Going Back Home Bearing Gifts

“They departed for their country by another way.” (Mt 2:12)

We have seen the star.  We have followed its light.  We have found the Child with Mary his mother and fallen down before him.  We have unwrapped our gifts and laid them at his feet.  Now we are about to embark on another journey, a journey into a new year.  The first day of the year was a misty one, the trees greying out against grey, and still we are surrounded by what the weather forecasters are calling a dense fog.  The year of 2022 is a wrapped gift, a mystery, its contents hidden, its meaning held in silence.  What lies ahead?  No-one knows.  But we do not go empty-handed into this obscure landscape.  We bear with us the gifts of the year just ended.

These words of St Paul come to me as a mandate for entry into the New Year:
“Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (Phil 4:8)
Whatever has been good, precious, beautiful, or moving about these days of Advent and Christmas, whatever has lit up our lives and the lives of those around us in the year now ended, whatever has drawn us to intimacy or impelled us to worship, let us take this as our means of movement into the future.  St Bernard wrote of a horse named desire.  Hope.  Trust.  Faith.  Love.  These also are horses.  Chomping at the bit, they stand ready to carry us into the foggy future that harbors not only dangers and threats, burdens and difficulties, but also the possibility of meeting God in his world.  He has set his feet in the dust of earth.  He has claimed it for his own.  He longs to meet us there.

“I come to my garden” (Sg 5:1)
These words have been before us all week as the theme of our beautiful church creche, which sits on the altar step.  I am coming, I have come to my garden, and I dwell there, he says to us.  He is the one who lurks in the shadows, making himself known to those who are sensitive to his presence.  Do you remember the scene from the Chronicles of Narnia, The Horse and His Boy, when Shasta meets Aslan in the dark?  After walking for a long time, aware of a presence that breathed beside him: “At last he could bear it no longer.
‘Who are you?’ he said, barely above a whisper.
‘One who has waited long for you to speak,’ said the Thing. Its voice was not loud, but very large and deep.”
After telling his story, again Shasta asks, “‘Who are you?’…
‘Myself,’ said the Voice, very deep and low so that the earth shook: and again ‘Myself,’ loud and clear and gay: and then the third time ‘Myself,’ whispered so softly you could hardly hear it, and yet it seemed to come from all around you as if the leaves rustled with it.”
When the mist disperses and the light returns, Shasta realizes that the lion has been walking alongside him at the edge of an unseen cliff, protecting him from the sheer drop.  He who has come to his garden will walk with us, too, into each new day of this new year.

Like the Magi we were summoned and we came to see the Child.  Now we are sent home by another way.
“They departed for their country by another way.” (Mt 2:12)
This is a verse that has intrigued me.  On the surface it refers to the need to avoid Herod’s wrath, but I sense a deeper meaning.  Having seen the Lord, having knelt and perhaps even reached out a hand to touch him, we go back.  Back to the daily, the ordinary, the commonplace activities of our lives.  Another day, another dollar, as Sr Cecile liked to joke.  Another year.  The Magi carried gifts which they laid before the child.  But they left for home with a more precious treasure in their hearts.  The way back is different because they are different.  It is worth asking ourselves what gift we have received this Advent and Christmas, this year of 2021.  We need not be in a hurry to define it.  It is enough to be asking the question, probing the mist for an answer.  The gift we carry back with us may be a gift of light or of darkness.  My favorite of Mary Oliver’s poems is probably the shortest.  Its title is “The Uses of Sorrow” with the subtitle “(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)”:
“Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.”
Whatever our gift may be, we carry it into the newness of life for a purpose.  We are sent to inhabit our world and our time as Christ-bearers.  We are to be the light in the darkness, the sound of one breathing in the night, the rider of a horse named desire.

Image: The Wise Men (1900) by JC Leyendecker