Ask Dear Old Dad: Epiphany?

Dear DOD,

Why isn’t Epiphany a transferable feast?

Anonymous

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Dear Anonymous,

First of all, a transferable feast is a celebration assigned to a specific calendar date that can be moved on the Christian or liturgical calendar. For instance, when the date of the feast of a major saint like Saint Paul, January 25, falls on a Sunday, it is moved to Monday. This is because Sundays are always a Feast of Our Lord and always take precedence.

The Feast of the Epiphany celebrates the manifestation of the Son of God to the larger gentile world, represented by the visitation of the three Magi from the “east.”

But you might say that Epiphany is a Feast of Our Lord. So, what's the difference?

My first flip answer is: because of liturgical inertia.

My second flip answer is: because of the rigidities that, throughout history, the framers of the liturgical calendar invested in their “incarnational cycle” in the Christian/liturgical year.

This incarnational cycle includes Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany (the day and the season). This cycle celebrates the mystery of God‘s love in becoming One-with-Us (Emmanuel) as a human being in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

Now, most experts believe that the birth of Jesus occurred in the spring; some say March, others say April. We’ll never really know.

The celebration of the birth of Jesus was, according to many historians, arbitrarily assigned to December 25 by the Roman Emperor Constantine in 336 CE, to supersede the popular Roman winter solstice festival of Saturnalia. (December 25 was also nine months after March 25, the Roman date of the spring solstice, which was also arbitrarily assigned as the date that the Angel announced to Mary that she would bear the Holy Child.) Saturnalia was a popular multi-day Roman year-end festival of wine, women and song. The “12 days” (December 25 being the first day) were put in place to synchronize the Roman calendar to the astronomical rhythms, not unlike the adjustment of leap years.

January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany, was the day immediately following the Christmas festival and marked the arrival of the three gift-bearing wise visitors from the “east,” whose trip to Bethlehem would have taken weeks, if not months. Their arrival celebrated that Jesus was a gift not just to Jews but to the whole world. And to this day, many Orthodox Christians exchange their “Christmas” gifts on January 6.

So, is Epiphany stuck on January 6 forever? Probably not. Some Christian traditions not so rooted in history and tradition have already moved the celebration of Epiphany to a Sunday close to January 6.

The increasingly popular mashup of All Saints Day, All Souls Day, Halloween, and Dia de Los Muertos now includes not only the fixed days of November 1 & 2 but also a close-by Sunday.

This suggests that changes are possible for Epiphany as well.

And there are always those who say, “We’ve never done it that way.” Ah, liturgical inertia!

Hope this helps,

Dear Old Dad (DOD)

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