Just when you thought Christmas was over, we are presented today
with these strange out-of-town stragglers called "Magi!" Just as the
party is about over, this mysterious band of foreign visitors show up asking
for a peak at the new baby, completing Matthew’s picture of Jesus’ birth in
which the poor and the rich, the simple and the smart, the Jew and the Gentile
are all part of welcoming the savior of the world.
In this story we have a contrast of characters. On one hand we
have King Herod, the paranoid, self-focused, self-absorbed, brutal, ambitious narcissist!
On the other hand, we have the magi, the learned, curious, trusting and other-
focused spiritual seekers.
I can’t run fast enough to get away from self-absorbed, ambitious
narcissists! On the other hand, I can’t get close enough to people like these magi,
these driven spiritual seekers from the east, these men on a mission! Oddly
enough, these magi were from present-day Iraq of all places! They were part of
a tribe of priest-teachers to the ancient kings of Persia. They were men with
an eye out for God. Their job was to watch the heavens for any unusual
activity. Unusual activity among the stars was a sign to them that God was up
to something! An unusually bright star, combined with a feverish search for
God, meant they just had to check it out! The star they followed even had a
name. It was called “the birth of a prince.” Astronomers today believe there
actually was a dramatic star-event about this time in history. They
left everything that was comfortable and familiar to them and set out for new
lands, for new insights and for new understanding. Their search led
them to Jesus.
These brave souls stand in contrast to that woman in eastern
Kentucky that I remember seeing interviewed on KET many years ago. She had
never been more than two miles from the mountain cabin she was born in! When
asked why she had never been anywhere else, she answered the reporter, “I just
don’t believe in goin’ places!” These brave souls, these strange magi, did believe
in “goin’ places,” in having new insights, in expanding their understanding.
These magi are my kind of people!
My friends, these magi, these ancient spiritual seekers have a lot
to teach us about the spiritual life. In a world of people obsessed
with working on their outsides and accumulating stuff, these men teach us about
passionately working on our insides: pursuing the truth, stretching ourselves
and our potential, being people in charge of their own passions and hungering
and thirsting for holiness. They also teach us that spiritual growth is always
a risk, always dangerous, always requiring great personal courage, but always
worth it. As one of my favorite writers puts it, "Life shrinks or expands
in proportion to one's courage."
My life as a magi started on a fire escape at St. Meinrad in the
Spring of 1966 when I was in college. I was extremely bashful. I
avoided meeting new people or getting myself into unfamiliar situations.
I was scared of life. I was what George Bernard Shaw called “a feverish
little clod of grievances and ailments, complaining that the world would not
dedicate itself to making me happy.”
That day, I was standing on a fire escape outside my room at St.
Meinrad Seminary with a fellow seminarian, Pat Murphy. In what had to be
one great moment of grace, an impulse gift from God, I suddenly blurted out,
“Pat, I am so sick and tired of being bashful and scared of life that I’m going
to do something about it even if it kills me!”
I was shocked by the words that came out of my own mouth! But from
that moment on, I have been standing up to the coward inside me. I have
been deliberately “slaying dragons” and “confronting demons,” in my head and on
my path, ever since! I decided that day not to indulge my resistance
to personal and spiritual growth any longer. That day, on that fire
escape, I made my first conscious decision to enter the world of intentional
personal growth and deliberate living! How appropriate and symbolic
that my decision was made on a “fire escape!” I decided that day to quit
being a coward and become a "magi." I decided to put myself in new
and challenging situations so I could grow as a person! I decided to quit always
being "safe" and, as a result, quit being "stuck!" As a
result, I have worked in Chicago as a house painter and in Crater Lake National
Park as a desk clerk, a bar tender and a campground preacher for the United
Church of Christ. I have moved from being too bashful to lector at Masses in
the seminary to preaching over 70 parish missions all over the United States.
That experience pushed me to preach well over 100 priest retreats in England,
Ireland, Wales, Canada, the Bahamas, Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the
Grenadines, Trinidad and most of the states in this country. I have been a
home missionary, a pastor, a seminary staff person, a campus minister, a
teacher, a weekly columnist, a foreign missionary and a nursing home chaplain.
I have accepted opportunities to preach in a Lutheran Church, a Baptist Church,
a Presbyterian Church and do ministry not only in the Catholic Church, but also
several other churches as well. I just published my 41st book. It
all happened because of that fire-escape decision I made back in 1966 as a
college seminarian.
In my retirement, after finishing my latest renovation projects
down in the Caribbean and in my home parish of St. Theresa, after recently
committing to mission projects in Tanzania and Kenya, this will be the year
when I hope God will reveal another inner journey for me to take in spite of
the fact that I am just 4 months away from turning 81! I would like to keep
re-inventing myself, over and over again, till I am dead! I will prepare myself
for these “re-inventions” by standing up to the temptation to “shut down” and
say "no" to new opportunities just because “people in their 80s and
90s are not supposed to do stuff like that!" As Henry Ford put it,
"Those who believe they can, and those who believe
they can't, are both right!"
Maybe this is your year as well, the year to begin that spiritual
journey and make that big change you have been thinking about for years. If so,
be brave! Take a risk! Get started! Reinvent yourself! Don't be a coward! Get
out there! Be a magi! As one of my favorite authors, Anais Nin, puts it,
"It takes courage to push yourself to places you
have never been before....to test your limits...to break through barriers. And
the day came when the risk it took to stay tight inside the bud was more
painful than the risk it took to blossom."
A Little Humor For The Occasion
