It seems that every year, there are certain Christmas gifts that are extremely popular, and very difficult to find, for people of all ages.  We see this most often with toys and video game systems for our children and our young people.  That certain doll, or that talking fire truck, or that one particular video game is so popular, that you can only find it on E-Bay for ten times what it is supposed to retail for.  But it’s not just children’s gifts.  Did anybody else try looking for that Scooby Doo head Chia Pet?  I’m telling you, I think they only made ten of those things.  And the really hot gift this year for our Dads, was those GPS navigational systems for their cars.  How many people got their dads one of those navigational systems?  Yeah, they were very popular this year.  They came down in price a lot from last year.  It’s what my brothers and I got my Dad for Christmas.  And they are particularly hot with the retired folk.  My Dad goes like five places.  He goes from home to church, and to Kroeger, and to the bank, and to Lowe’s and Home Depot.  And he’s got to have a GPS navigational system!  Actually, hopefully, he’s using it as I speak to get to Florida.  They come in many brands, Garmin, Tom-Tom, Magellin, and many others.  I think they are also so popular with dads this year because it allows them to NOT stop and ask for directions, and still get to where they want to go.  Give a guy GPS and they’ll never get lost again.  Yeah, right!

       Today we come together to celebrate three guys who didn’t get lost and who found their way to Jesus.  These three kings, or wise men, or Magi, whatever we want to call them, didn’t make it there for the birth, but twelve days later they were led to the precise place where the infant Jesus was, with his parents.  And these guys didn’t have a GPS navigational system for their camels.  They didn’t have SUVs, and all-wheel drive, and modern highways.  These guys didn’t even have Triple AAA!  All they had was a star.  There was one big, one very bright, and one very unusual star that appeared in the sky and led them to exactly where God wanted them to be.  God lead them to Bethlehem.  If we all had giant stars in the sky leading us every where, we wouldn’t need GPS navigational systems, would we?   God took care of these guys.  And they were “wise” enough to follow Him and His lead.

        Two thousand years later, we too need help finding God in our world.  Sometimes it’s not so easy finding God and His way in the middle of everything that we have going on.  And GPS is great if you want to find the nearest hardware store.  But try asking your TOM-TOM to give you directions to find God in your life.  Ask your Garmin to help you to make a moral decision.  Ask your Magellin to show you the way to what is right and true.  Why, you’ll fry their little computer chips!  Wouldn’t it be great that if when you asked these GPS things these questions, they gave you directions to the Adoration Chapel?  That’s be cool.

But we don’t need GPS to tell us this.  We know the answer.  Jesus Himself said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life”.   We may think that the Wise Men had it easy because they had a star from God, a light leading them.  The fact of the matter is that the star was leading them to real light of the world.  We don’t need a star in the sky.  We need Jesus!  We need His morality.  We need His Truth.  We need His guidance and direction in our lives.  And we need to be “wise” enough to follow His lead, His way.  The light, the way, the directions that we seek in this life and about this life, are taken care of by God in Jesus.  Let Him be your light.  Let Him keep you from getting lost.  Let Him keep you on course and get you safely home to Heaven.   You see, like the Three Kings, we too are on a journey.  We are going some place.  We are going to Heaven or to Hell.  It’s true.  We don’t like to talk about it, but it’s true.  You can follow Jesus our Light home to Heaven.  Or, you can follow the world straight to Hell.  The choice is ours.  We have a choice every bit as much as those kings had a choice when they climbed up on those camels.  But what’s our problem?  We forget that we are on a journey.  We forget that we are going some place.  We build comfortable homes, and surround ourselves with our nice things, and we think we are going to be here forever.  We do.  It’s what we know.  But what happens on that day that they put your body into the ground?  You’d better have your directions right by that time.  This is NOT home.  We are passing through here on our way to an eternal home.  This year, let’s get the directions right.  We don’t have time to be lost.  We need to know where we are going.

May God bless us with an Epiphany on this Feast of the Epiphany!  

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit……Amen !!!

St. Maria Goretti …Pray for us !!!