Epiphany

For Epiphany, Times of Malta publishes Fr René Camilleri's "The Epiphany of the Lord: Inner guidance" that states:

"There is a common ground between believers, agnostics, atheists and those who consider themselves devotees of one specific religious tradition. In some way or other, they all want to find the key to an amplified inner life that has purpose and meaning."

Camilleri refers to Thomas Moore's writing when he stresses the need for a personal approach and not just a formal approach to find this key:

"There are mysteries that permeate our lives and unless we learn to pay attention to the inner guidance, unless we learn to authentically listen to our life, religion will fail to fill those gaps between the spiritual and the secular. Psychotherapist and author Thomas Moore, in his book A Religion of One’s Own, writes how 'we don’t seem to appreciate how deeply we are affected by changes in science, technology and culture.' 

The feast of the Epiphany we celebrate today points to the fact that formal religion by itself takes us nowhere and can just leave us lost in a fast-changing world. Personal religion is a requirement and it is different from formal religion. This is what the wise men coming from the East possessed, in contrast to the formal religion of the people of Jerusalem which failed to make them grasp what was really happening just round the corner."

Readings: Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:2-3, 5-6; Matthew 2:1-12.