SOLEMNITY OF THE EPIPHANY OF THE LORD AT QUARR ABBEY SUNDAY 7th JANUARY 2024
“He has spoken through the prophets”. It is what we sing every Sunday in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed about the Holy Spirit: Locutus est per prophetas. We know from Psalm 21 that the Lord makes his home in the praises of Israël (v. 3), and the Epistle to the Hebrews, before quoting Psalm 94, writes: “As the Holy Spirit says…” In a similar way, our Creed sings that the Holy Spirit speaks “through the prophets”. He is the principal author of their beautiful texts.
From the beginning of Advent until the end of Christmas time, we hear every day the prophet Isaiah, who saw something of the holiness of God in his first vision : “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts” (6, 3). On the first Sunday of Advent, with him we cried to the Lord: “Oh, that you would tear the heavens open and come down!” (63, 19). And today, at the end of the cycle of Incarnation, we can say: “He came, he came down, he was born, he is with us to the end of time!” He did it, it is done! Glory to God in the highest.
In this solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, again we are hearing the great Isaiah, who invites us to rejoice with Jerusalem for “the nations are coming to her light, and kings to her dawning brightness. All are coming towards her” (60, 3). We, alas, know the terrible situation in the Holy Land, but we must hold to the promises of the Lord: they remain.
Indeed, from the beginning of the book of Isaiah to the very end, the prophet announces a huge procession of the nations to the holy City. Chapter 2 starts with these words: “In the days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house will be set over all other mountains. All the nations will stream towards it” (2, 2). The text of the first reading today comes from chapter 60, and in the last one, chapter 66, the voice of the Lord himself resounds: “Rejoice with Jerusalem, be glad for her, all who love her! Look, I am going to send peace flowing over her like a river. I am coming to gather every nation and every language. They will come to witness my glory (66, 10.12.18). The Magi’s pilgrimage is the start of the universal procession of mankind to the Kingdom of God in the new Jerusalem.
Let us love Isaiah, who wrote, if I may say so, a fore full Gospel; let us read again and again his majestic and strong pages, which, with poetry, announce the whole mystery of Jesus: his birth from a virgin as Immanuel (“A child is born” : chap. 7, 9), his mission as the Servant of the Lord, his preaching (chap. 42), his sufferings as the Lamb of God (chap. 53) and his victory as “Mighty God”, as “Prince of peace”.
That is not all: in the first page of the book are introduced two companions of the new-born child close to the crib. It is the 3rd verse of the first chapter: “The ox knows its owner and the donkey its master’s crib: Israel does not know, my people does not understand”. It is a reproach for the daughter of Zion, “the faithful city” who has become a harlot (1, 21). She is a rebel, but she is loved by her God and will be redeemed. The second chapter shows her as the center of the world, the last destination of the history: “Many peoples will come and say: ‘Let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob’ ” (2, 3). That it why the Lord shouts: “Awake, awake, put on your beautiful garments, O Zion” (52, 1), “Arise, shine; for the glory of the Lord has risen upon you!” (60, 1).
At the very end of Isaiah’s book, chapter 66, the Lord says to us: “Rejoice with Jerusalem, be glad for her, all you who love her!” (v. 10). We do not see any more the Mother with her Child in the crib, but it is the Lord, our God himself, who is the Father and the Mother, according to his words to all of us:
“I am going to send peace
flowing over her like a river,
and like a stream in spate
the glory of the nations.
You will be suckled, carried on her hip
and fondled in her lap.
As a mother comforts a child,
so I shall comfort you;
your will be comforted in Jerusalem”
(v. 12-13).
Thanks to our Immanuel, the “Word made flesh”, so ends “the Book of Consolation”. Through the Holy Spirit, as the Son, we are destined to remain in the lap of the Father, in his bosom. As writes saint Paul to the Corinthians: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the all-merciful Father, the God whose consolation never fails us” (2 Co 1, 3)