Breakfast Epiphanies

Happy Epiphany! Or maybe - Happy Epiphany Day! Or Merry Epiphany! Or:

JOY TO THE WORLD, THE LORD IS COME!

Anyway, today is January 6, which is the Twelfth Day of Christmas, aka Twelfth Night, aka the Feast of Epiphany. I had never heard of the Epiphany until I was in college, when my mom found herself in a sudden bout of nostalgia. Apparently, her Catholic family celebrated the feast every year, and made it quite the occasion. She hatched a plan to invite all of her post-childhood atheist, Jewish, and lapsed vari-Christian friends to an Epiphany brunch. I insisted she call it “Breakfast Epiphanies”. Alas, the party never happened, for some reason that escapes me. The end result, though, is that I have never been able to look at a calendar that reads “January 6″ without the knee-jerk reaction of “Hey! Epiphany!”. It’s similar to my reaction on January 8, except that one goes “Hey! Elvis’s birthday!” even though I am a straight-up Beatles girl.

This year, I thought I would read up on the actual meaning of the occasion instead of kicking myself for not organizing a party that would enable me to use that wicked-cool theme. I checked the Wiki, which told me that the Epiphany is

a Christian feast intended to celebrate the ’shining forth’ or revelation of God to mankind in human form, in the person of Jesus. The observance had its origins in the eastern Christian churches, and included the birth of Jesus; the visit of the Magi, or Wise Men (traditionally named Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar) who arrived in Bethlehem; and all of Jesus’ childhood events, up to his baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist.

Basically, this seems to be an extension of the celebration of Christ’s birth, except that it hasn’t been co-opted by large corporations trying to manipulate us into buying Stuff™ for Loved Ones and Those to Whom We Are Socially Obligated. I’ll raise my mimosa to that!

Amen.

Filed under Anecdotes, Miscellaneous

1 Response So Far
  1. 1

    Washburn said,

    January 8, 2007 @ 7:22 pm

    Neat post; I wish I’d read it a couple days ago. Cheers from this pretty well lapsed Catholic!

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