of Israel—the Gentiles. The Magi, the wise men, are the epitome of those who searched for “new epiphanies of beauty”. That beauty manifestly revealed is the glorious radiance of the face of God who desired to show himself to all peoples through his Son, Jesus Christ. The Magi’s watchful waiting for the sign (the star of Bethlehem) and their laborious and treacherous (think Herod) search for the child Jesus is a powerful image of the human race’s search for the face of God. It has often been said that in all the religions of the world men and women have searched for God and attempted to reach Him, but in the Judaeo-Christian faith, God has searched for us, and attempted to reach us. He says in Scripture: “I was there to be sought by a people who did not ask, to be found by men who did not seek me” (Isaiah 65:1). For all of us who consider ourselves “seekers” or “sojourners” it would be good to keep in mind that, ultimately, God reveals himself to us, we do not find him.
And finally, I can’t help it, I have to quote Chesterton:
“Such learned men would have doubtless come, as these [the Magi] learned men did come, to find themselves confirmed in much that was true in their own traditions and right in their own reasoning…. Buddha would have looked upon a new renunciation, of stars rather than jewels and divinity than royalty. These learned men would still have the right to say, or rather a new right to say, that there was truth in their old teaching. But after all, these learned men would have come to learn…. even to balance their imperfect universe with something they had not yet conceived; even to balance their imperfect universe with something they might have once contradicted. Buddha would have come from his impersonal paradise to worship a person. Confucius would have come from his temples of ancestor worship to worship a child.”                   -(The Everlasting Man, 175)
