Sunday, January 14, 2007 Cariño: The gift of the Magi By Linda Grace Cariño Paradigm shift
IT USED to be that our very Catholic Philippines celebrated a Christmas holiday season that lasted all the way up to January 6th, the Feast of the Three Kings. Only after this day would the Christmas tree and trimmings come down, and only a day or two after would life return to normal, i.e., we went back to work, school, and everyday routines. These days, however, our holiday season lasts till New Year’s Day, and that’s it. “Tatlonghari” goes noticed only by a hardy few.
Gaspar, Melchor, and Balthazar are the names by which we have traditionally known these kings. In truth, however, they were not kings as kings are regularly defined. They were “wise men”, or Magi, seers said to have originated from Persia. They found Jesus in the proverbial manger by following the famous Bethlehem star. These wise men brought Jesus the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
It is from the word “magi” that the word “magick” originated, later evolving into the word we now use: magic. “Magi” was the ancient Zoroastrian term for sages, or priests, what wise men of old were considered. So the holy day of the Three Kings can’t really be a celebration of kings visiting Jesus the king of kings as it should be a celebration of their wisdom and their discerning that the babe the fatal star led them to was to be the wisest of them all?
And the greatest magi-c-ian of all. All his earthly life, Jesus lived working the workings of magic: healing the sick, making the blind see, expelling demons from the possessed, teaching contra to prevailing paradigms and liberating men’ minds.
Methinks that the greatest Gift of the Magi to the babe Jesus was the gift of magic itself, affirmed in one destined to work it and change the world.
