There are several exciting ideas and Christian observations which come out from the 1st Sunday in Epiphanytide.

Epiphany/Theophany completes the Christmas event when we commemorate the journey of the Three Wise Men to seek out the Christ Child, to pay Him homage and to worship Him. We spend time before the manger scene throughout this holy season and try to grasp how we can meaningfully bring that cradle into the midst of our homes and employment, how we can be lighted candles before others. We consider how Jesus makes Himself clear so as to be identified, recognized, manifested, understood...... Human instinct connects this newborn to ourselves and to the entirely other, the God-Savior of all creation.

Little Christmas invites our mystical apperception of this wondrous event that can transform lives. Like those Magi, we too are on a pilgrimage but our path is so often diverted by the hungers and meanness of our carnal lives. Our continual turning in prayer, our recitation of the divine office, a culturing of friendships with folk who serve, who seek peace and pursue it, can give our year's purpose and fulfillment. The world plays to the audience; the devotee is to ply ones crafts and to wait upon the Almighty.

We also fix our attention on the Baptism of Jesus and how that differs from, yet complements, our sole Christian baptism in faith, with water, and in the Name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. (cf. Mark 1:9-11). John the Baptizer stood for moral quality which was to be openly professed by his baptism and Our Lord empathized with this. As Christ relates to human action, the world, the sky, opens before us and we sense the Divine Voice or the motion of God's direction for our lives.

This is a season that emphasizes peace. Peace-making, caring, loving - beginning with respect for all others, especially those who differ from us in religion, colour, language, politics, economics, education, culture.......

We have more in common with many of those people whom Jesus said He loves than with some calloused religionists of our own association who cocoon themselves in smug self-righteousness. Knowing Christ requires not only our confession of His formal Patronage, a social freedom of expression, esthetics .......but our lifestyle that is to emulate his teaching.

This includes fraternity with those who seek God but who may not be impressed by our presentation of the theology of Christ nor by Christian's behavior.

Water, our basic organic constituent, and a symbolic drowning in it (by those who are immersed in Holy Baptism), figures largely in Epiphanytide. Holy Water is blessed for the faithful to take home and it is a season of house blessings - ask your priests. Just as Jesus entered our world at Bethlehem's nativity, so in Christian belief along with Baptism, we enter His Church - not only into an institutional part of it but we are thereby incorporated into the Mystical Body of Christ which is an indelible mark of union with Jesus. Membership into Christ's one holy Catholic apostolic (evangelical and orthodox) Church is larger than any denomination or congregation to which we are worthily attached - and we should be attached to a lively community so as to worship with others, witness to Christian faith, and to network skills and charity in fellowship.

On December 28, Calendars note Childermas, Holy Innocents Day, when history records how King Herod, in his jealousy tried to murder all infants for fear that if Jesus was not killed, He could grow up to take over his tiny realm - as if the Kingship of Christ (celebrated on the Sunday next before Advent I) could be construed as a material domain versus sovereignty over all of creation eternally! The little ones and their nurture into faith is our greatest natural resource management - not oil gas and water.

New Year's Day for centuries has been thought of as a day of the big headache. Hence, Mother Church has only in later centuries provided reverential observances. All of us think of 2002 as time for a new start and we need to be thankful for our lives restorations, amendments and blessings! January 1, is still the octave (8 days) after Christmas. Churches have observed the Jewish event recorded in Luke's Gospel, chap.2, v.21, but in 1969, the Roman Obedience initiated the Solemnity of Holy Mary, Mother of God. It does seem to be a thoughtful resolution of the Marian cycle of reverence to Jesus Mother that, together with Sunday Epiphany I, they have been keeping as Feast of the Holy Family. In the cramped number of days on the Calendar, I think this is wrapped into one gift since it is so integious with the manger family scene and story.

Several different days during this limited period were selected periodically by the Roman or do for Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus but tragically, the Vatican suppressed it in 1969. Old Catholics generally join Sarum-minded Anglicans by observance of The Holy Name of Jesus on August 7 yearly. When we consider the tremendous impact Jesus Name expressed in Holy Scripture, how His Name touched the early Church Fathers and the Franciscan movement's insistence, it seems imperative that we celebrate the Holy Name of Jesus. Whenever we hear Jesus Name, we bow our heads in adoration wherever we are.

So many pagans diabolically swear his Name so this is the least reparation we can offer Him for the common use of Jesus Name indicates a hidden but overwhelming power! I oblige myself to add that effective churchmanship does not consist merely of appearing at Eucharist to acknowledge special mass commemorations on church Calendars.

Only insofar as we are each able to absorb a spiritual osmosis that inundates our lives with His Holy presence will we become illuminated, changed, renewed..... by Christ's Incarnation within our very selves. Then, Theophany/Epiphany will be able to show us Who Jesus is!

Faithfully yours, Father Al Hyndman