VIEW THE ADORATON OF THE MAGI: PEDRO NUNEZ, 1631

EPIPHANY AND THE EUCHARISTIC

Et procidentes adoraverunt Eum.
And falling down they adored Him. (Matthew ii. 11.)

CALLED to continue before the Most Blessed Sacrament the Magi's adoration at the Crib of Bethlehem, we ought to make ours the thought and love which guided and sustained them. They began at Bethlehem what we are doing in the presence of the Sacred Host. Let us study the characteristics of their adoration and learn a lesson therefrom.
The adoration of the Magi was a homage of faith and a tribute of love to the Incarnate Word; such ought to be our Eucharistic adoration.

I
THE faith of the Magi shone forth in all its splendor in the two severe tests to which they were subjected and over which they triumphed: the silence of Jerusalem and the humiliations of Bethlehem.

The royal travelers acted wisely in making straight for the capital of Judea; they expected to find the whole city of Jerusalem in gala attire, its citizens in festive painful surprise! Jerusalem was silent; there was nothing indicative of the wonderful event. Had they by chance been mistaken? If the great King were born, would not all things publish the news of His birth? Would they not be an object of derision, and perhaps be insulted, if they proclaimed the purpose of their journey?

Such doubts and words would have been prudent in the eyes of human wisdom, but unworthy of the faith of the Magi. They believed and they came. "Where is He that is born King of the Jews?" they ask boldly in the midst of an astonished Jerusalem, in front of Herod's palace, before the crowd of people attracted no doubt by the unwonted spectacle of the entrance of three kings into the city.

"We have seen the star of the newborn King. We have come to adore Him. Where is He? You ought to know, you, who are His people; you, who have so long awaited His coming."

A gloomy silence was the only answer. When Herod was questioned, he consulted the ancients and the priests, who replied by quoting the prophecy of Micheas. Thereupon Herod dismissed the foreign princes, promising them he would also go to adore the newborn King after them. And so, relying on the king's word, they departed. They departed alone; the city remained indifferent; the levitical priesthood itself waited like Herod in doubt and unbelief.

The silence of the world! That is the great test of faith in the Eucharist.

Suppose some eminent strangers learn that Jesus Christ dwells personally among Catholics in His Sacrament, and that these fortunate mortals enjoy thus the unique and ineffable happiness of possessing the very person of the King of heaven and earth, of the Creator and the Savior of the world, in a word, of our Lord Jesus Christ. Impelled by the desire to see Him and to pay Him homage, these strangers come from the most distant lands to seek Him in our midst, in one of our dazzling European capitals. Would they not be subjected to the same test as the Magi? What is there in our Catholic cities that manifests the presence of Jesus Christ? Our churches? But the Protestants and the Jews have
their temples. What then? Nothing. A few years ago the Persian and Japanese ambassadors came to visit Paris. There was certainly nothing there to suggest to them that we possessed Jesus Christ, that He lived among us and wished to rule over us. That is the stumbling-block to those who do not share our beliefs.

This silence is also a stumbling-block to faint-hearted Christians. They notice that many scientists do not believe in the presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, that the great of this world do not adore Him, that the mighty do not pay Him homage; and they draw their conclusions: "Consequently, He is not there; He is not living among Catholics, nor does He reign over them." There are so many who reason thus! The number of idiots and apes, who do nothing but what they see others do, is so great!

And yet, in the Catholic world as at Jerusalem, there are the words of the Prophets, of the Apostles, of the Evangelists to manifest the sacramental presence of Jesus. Upon the mountain of God within sight of all, there is the Church who has taken the place of the Angel, of the shepherds, and of the star of the Magi; who is a sun to anyone who wants the light; who speaks as it were from Sinai to anyone who wants to listen to her law. Her hand points to the holy Temple, to the august tabernacle, and she cries out to us: "Behold the Lamb of God, the Emmanuel! Behold Jesus Christ!"

When she speaks, simple and upright souls hasten to the tabernacle as the Magi kings to Bethlehem. These souls love the truth and follow it ardently. Such is your faith, you who are here present. You have sought Jesus Christ and have found Him. You adore Him; God bless you for it!

The Gospel tells us moreover that at the words of the Magi Herod was troubled and all Jerusalem with him.

That Herod should be troubled is not surprising; he was a stranger and usurper; he saw in the One about Whom He had been informed, the true King of Israel Who would dethrone him. But that Jerusalem should be troubled at the glad tidings of the birth of Him she had so long awaited and hailed as her great Patriarch since Abraham, as her great Prophet since Moses, and as her great King since David, that is quite incomprehensible! Did not the people know of Jacob's prophecy which pointed out the tribe of His origin; or of David's, which mentioned His family; or of Micheas', which named the city of His birth; or of Isaias', which proclaimed His glory? With all this evidence, so clear and enlightening, the Jews had to wait for the despised Gentiles to come and tell them: "Your Messiah is born! We come to adore Him after you and to I share your happiness. Show us His royal home and I allow us to pay Him homage."

Alas! This horrible scandal of the Jews, who were troubled at the news of the Messiah's birth, perpetuates itself among Christians. So many are afraid of a church in which Jesus Christ dwells! So many are against our building Him a new tabernacle or sanctuary! So many tremble with fear when they meet a priest carrying the Holy Viaticum! So many cannot stand the sight of the adorable Host! But why? What has this hidden God done to them? They are afraid of Him because they want to serve Herod, and perhaps the infamous Herodias; that is the answer to this Herodian scandal, which will sooner or later be followed by hatred .and bloody persecution.

The second test which the Magi had to face is the humiliations of the Infant God at Bethlehem.

Quite naturally they expected to find all the splendors of Heaven and earth surrounding the cradle of the newborn Babe. Their imagination, pictured the magnificence of it. At Jerusalem they had heard the prophecy of Isaias concerning His glory. They had certainly visited the wonder of the world, the Temple which was destined to receive Him, and as they walked they said to one another: "Who is like to this king?" Quis ut Deus? "Who is like to God?"

But what a surprise! What a deception! What a scandal for a faith less strong than theirs! Guided by the star they came to the stable, and what did they see? A poor Child with His young mother. The Child was laid on the straw like the poorest of the poor, nay more, like a little lamb just born; He slept in the midst of animals; He had only wretched swaddling clothes to protect Him against the bitter cold. His mother must then have been very poor to give Him birth in such a hovel?

The shepherds were no longer there to tell of the wonders they had seen in the sky, and Bethlehem was indifferent. My God, what a disappointment! Kings are not born in such surroundings, and much less should a King of Heaven be! How many folk of Bethlehem had come to the grotto on hearing the shepherds' story and had returned home unbelieving!

What would the Magi do? See them on their knees, their heads bowed to the ground, adoring with the most profound humility this little Child. They weep for joy as they contemplate Him. They are delighted with His poverty to the point of rapture. Et procidentes adoraverunt Eum! "And falling down they adored Him!" Great God! What a puzzling mystery! Never do kings lower themselves In this way, even before other sovereigns!

The shepherds looked with wonder on the Savior Whom the Angels had announced; but the Evangelist does not say they fell down before Him to adore Him. The Magi were the first to worship Him and offer Him the homage of public adoration at Bethlehem just as they had been His first apostles at Jerusalem. What is it they saw in the stable, in the Crib, in the Child? What did they see? Love! An unspeakable love; the true love of God for man; God impelled by His love to become poor so as to be the friend and brother of the poor; God becoming weak so as to comfort the weak and the forsaken; God suffering so as to prove His love. That is what the Magi saw. That was the reward of their faith, its triumph over this second trial.

The sacramental humiliation of Jesus Christ is also the second test of Christian faith. Jesus in His Sacrament receives for the most part nothing but the indifference of His own, and very often their unbelief and contempt. Understand well this sad truth; it is easy to learn: Mundus cum non cognovit. "The world knew Him not."

The worldly-minded might believe the truth of the Eucharist if they heard the singing of the Angels at the Consecration as the shepherds did at His birth; if they saw "the heavens opened over Him" as at the Jordan; if they saw the brightness of His glory as on Thabor; or if they witnessed with their own eyes one of the miracles wrought by the God of the Eucharist in the course of the centuries.

But they see nothing, less than nothing. It is the nothingness of all glory, of all power, of the whole divine and human being of Jesus Christ. They do not even see His human face; nor do they hear His voice; His actions are no longer perceptible to the senses.

But, as the saying goes, life is action; love, at least, manifests itself through some exterior sign. Here, however, there is only the coldness and silence of death.

You are right, you rationalists, you worldly great, you philosophers of the senses! You are a hundred times right. The Eucharist is death, or rather it is the love of death.

It is a love of death that moves Jesus to chain His power and causes Him to abase His majesty and glory, both human and Divine, so as not to frighten man; it is a love of death that induces Him to veil His infinite perfections and unspeakable sanctity so as not to discourage man; it is a love of death that leads Him to reveal Himself to man beneath the light cloud of the Sacred Species, which are more or less transparent to our faith according to the strength or weakness of our virtue.

To a real Christian, that is not a scandal or a test of faith, but the life and perfection of our Lord's love. His lively faith pierces through the poverty and weakness of Jesus, through this appearance of death, and goes straight to the Soul of Jesus to study His awe-inspiring thoughts and feelings. And finding our Lord's Divinity united to His Sacred Body and hidden beneath the Sacred Species, the Christian, like the Magi, falls down, contemplates, and adores; he is transported with the most enrapturing love; he has found Jesus Christ! Et procidentes adoraverunt Eum.
Such are the trials and the triumphs of the faith of the Magi and of that of a Christian. Let us now examine the Magi's homage of love to the Infant-God and the homage our heart also must pay to the Eucharistic God.

II
FAITH leads to Jesus Christ; love finds and adores Him. What is the love of the Magi's adoration? It is a perfect love. Now, love manifests itself in three ways; these manifestations are its life.

1. Love manifests itself by sympathy. Sympathy between souls is the bond and the law of two lives; through it we become like the one we love. Amor pares facie. "Love makes men equal."

The action of natural sympathy and, for a still greater reason, of supernatural sympathy with our Lord consists in a strong attraction and a uniform transformation of two souls into one, of two bodies into one; as fire absorbs and changes sympathetic matter into itself, so love transforms the Christian into Jesus Christ, into God. Similes Ei erimus. "We shall be like to Him."

But how could the Magi be immediately in sympathy with this little Child, Who could not yet talk or reveal His thoughts to them? Love saw and love joined itself to love.

Do you not see these kings kneeling among the animals in front of the Crib? Do you not see them in that lowly condition-----so humiliating for kings-----adoring this feeble Child, Who looks at them wonderingly?

What friendship expresses in words, love alone expresses here. Do you not see they are imitating as much as they can the state of this divine Child? Love tends to copy the beloved out of sympathy to him. They would like to humble themselves, to abase themselves to the very center of the earth in order to adore better and be more like unto Him Who stepped from a throne of heavenly glory down to the Crib, under the form of a slave.

They adopt the humility which the Incarnate Word had espoused, the poverty which He had deified, and the suffering which He had divinized. Love, as you see, is transformative: it produces identity of life; it makes kings simple, the learned humble, and the rich lovers of poverty. It effected all this in the Magi.

Sympathy is a necessity in a life of love; it makes the sacrifices of love easier and more enduring. Sympathy, in a word, is the real proof of love and a pledge of its duration. Until love becomes a sympathy it is a laborious virtue, occasionally sublime, but deprived of the joys and charms of friendship.

The Christian who is called to live of the love of God needs this sympathy of love. Now, it is in the Holy Eucharist that our Lord gives us the consoling assurance that He loves us personally as His friends; He allows us to rest our heart a while on His own, like His beloved Disciple; He gives us a taste, at least for a moment, of the sweetness of the heavenly manna; He fills our heart with the joy of possessing its God like Zaccheus, of possessing its Savior like Magdalen, of possessing its supreme happiness and its all like the Bride in the Canticle of Canticles. And we can hardly contain our love: "O Jesus, how gentle Thou art! How kind and affectionate toward him who receives Thee with love!"
But the sympathy of love goes further than enjoyment. It is a burning fire which our Savior has kindled in a heart sympathetic to His. Carbo est Eucharistia, quae nos inflammat. "The Eucharist is a burning coal, which sets us on fire." Fire is active by nature and tends to spread. When the soul is under the action of the Eucharist, it is forced to cry out: "O my God, what shall I do in return for so much love?" And Jesus answers: "Thou hast to resemble Me, to live for Me, and to live of Me." The transformation will be easy; when it is a matter of love, says the Imitation of Christ, one does not walk; one runs and flies. A mans valat, currit et laetatur.

2. In the second place, love manifests itself by its imperativeness as a sentiment; it wants to dominate everything and to be the sole and absolute master of the heart. Love is one; it tends to oneness; oneness is its essence; it either absorbs or is absorbed.

The evidence of this truth stands out most clear in the adoration of the Magi. As soon as they found the royal Infant they knelt down and adored Him profoundly, without paying any attention to the vileness of the place or to the animals that lived there and made it repulsive, without asking heaven for miracles or the Mother for any explanations, and without curiously examining the Child.

They adored only Him; they saw only Him; they had come only for Him. The Gospel does not even mention the honors they surely paid to His holy Mother; in the presence of the sun, all the stars disappear. Adoration is one, like the love that inspires it.

The Eucharist is the perfect expression of the love of Jesus Christ for man, since it is the quintessence of all the mysteries of His life as Savior. In all He did from the Incarnation to the Cross, the end Jesus Christ had in mind was the gift of the Eucharist, His personal and corporal union with each Christian through Communion. He saw in Communion the means of communicating to us all the treasures of His Passion, all the virtues of His sacred humanity, and all the merits of His life. Qui manducat M earn carnem . . . in Me manet, et Ego in illo. "He that eateth My flesh . . . abideth in Me, and I in him."

The Eucharist ought also to be the perfect expression of our love for Jesus Christ if we, on our side, wish to attain the end He had in view in Communion, namely, the transformation of ourselves into Him through union. The Eucharist must therefore be the law of our virtues, the soul of our piety, the supreme desire of our lives, the royal and rilling thought of our hearts, the glorious standard of our combats and sacrifices.
Without this unity of action we will never attain the perfection of love. But with it, everything will be pleasant and easy; for the whole power of man and of God will work together to bring about the reign of love. Dilectus meus mihi, et ego illi. "My Beloved to me, and I to Him."

3. Lastly, love manifests itself with gifts. The perfection of the gift expresses the perfection of the love. The inspired writer goes into the most explicit details in his description of the manner and circumstances of the gift of the Magi. "And opening their treasures," he says, "they offered Him gifts; gold, frankincense, and myrrh."

Gold is a tribute meant for kings; myrrh is reserved for the burial of the great; and frankincense symbolizes the homage we pay to God. Or rather, these three gifts represent all mankind at the feet of the Infant God: the gold represents power and riches; myrrh represents suffering; and frankincense represents prayer.

The law of Eucharistic worship began at Bethlehem to find its continuation in the cenacle of the Eucharist. The kings began; we must continue.

Our sacramental Jesus must have gold, for He is the King of kings; He must have gold, for He has a right to a throne more splendid than that of Solomon; He must have gold for the sacred vessels and for His altar. Is the Eucharist to receive less consideration than the Ark of the Covenant, which was made of the purest gold, donated by a faithful people?

Jesus Hostia must have myrrh, though not for Himself since He consummated His Sacrifice by dying on the Cross and glorified His divine Body and sacred tomb by rising from the dead. Since, however, He has constituted Himself our undying Victim on the altar, He must needs suffer, but in us and through us. He recovers in us, who are His members, sensibility to pain and the life and merit of His sufferings. We complete Him and give Him His present status as an immolated Victim.  Incense also is due Him. Priests offer it to Him every day. But over and above that He demands the incense of our adorations so as to bestow upon us in return His blessings and graces.  How fortunate we are to be able to share, through the Eucharist, the happiness of Mary, of the Magi, and of the first disciples who offered gifts to Jesus Christ! In the Eucharist we still have the poverty of Bethlehem to relieve. Oh! Yes! All the good things of grace and of glory come to us through the Divine Eucharist. Their fountainhead is at Bethlehem, which became a heaven of love; they gathered volume all through the life of the Savior; and all these rivers of grace, virtue, and merit empty into the ocean of this adorable Sacrament, in which we possess them in all their fullness.

But the Eucharist is also the source of our obligations; the love of the Eucharist obliges us to reciprocate generously. The Magi are our models, the first adorers. Let us be worthy of their royal faith in Jesus Christ. Let us be heirs to their love, and one day we will be heirs to their glory. Amen.
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