Thomas Griffin 1/5/26 (For National Catholic Register)
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Christmas has come, and now, in the light of Epiphany, its meaning continues to unfold. How do we allow the supernatural event that we celebrate to truly affect us? The shepherds and the magi, who were the closest human beings to the manger scene, can show us how.
On the night of Jesus’ birth, we are told that “there were shepherds in that region living in the fields and keeping the night watch over their flock” (Luke 2:8). As they were keeping vigilant guard to keep their flock safe from robbers and wild animals, they received the message of a lifetime. It is in their deep watchfulness that God arrives — signaling to mankind that if we don’t pay close attention in prayer we can easily miss God when he comes.
At night, the shepherds fight against their dreariness and their desire for human rest because they are more concerned with protecting their livelihood: their sheep. As Christ is born among us at Christmas, we are called to keep our eyes on the supernatural realm over the worldly one as well. The appearance of the angels shows us that the veil between God’s inbreaking and our “ordinary” lives is extremely thin — all we must do is pay attention to the inbreaking to experience it.
Thomas Griffin is the chairperson of the religion department at a Catholic high school on Long Island where he lives with his wife and children. He has a masters degree in theology and is a masters candidate in philosophy. Thomas is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Empty Tomb Project: The Magazine. He is the author of Let Us Begin: Saint Francis’s Way of Becoming Like Christ and Renewing the World.
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