today is feast of the 3 kings

NOTE: this is a very christian post so if you are a christian, you might know all these already, so don’t read. OTOH if you are a non christian, you might not be interested, so don’t read. huh? then nobody woukd be reading it! heh. never mind lah. better read my post on ‘epiphany’ than google for it to read, as my post would be more interesting (ahem!) what with me throwing in my personal view, as the one you found googling will be too deep or too ‘technical’.

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today is the 12th day of christmas – the last day of the christmas season. no, nobody sent me 12 drummers drumming or 11 pipers piping nor even a patridge in a pear tree. 🙁

in the church, today is known as EPIPHANY or in simple lay person term the ‘feast of the three kings’. epiphany btw, is a greek word that means ‘manifestation’. or to put it in a simpler form for you to understand, it also means ‘to appear’. if you are in the mood for some long-winded with big words explanation of epiphany, look up the catholic encyclopedia.

ok i know. 25 dec plus 12 days would be 6 jan, which means yesterday. so the 12th day should be on 6 jan. yes, by right, it should be of course, but for us catholics we celebrate epiphany (last day of the christmas season) on a sunday that is between 2 jan to 8 jan, which for this year is today, 7 jan.

i remember as a kid, i find difficulty in pronouncing ‘epiphany’. used to pronounce it as ‘e-pi-funny’, thus i remember it as a something funny feast. haha. now i know how to pronounce it but i have problem spelling it! couldn’t remember where the ‘h’ goes. thought it was after the first ‘p’, then thought that maybe there are two ‘h’ after the two ‘p’.

now instead of the three kings, sometimes they are also known as the three wise men or the magi. sometimes they are known as the astrologers too. why, i don’t know. even as a christian i am confused over all these different names. were they kings? were they wise men? were they astrologers? were they wise kings who also dabbled in astrology? see, everything covered. oh but what about magi? (not to be mistakenly pronounce as your fast-to-cook, nice-to-eat maggi mee). no fear, look up wikipedia for the meaning of magi!

whatever they are known as doesn’t matter. i prefer to refer to them as the three wise men anyway. oh, do you know the names of these three wise men? (seen in the pic here). they were caspar (not to be mistaken as casper, the cute friendly ghost), melchior and balthasa – good names to name your new-born son eh.

if you notice on some christmas cards, these 3 wise men are shown traveling on camels, looking up at a star. it was said that this star leads them to the baby jesus. that’s why you see the symbol of the star features prominently during christmas. it is usually use as decoration on top of christmas tree or on top of a crib. priests/preachers also like to use the star in their homily e.g.” We should seek tne stars that lead us to jesus” or “have you found the star yet?”

the following is one of the many reflection found on the net, in this case at we believe web:

The astrologers, or Magi, represent all the peoples of the world. They had to make an effort to find Jesus. Even after seeing the star, they had to make a long journey before finding the Savior of the world. How are you like the Magi? Do you have “stars” in your life that lead you on the right path to Jesus? Who or what are they?

Sometimes on long journeys, we are tempted to turn back. What keeps you on the road to Jesus?

It has been said that the star is a symbol of faith. How can your faith be a “star” for others this week? How can it light the way?

when the 3 wise men found jesus, they offered him gifts. the gifts that each one of them offered sound interesting. gold, frankincense and myrh – giffts fit for a king as they believe jesus is king and son of god. gold everybody knows what it is but frankincense and myrh are not so familiar names. they are both some kind of perfume.

on today, the feast of the epiphany of our lord (the proper ‘official’ name), we celebrate that day when jesus, our light, was first revealed to the three wise men, the early nations of israel. just as the light (light of the star) shines forth so that we may see in the darkness, our faith in jesus shines forth in us.