This weekend, we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany in our church. It seems to me that all of us, whether lowly shepherd or princely king, have epiphanies, or revelations, in our lives. And it also seems to me that, when we do have an epiphany, the experience is not complete until we are able to tell someone what we have "seen and heard."
For example, someone just told me that rice, normally a high-glycemic food, is no longer high-glycemic once refrigerated. I didn't know that, and so, for years, I have been trying to choke down brown rice, a food I don't really enjoy, just because it is not as high in sugar as white rice. I also learned that LSU agriculture has developed a low-glycemic white rice available for purchase. Now, these are not earth-shattering epiphanies by any means, but knowing these facts help me to enjoy a food I have tended to avoid somewhat for years. In my "joy" over this "epiphany," my first thought was to tell my sister, who has also avoided white rice for years. I wanted to share "the good news" with someone else who, forgive me the analogy, was "suffering" in ignorance.
Epiphanies, no matter how small, always bring a measure of joy --- and our joy is not complete until it is shared. When we experience profound beauty, or stillness, or goodness, we immediately want to say, "Do you see that?" or "Look!" One time, while visiting Sicily, my son took us "cross country," so to speak, to see a still-preserved Roman villa. On the way back, I found myself so moved by the combination of the history and beauty of the country that I could not hold back the tears. I wanted to share the experience with someone else; I wanted someone else to see and feel what I was seeing and feeling. The people I was with had been living in Sicily for some time, so they had already been through their own epiphanies of history and beauty.
St. Therese once said, "Beauty opens my soul and makes room for God!" Any kind of epiphany, small or large, has that effect on us. And that is why the church is so important. I don't mean "going to church," for that may or may not lead to epiphany; it might be just a social occasion. What I mean by "the church" is called by St. Paul and St. John "fellowship," a word that carries more import than "friendship," although it certainly includes friendship.
It is when we can share our experience of truth, beauty, and goodness with at least one other person, and that other person reacts from the heart --- is touched for a moment with the same truth, beauty, or goodness --- that we experience fellowship with one another. And our joy is then complete, when the other person sees and knows what has touched us so deeply!
One of the things I love the most about my husband is that he loves the church as much as I do, and, as a historian, he sees it from a different perspective than I do. He continually explores what is happening in the larger church from a historical perspective---something I am not inclined to do. And I continually explore the truths of our faith from a spiritual perspective. So on a daily basis almost, we are able to share our "epiphanies" with one another, both perspectives enriching our experience of our church.
In the weekly bible study with a small group of friends, we explore our individual insights and inspirations with one another, constantly opening and enriching our experience and understanding of the Word of God. No one of us, no matter how deep or profound our personal epiphanies, has the whole truth, the whole beauty, the whole goodness for which we are destined by God. St. John says, We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete (1 John 1).
If we want our own epiphanies and joy to be complete, it would help to find fellowship with at least one other person, as did the shepherds and the kings, who spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed (had their own epiphanies ) at what the shepherds said to them (Luke 2).
