Epiphany ('Away')

Science Fiction films can be good illustrations of our most fundamental desires. The astronauts on their journeys in space revaluate persons and events from their past. Those, whom they left behind they appreciate and love more and more. Their love gets purified, they are determined to amend all their mistakes. Not space, only love connects them. What is interesting in sci-fi movies is that both the present, and in particular, the future becomes really important. There is a desire to continue.

From the series, Away, what stroke me most is the passion of the astronauts to arrive to Mars. They loved their mission to represent humankind and arrive first to the planet. Love connected earth and their destination, love, running straight through their hearts. Our entrance antiphon from Wisdom comes to mind to illustrate the ‘real fuel’ of their journey. ‘When a profound silence covered all things and night was in the middle of its course, your all-powerful Word, O Lord, bounded from heaven’s royal throne.’ For us, it is like the sight of our destination through the windows of our own spaceship, Life.

Today’s feast, Epiphany is the manifestation of Jesus’ divinity. Let us think about it with the help of our metaphor, the spaceship, and the astronauts. It is like Jesus’ own ‘space-travel’, from the Father’s love to our Redemption. He needs to arrive to our planet and renew life, in order to rescue us and make our Planet (our life) liveable and beautiful again. Our second reading connects our Lord with his origins, his Father, his departure from the heavenly abode. ‘Then the creator of all things instructed me, and he who created me fixed a place for my tent… From eternity, in the beginning, he created me, and from eternity I shall remain…’ (Ecclesiasticus 24:8-12)

Being a Christian means that we remember Jesus’ journey for us. The liturgy which we celebrate is our wonderful time-machine. A mysterious spaceship, when we can join Jesus on his journey to our salvation. Today’s feast is a wonderful moment, when through love and grace, we can join him and stand besides him at the window of his spaceship. We can remember with him the Father’s love, which sent us into this world. ‘Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all the spiritual blessings of heaven in Christ. Before the world was made, he chose us, chose us in Christ, to be holy and spotless, and to live through love in his presence, determining that we should become his adopted sons, through Jesus Christ.’ (Ephesians 1:3-6) And John’s gospel, his Logos-hymn has shown us the whole span of Jesus journey for us.

So let us think creatively, how you would think further this metaphor. If our Sunday worship is our ‘spaceship’, what happens when you touch down? What transformation of our day-to-day life can we bring in fulfilling our mission? Or like in the film, Away, whose face we cherish, which relationships we want to repair? What are our joys and hopes in our Christian journey?
 
03.01.2020