January 6th has lost its significance in our non-liturgical, Western churches. Known as the feast of the Epiphany since ancient times, it celebrates the appearance of God to Magi and the rest of the world and sits in the transition between the 12 days of Christmastide and the 28 days of Epiphanytide—the 40 days of the full Christmas season. It is a season full of other feast days and colorful, even superstitious, activities and rituals of the ancient and medieval church. But though we see these now as curious and quaint, they held the people together in common cause and experience in ways our culture has lost. Rituals and practice repeated at the same time in the same order for lifetimes and centuries of lifetimes defines a people—not the outcomes of those actions, however spectacular. We judge our effectiveness by our accomplishments, but the spiritual life centers on what we do over and over each day, regardless of outcomes that remain outside our control.
January 6th has lost its significance in our non-liturgical, Western churches. Known as the feast of the Epiphany since ancient times, it celebrates the appearance of God to Magi and the rest of the world and sits in the transition between the 12 days of Christmastide and the 28 days of Epiphanytide—the 40 days of the full Christmas season. It is a season full of other feast days and colorful, even superstitious, activities and rituals of the ancient and medieval church. But though we see these now as curious and quaint, they held the people together in common cause and experience in ways our culture has lost. Rituals and practice repeated at the same time in the same order for lifetimes and centuries of lifetimes defines a people—not the outcomes of those actions, however spectacular. We judge our effectiveness by our accomplishments, but the spiritual life centers on what we do over and over each day, regardless of outcomes that remain outside our control.