Today’s Feast Day is the Feast Day of the Epiphany. The great showing forth of Jesus to all nations. And certainly as we heard the gospel, the journey of the three kings helps to remind us of many things. First of all, it reminds us that the three kings are typically depicted from coming from different parts of the world. Really when I see the three kings depicted and when I read the gospel, I’m reminded of the universality of our church. That people from all over the world have heard the good news about Jesus.

The second thing that I think about when I think about the three kings is that they used science, the beauty of science, to find Jesus. They used and studied the stars and the galaxies and they were well read and well studied scientists who made their way to find the Christ child. Some people believe that science and faith are not compatible. Here in this story we find great people who studied the beauty and magnificence of science, who they themselves encountered Jesus.

And then thirdly and probably more importantly, what stays with me in my heart is that they dropped everything. They dropped everything. They said, “This is the time. This is the moment.” Through their own prayer, through their own study of science, they believed that this was the time and made that long trek to find the king. And a king they found. Not a king like they were thinking, but a king of humility, a king of salvation, a king of love and joy and generosity.

So those three things come to my mind when I think about the three kings to whom Jesus was showed forth to the world. As we think about our own journey, I wonder how we think about ourselves as followers of Jesus or disciples. How we look at our own discipleship. It’s a word that we’re using more and more often these days as reminding ourselves not only are we followers of Jesus and Christians, we could also call ourselves disciples. Ones who follow very generously Jesus.

Now we don’t have gold, frankincense and myrrh to offer, but what we do have are the three marks, what it means to be a disciple. We have the capacity to pray, we do that all the time. You do that at home, we do that at church, we do that before we go to bed, when we wake up in the morning. We have the capacity to pray. We do that very well. We have the capacity to serve. And we think about all the ways that people serve throughout our archdiocese. People are very generous in their service. And we also can share. That’s probably the one way we’ve got to work on our discipleship is by sharing our faith with others. We think that it’s personal and private. It is personal but it’s not private.

So how do you share with your grandkids or with your family members or your neighbors this powerful faith that we have in Jesus? The Magi weren’t afraid to drop everything and go. We, too, should not find fear in sharing our faith, but rather as disciples, not only pray, not only serve, but also share generously with those we’ve come to know and love and trust. In doing so, then, we are receiving the good news of Jesus and sharing it with others as his disciples.