Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6; Matthew 2:1-12

When we were children, we never wondered what was the right or the wrong thing to do. We just knew. We just wanted to explore the world around. Something within told us.

It becomes the growing field of our gentle voice within, which we call conscience.

As we grow older, we seem to lose this gift of knowing which is the better way to act. Somewhere along the way, most of us seem to be conditioned to distrust ourselves.

When most people are faced with a financial decision, they consult to a parent, friends, colleague, book, financial adviser, or combination of these.

There are people also, when faced with a personal or moral decision, consult to their spouse, pastor, priest, minister, friends, or the scriptures, even, rummies, etc.

Different opinions and different interpretations leave many people more bewildered than they were to begin with, right!

But finally, after gathering as much information as is available, or as much as we choose to accept, we are forced to listen to our own inner voice and then to make a decision and to act (understanding that even to make no decision is to act). Taking ownership of the decision and to act accordingly.

The very best persons who are expert in their fields can surround you, but at the end you are the only one who has to decide. Your inner-voice, your conscience becomes important here. If not, we find ourselves deciding because, “Uncle Dave said it was the right thing to do” or “Father George told me it was best this way” or “The Scripture told us not to do that!” or “Mom or dad told me that I need to be a good girl or boy!”

Don’t miss understanding here. It doesn’t mean we do not seek the input from advisers, experts, and professional.

Contemplation ~

Imagine yourself after traveling very long distance, following your inner-voice—your conscience, spending lots of money and time, and you end up in the homeless shelter where the Holy Family is there. There are shepherds in your midst–unshaven, probably dirty and smelly. There are also Kings from different countries with their entourages and followers…. They come to pay homage—offering gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

The amazing one is, you see the excitement and glorious joy of everyone, including Mary and Joseph as they cared for the Child Jesus: Dancing and singing. Heaven has come to earth. They both come together. The glory and the simplicity merge one another. The night is not the darkness.

The fear and the trembling are experienced along the most joyous majestic and fantastic feelings. The pain, the loneliness, the outcast are experienced with the light and the purest love of God. That is the revelation. That is the epiphany.

[The Babylonian prophet envisioned from the exile, a new day and a glorious new beginning. He believes that total darkness would be vanished with the dawn to be quickly followed by the stunning brightness of the rising sun. People, the Israelite who sought God would be rewarded. The glory of God rendered them]

The epiphany happened not because: “Uncle Dave said it was the right thing to do” or “Father George told me it was best this way” or “The Scripture told us not to do that!” or “Mom told me that I need to be a good girl or boy!” but because, the believe and the acts of searching; because the works of divine mercy—God’s providence, that God want to love and to care deeply and the searching of human’s heart, as pilgrimage Magi who opens to the inner-star and wants to follow it full-hearted.

The acts of Mary and Joseph has shown to us the openness, the trust, and the availability for the God’s intervention. The acts of the shepherds and the acts of the magi to do homage—are the acts of embracing God’s intervention—embracing God’s revelation in our daily lives.

Here is the message:

• Following your star is about discovering who you are and what you are capable of. It is about learning to be yourself and open to God’s intervention, to believe in, and to trust.
• Following your star is about being prepared to dare to be different in a world where uniformity is safe and rewarded. It is about search yourself with the guidance of God’s mercy, and with faith.
• Following your star is about discovering something deep within that is yours and no one else’s; the trust makes you are able to stretch out of comfort level, in order to accomplish more, and to follow the true inner calling.

Along the pilgrimage, your heart will say—I know I’m in there someday and somewhere. I know I’m in there someday and somewhere; and I am not walking alone because God, through His Son has visited me personally. He came looking for me through His words that happening within, which I believe in.

Amen.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/profile/445711