The gifts of the Magi

Plus ca change, plus ca reste le meme.

When I was a child, my mother’s parents would speak  to each other in French when they didn’t want their grandchildren to understand what they were saying. Children are wired for language learning, so I figured out that meant something like, “The more things change, the more they stay the same,” and that I had done something good or bad that my mother used to do. 

I am repeating this column now which I first wrote for my parish, St. Thomas More Church in Baton Rouge, for Christmas in 1993 because it just fits much of what is happening in our world, country and city today.

We so badly need the gifts of unity that God offers in the birth of his son.

“One of the rewards of studying the Bible is the realization that we live revelation. The story of    Jesus’ birth tells us of the value that God places on human life and love. It is so universal that the personal story of each of us finds in it an echo and a reaffirmation. In their Nativity accounts the evangelists even left room for us to add our own stories.

“The scene of the Magi is a good example of Scripture’s invitation to make ourselves part of Jesus’ birth. If you read carefully, you will see that St. Matthew never tells us how many Magi there were. One tradition in the east holds there were 12, a whole caravan trooping across the desert on their camels. 

“But wait a minute, St. Matthew doesn’t say what they were riding either. Surely all of those crib scenes so artfully carved (out of olive wood, no less) can’t be wrong? No, not wrong, just examples of how we have inserted ourselves into the story of Christmas. Like St. Matthew, we have responded to the awesome truth of God sharing our human existence, and our imaginations have fleshed out the story line.

“Every year I buy myself a Christmas present, usually a book, and this year I was a darn good Santa Claus. If you want to understand Scripture and be entertained too, read John Shea’s “Starlight Beholding the Christmas Miracle All Year Long.” As Shea points out, “The Magi are symbolic carriers  of Christian perceptions, vehicles of Christian insights.” What we have added over centuries to the bare account of St. Matthew is a good illustration of the Christmas grace promised by the prophet Isaiah:  “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light: upon those who walked in the land of gloom, a light has shone (Is 9:1).”

“The Magi throw a light upon an area that has meaning for us this Christmas: life as a search for communion that will lessen our differences. These Wise Men are contrasted with the shepherds. Both arrive at the manger but take very different routes. The Magi are wealthy and learned. They travel far,  burdened with doubt, searching for truth. The shepherds, on the other hand, are simple and stuck in their routine life. They are troubled with ignorance and fear. 

In W. H. Auden’s Christmas Oratorio, “For the Time Being,” the Magi and the shepherds meet at the manger and bless each other’s sins as they exchange places. The Wise Men relinquish their exceptional conceit, and the shepherds their average fear. Their final words are sung together.

“Released by love from isolating wrong, Let us for love unite our various song. Each with his gift according to his kind Bringing the child his body and mind.’ ”

“United in love of the Christ child, we are connected to the song of others. The theme of communion in the Magi story is extended to racial unity by one of my favorite poets, the African American poet Langston Hughes, in his ‘Carol of the Brown King.’ ”

‘Of the three Wise Men Who came to the King, One was a brown man, So they sing....

‘Unto His humble Manger they came

And bowed their heads In Jesus’ name.

‘Three Wise Men One dark like me Part of His Nativity.’

“In Christ God united himself to mankind, and in Christ we are united, to one another. Our differences are not as great as our unity in Jesus. The Brown King knows this truth about the birth of  Christ better than anyone else.

As Shea notes, “Each age reads Scripture out of its own concerns.” We live this year (1993) in a time of NAFTA and GATT, of Arab-Israeli peace accords, of endless broken cease-fires in the former Yugoslavia, of race riots in Los Angeles, and the killing of a Japanese student in Baton Rouge. For us the Magi become warnings to search for communion, to find the child who is God’s love for us all.

Just change the year to 2021, the treaties to Cop 26 (on Climate Change, held in Glasgow), the race riots to quite a few American cities, the Japanese student to the daily murder toll in the Advocate. Plus ca change, plus ca reste le meme. But one thing also never changes, the love of God for us who was born in Bethlehem.

Father Carville is a retired priest in the Diocese of Baton Rouge and writes on current topics for The Catholic Commentator. He can be reached at johnny [email protected].