Homily – Epiphany – A – Fr Jeremiah Browne (National Director f the Pontifical Mission Societies #southafrica #Swaziland #Botswana #eswatini)
On Remembrance Day 1987, in the North of Ireland, Gordon Wilson’s daughter was killed by a bomb in a little town called Enniskillen. Instead of calling for revenge, Wilson forgave her killers and began a campaign for peace and reconciliation. He said: “I am a very ordinary sort of man. I have few personal ambitions and no political aspirations. I just want to live and let live. Life has been kind to me in the main, and I have tried to live by the Good Book. I do not profess to be a good man, but I aim to be. I would like to leave the world a better place than I found it, but I have no exaggerated ideas of my ability to do so. I have hitched my wagon to a star, a star of hope, the star of Bethlehem.”
Somehow those words speak volumes about Gordon Wilson’s faith and the choices that he made because of his belief in Christ, the one who is revealed to the world on this feast of the Epiphany.
Today’s gospel (Matthew 2:1-2) is not just a nice story about the Magi who set out in search of the Child Jesus. It is a story about how encountering Christ can change our lives. It’s a story about finding our purpose in life, finding direction, finding the one who guides us and shapes our living. It is about following the signs that lead us to the light, particularly when the road ahead is uncertain, painful, or costly.
The Magi were seekers, travellers, people attentive enough to notice a star and brave enough to follow it. They left comfort, certainty and status behind. Faith for them wasn’t an idea to admire but a compass to trust. Their journey reminds us that belief only becomes real when it shapes decisions, priorities and behaviour.
Faith that remains safely stored in our heads or confined to an hour on Sunday has little power. Faith that is allowed to guide daily life becomes a transformative force.
Gordon Wilson understood this. He didn’t deny evil or pretend that suffering was less than it was. He allowed faith to give him a direction when the natural instinct would have been revenge. That decision became a quiet epiphany for many. People saw, perhaps for the first time, what the light of Christ looks like when it enters deep human pain. It looks like dignity instead of hatred. It looks like courage instead of despair. It looks like hope that refuses to die.
Forgiveness didn’t erase Gordon Wilson’s grief and faith didn’t remove his pain or ease the loss that he felt for his daughter. What it did do was prevent suffering from turning into bitterness. It broke the cycle of violence and showed how faith, when lived rather than spoken about, can change the direction of a life and even soften the heart of a wounded world.
The Gospel ends by telling us that the Magi returned home by a different route. Encountering Christ changed their direction. True faith always does. It doesn’t leave us where it finds us. It reshapes how we speak, how we listen, how we judge less quickly and forgive more freely. It nudges us towards choices that slowly make the world a better place.
The Feast of the Epiphany doesn’t ask for heroic gestures or extraordinary holiness. It asks for attentiveness and courage and a willingness to search for the light in the midst of ordinary lives marked by struggle, uncertainty and longing.
Choosing to follow that light means trusting Christ enough to let him influence real decisions: how we respond to hurt, how we treat those who differ from us, how we carry pain without letting it harden our hearts. Faith lived this way becomes a gift to the world.
So, as we celebrate this Feast of the Epiphany, what might the Holy Spirit be asking of us today? Which light are we choosing to follow right now? Where is Christ asking for greater trust, deeper compassion or a more generous heart? Like Gordon Wilson, how might our response to life’s challenges become an epiphany of hope for someone else?
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Please consider praying a decade of the rosary on a daily basis for the evangelising Mission of the Church and the Pope’s intentions.
The pope’s prayer intention for January is: For Prayer With The Word Of God
Let us pray that praying with the Word of God be nourishment for our lives and a source of hope in our communities, helping us build a more fraternal and missionary Church.
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Blessed Pauline Jaricot, Pray for us. 🙏🏼🙏🏼
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