The feast of the Epiphany (7 January) celebrates the revelation of God incarnate as a vulnerable newborn baby to the Three Magi who followed the Star to Bethlehem stable.

Matthew’s gospel puts its simply:

Yet, this feast of Epiphany invites us not only to kneel at the crib with the Magi in awe and wonder, we are also invited to live with the awareness and sensitivity that open us to our everyday experiences of insight, beauty, wonder. These daily revelations of God’s presence amongst us are as natural as the dawning of each new day when our blue/green planet home turns towards the Sun and we are bathed in life giving light.

We live our lives surrounded by such miracles, and because they are so familiar, we see them simply as ordinary things!

In her poem Mindfulness, Mary Oliver draws our attention to the beautiful simplicity of “prayers that are made out of grass”.

The following are shared reflections and are also everyday experiences that have become opportunities of insight and awareness, graced moments of light:

Recently I was in the middle of a health episode and was temporarily debilitated. This has happened before and I knew all I needed to do was lie down until the dizziness passed. I closed my eyes and waited. An image of one of my favourite trees came into my mind’s eye and I imagined myself climbing into the tree with my eyes still closed. Once there my breathing slowed and I allowed the imagined energy of the tree flow through me.
When I awoke four hours later I was fully balanced and able to continue my day. This experience of allowing something to arise in me spontaneously even when in the midst of a health episode is an epiphany and I am grateful.
Margie Abbott rsm

In a moment I reflected.
Our special spider, Celanenia, a bird-dropping spider, chose to live in communion with its surrounding eco-system until it was time to give birth and then with faith in this eco-system, left for another existence, trusting the system to cradle her eggs until the circle of life began again.
This moment of grace; this miracle of one small life has been an epiphany of amazement, astonishment, wisdom and endearing love.
And all is sacred, so so sacred.
Carmel Crameri rsj

A mother Wallaby sits in the dappled morning shade, her ears pricked in alert attentiveness as her little one nuzzles its morning breakfast – a simple epiphany of nurturing. I feel the muscles of my face soften and I am present.
Elaine Smith rsj

The huge gumtree in my suburban back year, has been my companion now for 30 years. Over that time, my immersion in the work of Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme, I looked at trees very differently, particularly my companion gumtree. One day I went outside, stood beside her and said out loud. “You are my ancestor. You are my kin. We share the same origins 13.8 billion years ago. We are made from the same atoms of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen.” I cried as I gently touched her ancient, gnarly, black and brown trunk, expressing deep connection and gratitude for this moment, yes, an epiphany!”
Jennifer Callanan

At the end of each day, David Steindle Rast jots down in his notebook, one thing he has never before been grateful for and David finds the supply inexhaustible.

What a beautiful spiritual practice of reflecting each night on something familiar yet unique whose beauty and wonder has blessed our lives during our day. A gratefulness examen that offers us a doorway into a deepening awareness of the natural miracles that fill our lives with such simple and profound moments of epiphany.

Elaine Smith rsj