From the Pastor - 'The Light of the World'

A Weekly Column by Father George Rutler

From the roof of our church at 3:41 am on the Winter Solstice, I did not see many others on Murray Hill watching the lunar eclipse. The magnificent coppery red color of the moon was an effect of the Sun’s light cast from the edges of the Earth’s circumference, like all her sunrises and sunsets reflected at the same time. The last time this happened was 1638, and some of the babies I have recently baptized may see it again in 2094, if they live long enough and stay up late enough.

The Wise Men “followed a star,” of what kind we do not know. These erudite astronomers may have seen a unique event, or they may have been inspired to read a portent into some ordinary configuration. As good scientists, they followed their hypothesis until they reached their conclusion in Bethlehem: “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). Like a bad scientist, the Edomite client king Herod tried to destroy that Light because it threatened the derivative fluorescence of his own ego.

There are many Herods in our time. In his World Peace Day message, Pope Benedict XVI said: "At present, Christians are the religious group which suffers most from persecution on account of its faith." He cited attacks on Christians particularly in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Holy Land: “This situation is intolerable, since it represents an insult to God and to human dignity.”

All wise men must outwit Herod wherever he is, confident that “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). That light is celebrated on the Feast of the Epiphany. It is the feast of the Wise Men who followed the star, but it is a multi-layered feast recalling also the other “Epiphanies” or “showings” of the Light of the World in the Luminous Mysteries:  Our Lord’s Baptism, the Wedding at Cana, the Proclamation of the Kingdom, the Transfiguration, and the Institution of the Eucharist.

Pope Gregory XIII improved the Julian calendar with his own more accurate Gregorian calendar in 1582, using his own astronomers led by the Jesuit Christopher Clavius who remarkably calculated the solar year without even using decimal points. But it was the virtue of faith that enabled those men to understand the source of the light they measured. When that faith fades, creatures are worshiped instead of their Creator, as with one nouveau eclectic church in our own city which now “celebrates” the Winter Solstice.  “[T]hey supposed that either fire or wind or swift air, or the circle of the stars, or turbulent water, or the luminaries of heaven were the gods that rule the world. . . . [L]et them know how much better than these is their Lord, for the author of beauty created them” (Wisdom 13:2-3).

Fr. George W. Rutler is the pastor of the Church of our Saviour in New York City. His latest book, Coincidentally: Unserious Reflections on Trivial Connections, is available from Crossroads Publishing.