We hang new calendars: What else needs to change, and what to remain steadfast? To prepare for the new road ahead, we have the opportunity to bless our homes on the Feast of Epiphany (7). See usccb.org for a standard Blessing of the Home and Household, or invite parish families to invent their own.

Today’s readings focus on epiphanies, occasions when the glories of the Lord are revealed. We can identify with Isaiah’s description that the earth is covered in darkness and thick clouds cover the peoples.

Have you ever seen an inviting path and started down it, even though you didn’t know where it would lead? Questions start to pop up in your mind. The way could be longer than you’re prepared for. You may not be wearing the right shoes, or have enough water with you. You don’t know when you may return—or if this path ever comes back this way at all!

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem village, Judah territory—this was during Herod’s kingship—a band of scholars arrived in Jerusalem from the East. They asked around, “Where can we find and pay homage to the newborn King of the Jews? We observed a star in the eastern sky that signaled his birth. We’re on pilgrimage to worship him.”

My brother was just 33 when he was stricken with cancer. In those days there weren’t resources like MRIs and CAT scans available. The exploratory surgeries that followed were more life threatening than the removal of the tumor itself. He was given only a 20 percent chance of surviving two years even with the heavy regime of chemotherapy and radiation that followed.

When the Hubble space telescope began beaming back never-before-seen images of stars in the making, the sheer power and glory of these dramatic and psychedelic unfoldings rendered most of us awestruck.

Whenever I hear the Christmas story told, Herod always comes across like a 2-year-old. This king of Judea is self-absorbed, jealous of anyone who might steal his spotlight, and willing to destroy anything or anyone to get his way.

For many people, the problem starts in autumn when the clocks are turned back an hour and evening darkness comes earlier. Depending on where a person lives, it is a sign that there will be precious little sunlight to enjoy until winter turns her face toward spring.

The Magi brought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Let us bring our prayers like gifts before the newborn king.

Today the Magi gaze in deep wonder at what they see: heaven on earth, earth in heaven, a human being in God, God in a human being, one whom the whole universe cannot contain now enclosed in a tiny body.