Epiphany of the Lord

Epiphany means manifestation. The Western Church gathers on this solemnity the revelation of the incarnate Son to the nations, represented by the magi who come from the East, bow down, and offer gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Gold confesses a king, frankincense a God, myrrh the man who will die. Matthew does not call them kings, and he does not number them as three. The three gifts later suggested three figures, and tradition gave them the names Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. The Gospel itself is more restrained, and more vast: Gentiles kneel before a Jewish child, and the powers that fear him already plan his death.

The East has long kept January 6 as the Theophany, with the Baptism of the Lord at the center, the voice of the Father and the descent of the Spirit. The Latin Church eventually distinguished the visit of the magi, the Baptism, and the wedding at Cana as three manifestations, and placed the magi on this solemnity. The antiphon for the Magnificat at Evening Prayer II still binds the three together: today the star leads the magi, today water is made wine, today Christ is baptized in the Jordan. A Catholic who only knows the three kings misses the older breadth of the feast.

On the General Roman Calendar the solemnity is January 6, twelve days after Christmas, whether or not that date is a Sunday. In the United States the bishops, with Roman approval, transfer it to the Sunday that falls between January 2 and January 8. The same is true in many other countries. The reason is pastoral: a solemnity of the Lord was being passed over when it fell on a weekday. The transfer does not abolish January 6. It means that, in those dioceses, the Mass of the Epiphany is celebrated on that Sunday, and January 6 itself remains a day of Christmas Time unless it is the Sunday. Optional memorials of the local calendar may then be kept on the weekday. The page you are reading stays on January 6 because that is the traditional and universal date. The Sunday in a given year is a matter for the diocesan ordo, not for a second evergreen URL.

When January 6 is itself a Sunday, every Latin diocese celebrates the Epiphany that day, and the Baptism of the Lord moves to the following Sunday. When the Epiphany is kept on January 7 or 8, the Baptism of the Lord is observed on the next Monday. The season does not end at the magi. It ends at the Baptism, when the voice from heaven identifies the Son and Christmas Time gives way to Ordinary Time.

The readings of the solemnity are stable: Isaiah 60, “Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem”; Ephesians 3, the Gentiles as coheirs; and Matthew 2, the magi, Herod, and the flight. The preface says that Christ restored our immortal nature in the mystery of the Word made flesh, and that a new star summoned the wise men.

Where the solemnity is transferred, the Sunday Mass uses these texts. The weekday of January 6, in those places, uses the Christmas weekday readings unless a memorial is taken. Blessing of homes with chalk, marking the door with the year and the letters C, M, and B — read either as the traditional names of the magi or as Christus mansionem benedicat, “may Christ bless this house” — is a devotion, not part of the required liturgy. It belongs to the feast even when the parish Mass was on Sunday.