The Epiphany Shows There Are No Exceptions

“Epiphany,” the name of today’s liturgical feast, is usually defined as disclosure, manifestation, realization. In the gospels’ infancy narratives, Epiphany marks the significance of the fact that non-Jewish nations, represented by the Magi, recognize Christ’s presence as the Redeemer. Today’s first reading and gospel passage emphasize that dimension of this feast.

But the second reading, from Ephesians 3, emphasizes that a more specific mystery is also revealed: “that the Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body, and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” From this perspective, this feast reminds us that God has come into the world to redeem not only for those who consider themselves chosen, but for those who were traditionally excluded by those who think of themselves as chosen.

Sound familiar? Yeah.

The year 2023 was a year where that lesson started to become more tangible and real in the Catholic Church, as leaders, particularly Pope Francis, taught by word and example that LGBTQ+ people are “members of the same body” as others in our faith community. At year’s end, The National Catholic Reporter editorialized that this past year saw “extraordinary, if tentative, movement” regarding “how the Catholic Church includes and ministers to its LGBTQ members. Things have happened in the past 12 months that would have once seemed the work of a novelist untethered from reality.”  (For more evidence of this fact, just look at Bondings 2.0 top ten list of the “Best Catholic LGBTQ News Events of 2023.)

The last sentence of the quotation from NCR’s editorial echoed in my ears when I read the line from today’s reading from Ephesians, which spoke about how a new understanding of God’s love “was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed.” That literally sent a shiver down my spine, as I realized how incredibly blessed I am (and all of us are) to be living in a time where we can see such graces become real. And I am grateful to all of our ancestors who waited and worked for a year such as 2023 to occur.

The crowning news of such a wonderful year came just before the end of December when the Vatican announced that priests had permission to bless same-gender couples. Fiducia Supplicans, the declaration which granted such permission, was actually not focused on same-gender couples, but about what blessings are generally and about how they should be administered. Although this document came from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), it had Pope Francis’ fingerprints all over it, especially the message he has been teaching since he became pontiff: that God’s love is for “everybody, everybody, everybody,” and that absolutely no one should be refused pastoral care by the church’s ministers.

In effect, what Pope Francis and the DDF have been doing is showing what the Ephesians letter describes: “the stewardship of God’s grace” was given to church leaders, not to protect and hoard it, but that it was given for the “benefit” of people.” In other words, church leaders should not be concerned with preserving church ideas and ideals, but with extravagantly sharing God’s love in tangible and meaningful ways with all people—no exceptions. The best way to share that love is by giving blessings to anyone who hungers for it enough to request it from the church.

So today, as you move your Nativity scene’s Magi statues close up to the crib, take a moment to remember that today’s feast is not only about our journeys to Jesus, but about God’s journey to all the people of the world, especially those who have been traditionally excluded.

—Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry, January 7, 2024