Homily for the Solemnity of the Epiphany January 5, 2025

A student found a cocoon one day and brought it to his homeroom which was in the biology lab. The teacher put it into an unused aquarium with a lamp to keep the cocoon warm. About a week went by when a small opening began to appear on the underside of the cocoon. The students watched as it began to shake. Suddenly, tiny antennae emerged, followed by the head and tiny front feet. The students would run back to the lab in between classes to check on the progress of the cocoon. By lunchtime it had to struggle to free its listless wings, the colors revealing that it was a monarch butterfly. It wiggled, shook, and struggled, but now it seemed to be stuck. Try as it might, the butterfly couldn’t seem to force its body through the small opening in the cocoon.

Finally, one student decided to help the butterfly out of its difficulty. He took scissors from the table, snipped off the cocoon’s restrictive covering, and out plopped an insect-like thing. The top half looked like a butterfly with droopy wings, the bottom half, which was just out of the cocoon, was large and swollen. The butter-pillar or cater-fly never flew with its stunted wings. It just crawled around the bottom of the aquarium, dragging its wings and swollen body. Within a short time it died.

The next day the biology teacher explained that the butterfly’s struggle to get through the tiny opening was necessary in order to force the fluids from the swollen body into the wings so that they would be strong enough to fly. Without the struggle the wings never developed and the butterfly could not fly.

I refer to this story because the trip undertaken by the Magi from the East took some doing. They had to study the stars to figure out where they should go. They had to anticipate how long it would take and pack supplies accordingly. They had to be ready for a difficult journey across a forbidding desert. They had to be humble enough to ask for directions when they were lost. They had to discern what was safe and what wasn’t. And they needed grit and determination when the journey became difficult.

In the journey of the Magi, I see a parallel to the struggle of the Monarch butterfly to become fully developed. And I see a parallel to every life, including our own. And so, we have a lot of food for thought.

·      How well do we prepare for the future, especially for rainy days and times of uncertainty?

·      Do we plan ahead, so that we will have enough resources for the days ahead?

·      How determined are we? Do we try to solve problems, work through difficulties, and create a better outcome for ourselves? Or do we give up when the going gets tough?

·      In the midst of all the preparations, all we need to do to be ready, to have security, to have happiness and a bright future, do we include God in our search, or for all intents and purposes, do we ignore the role of God in our life?

·      If we see that a major adjustment is needed, and a course correction is required, are we willing to follow a detour, intent on getting to our goal, or do we just turn around and go home?

Ultimately, the struggle pays off for the fully developed Monarch butterfly. And the journey paid off for the Magi from the East. They found the new-born King and it reoriented their lives; it changed everything (they went back by another route).

In this New Year are we going to take our relationship with God seriously—searching more, listening more, praying more, coming to Church more? Do we have what it takes to struggle to become more fully human, more alive, more like what God had in mind when he called us into being? Or do we settle for a half-life, like the half-butterfly, or like those who never considered the journey to a life with God all that important?