L.J. shares a reflection on his Sunday's reading from the Gospel according to Matthew.
We can get to the heart of the feast of Epiphany through the conversion of St. Paul. The heart of this feast has to do with the authority of our inner experience.
The Epiphany is a showing of God in the newborn Jesus. This is what the word “epiphany” means. It is a manifestation of Christ to all peoples as represented by the wise men or magi. Now, I believe we can get to the core of this mystery by reflecting on a feast to which we may not often advert. I am referring to a feast we celebrate later this month, January 25 to be exact. It is the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, which is the only conversion we celebrate in our liturgical calendar. St. Paul’s conversion is an epiphany – a showing of God in his own being and in the being of the followers of Jesus.
Paul describes his conversion in the Letter to the Galatians. St. Luke describes this conversion three times in the Acts of the Apostles. It is a pivotal moment in the life of the early church. Indeed, Paul’s conversion is a model for all conversions. So, let us reflect on some key lines from Galatians and Acts of the Apostles.
St. Paul tells us: “God…was pleased to reveal his Son in me” (Galatians 1:13) Paul experienced Jesus as a revelation of God in his own being. It was an awakening, a pulling back of the veil that covers all things to unveil the inherent unity of God and all things. The name we give this unity is “Christ.” D.H. Lawrence writes, “The world fears a new experience more than it fears anything. Because a new experience displaces so many old experiences. And it is like trying to use muscles that have perhaps never been used, or that have been going stiff for ages. It hurts horribly. The world doesn't fear a new idea. It can pigeon-hole any idea. But it can't pigeon-hole a real new experience. It can only dodge.” St. Paul has a radically new experience, one that fundamentally alters his perception, his way of living, and his very core. This experience is what drives him to spread the Gospel. It is what gives him such conviction and joy. He knows, beyond all ways of normal knowing, that God is one with all of us. And, as D.H. Lawrence says, we are still trying to dodge this earth-shattering experience.
Thus, St. Paul is a mystic; he has an experience, an ongoing experience, of the Transcendent One. This experience, true to its mystical character, is paradoxical. “A light from the sky suddenly flashed around him. He fell to the ground” (Acts 9:3-4) This line refers to the fact that Paul has a transcendent experience and it humbles him. He falls down; his weakness and sinfulness dawn on him in the light of Christ. “[He] heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’” (Acts 9:4) Here we recall that Paul was Saul and Saul was persecuting Jesus’ early followers. But Jesus does not separate his followers from himself. This is the unity of Christ: the oneness of God with all and, specifically, of Jesus Christ with his Body, his followers.
Later in the Acts of the Apostles, St. Luke adds an interesting line: “I heard a voice saying to me in Hebrew, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goad.’” (Acts 26:14) The goad was used in farming to guide an animal; when an animal kicked against the goad the animal would doubly hurt itself. This phrase refers to a person being their own worst enemy. Jesus says to Paul: “By fanatically persecuting my followers, you are hurting yourself; your resistance is hurting you, and then you are forcing your pain onto others.” We dodge the experience of Christ, God’s unity with all things, by our chronic tendency towards egocentricity. We think of ourselves first, and apart from others and God. This is our major problem: we think we are separate. But St. Paul knows better.
“I did not immediately consult flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; rather, I went into Arabia and then returned to Damascus.” (Galatians 1:17) Paul testifies to the authority of mystical experience. He is neither a priest nor an appointed leader of any kind. He is simply a man who has experienced the Risen Jesus. He bases his authority on his experience of the Transcendent One in the Risen Jesus. He experiences God calling him at the same time. And this call is legitimized insofar as his experience compels him to share the experience. Election is true when one feels the need to share the experience of Christ – divine unity – with all people.
The core of Epiphany, then, rests on the transformative experience of God’s unity with all things. When we see this reality, we are participating in the Epiphany. We become mystics for we are seeing and enjoying the divine life, our freedom and our joy.