The word of the day - PHAN

I will begin with the Word of the Day.   And it is a Greek word…The word is “phan.”  P   H   A   N.  Phan means to “see through.”

This word shows up in English in cellophane.  The letters P  H  A  N  show up at the end of the word cellophane.  You can see through cellophane.  Phan means “see through.”  You can see through the cellophane and discover what is in a gift basket at a silent auction.  Today’s feast is called the Epiphany and Epiphany is another word that contains the letters   P   H   A   N.  Epiphany means that you can see through appearances.  In the stable in Bethlehem, everyone sees a baby but some people see through his appearance and they see that he is more than that.

Mary sees that the child is her first-born son; but she also sees through his appearance.  She sees that her baby is the Savior and so she names him Jesus, which is the Hebrew word for Savior.  So that is Mary’s Epiphany.  She is able to look beyond her child’s appearance and she can see that he is the Savior.  She is able to do this because the angel had said to her during the Annunciation, “Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son and you shall name him Jesus.”

The magi also had an epiphany.  The magi were scientists who were following the path of a new star in the sky.  They believed that every king has his own star.  So, the appearance of a new star told them that there must be a newborn king out there somewhere.  They came from the east and they travelled only at night and every night they searched the sky until they found their star.  The magi followed that star more than 500 miles until they finally came to the place where Jesus was born.  

Then they gave their gifts to the newborn king: gold, frankincense and myrrh.  They could see what no one else could see.  They were looking beyond the appearance of the child and seeing a future king.  How do we know that?  Because they gave very expensive gifts that were customarily given to kings.  You don’t give gold to a child unless the child is a king.  

The shepherds also had their epiphany.  When they saw the child wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in the manger they looked beyond his appearance and saw their Savior and Messiah.  Their epiphany turned out just as the angel had predicted. 

And now what about ourselves?  When and where do we have experiences that we can call our epiphanies?

First and foremost we see Jesus living in every person.  Life is Sacred because Jesus is living in every person.  We see beyond appearances. We see to the heart of things.  We see Jesus living in the heart of every person.  We also see and hear Jesus during the Mass.  We hear him speaking to us in the Liturgy of the Word and see him in the Liturgy of the Holy Eucharist.  Sometimes we forget that Jesus is talking to us in each Bible reading. 

Today Jesus says that he came into this world with blessings for all nations.  In the First Reading today Jesus says that his light will shine upon all the nations of the earth.  In the Second Reading he says that the Gentiles are members of his Kingdom.  In today’s Gospel he blesses the magi and the magi represent all the foreign nations.

Moving forward to the Liturgy of the Holy Eucharist, we see what is not visible.  Epiphany means to see through.  We see through the appearance of the bread and we see the body of Christ in the bread that is being blessed and broken.  The breaking of the bread that has been blessed reminds us of how his body was broken… So much did he love us.

We see through the appearance of the wine and we see the blood of Christ in the wine that is being blessed and poured forth.  The pouring of the wine reminds us of how his blood was poured forth… So much did he love us. 

I will close by going back to the beginning.  The key word is phan and that means to see through… to see to the heart of things.  For the First Epiphany, the participants looked beyond the child and saw his future identify as king, savior and messiah.  For the Mass today we will look beyond the appearances of bread and wine and we will see the body and blood of Christ.