The Desire for God
The Wise Men and the Star (Matthew 2:1-12)
The Wise Men and the star represent an
archetypal search for existential meaning, for the fullness of life. It is the search
for Truth as understanding, order, harmony, love, and relationship. This
research is characterized by three stages: 1) The Wise Men's place of origin,
the East; 2) The star; 3) Adoration.
1) The Wise Men's place of origin, the East
The Wise Men come came from the east, the place
where the sun rises. The east evokes enlightenment and beginning.
Illumination. On a deeply symbolic level, the rising sun
dispels the darkness of chaos, confusion, disorientation. The word
"orientate" comes precisely from "east/orient". The light
of the rising sun makes it possible to distinguish what appeared indistinct,
con-fused in the darkness. With the light, I can resume the journey, the goal
appears clear and visible again. The light, the illumination, shows my place in
the universe, which is no longer shapeless chaos but appears for what it is:
order, harmony, and Love. Enlightenment is the understanding of the Truth; it
is wisdom.
Illumination occurs when the objectivity of
Truth (which is Love ["God is Love" 1Jn 4:8,16 NABRE; "God is
Light" 1Jn 1:5 NABRE]) meets and is welcomed by the free subjectivity of
man. Truth is intimately nuptial as a fruitful relationship between two
individual subjects, and nuptiality is deeply connected with Truth as it is Love,
a gift of self.
The East is the place where the light rises as the
cradle of civilization. Israel possesses the historical awareness of being
between two great poles of civilization, one in the east (Mesopotamia) and one
in the west (Egypt). The Wise Men came from Mesopotamia, and the holy family
flees to Egypt. It is the movement of the sun. Christ is recognized first by
the East and then welcomed by the West. The Wise Men are the custodians and
the culminating point of millennia of searching for the Truth and receiving the
motions of the Spirit from the East.
All this tells us that Christ is the Light
("I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except
through me" Jn 14:6 NABRE). Without him, there is no illumination. The
light of the East leads to Christ, and it is Christ Himself who attracts to Himself.
In the Gospel of Matthew, immediately after the Beatitudes, the reader
is "overwhelmed" by an extraordinary powerful phrase: "You are
the light of the world" (Mt 5:14 NABRE). We only find this affirmation in
the First Gospel. It’s a call to become who one is, to take charge of one's own
identity, to let oneself be involved in the only adventure worthy of man: to
assume the Kingdom, to internalize it, to live it, to expand it, to communicate
it. This is the Church and the Christian’s mission.[2]
The symbol of light also designates the eschatological community's
identity and mission: "light of the world" (Mt 5:13-16 NABRE). The
disciples possess an identity relative to that of Christ, and they are called
to influence their current cultures, to introduce the promoting horizon of the
Kingdom, but they will succeed to the extent that they are willing to have a
personal relationship with Christ. The concluding text of the First Gospel, the
missionary mandate of the Risen One (Mt 28:16-20), will reveal to us that the
Church's mission is Christ's mission and that discipleship is a complex
operation, which includes the predisposition aroused by the Spirit, conversion,
and the Christian journey aided by teaching. Finally, the Risen One places
extreme trust in the communicative abilities of the disciples who, assisted by
the Holy Spirit, are called to invest all their energies, their creativity, to share
the Word of Jesus.[3]
Beginning. East also refers to everything that is
initial, dawn, origin, birth, rising and the resurrection, life, and tradition,
that which comes from the past.
The Wise Men are the initiators of this quest.
The seed, the generative point comes from the East. As partakers in the origin,
they know the time of the Messiah's birth, and they know that he was born in
Judea. Herod will have to ask the scholars of Israel, the experts of the Holy
Scriptures, to learn the "King of the Jews" exact place of birth. The
East, being the dimension of the beginning, is essentially ecstatic (ex-stasis),
centrifugal, it sends you back to something other than yourself, it takes you
out of yourself to meet the One who is the Centre of the universe and of yourself.
This is in fact the origin trajectory: it is made to overcome itself, to go
out, to go beyond. The Wise Men came from the East to meet Christ, and they were
the first to do so. They show the way.
The beginning refers to the past, to tradition.
In traditional cultures, as is partly also the Biblical culture is in part,
what is at the beginning is more important, virtuous, and truthful than what
comes after. Therefore, tradition is the central value in these cultures. The
basic idea is that the ancestors received the fullness of truth and virtues
(generally from the gods). Subsequently, as generations pass, this fullness is
progressively lost because no generation can transmit to the next one the
totality of what it has received.
But in the gospel of Matthew, we see a radical change.
Christ, the One who is represented by the star, and who is to be worshipped (He
is God), is born neither in the east nor in the west, but in the middle, in
Judea, in Bethlehem. Here there is a significant break in the traditional
pattern. Not everything had already been given to the ancestors. Indeed, this
is the establishment of a new model. Tradition is no longer seen as an initial
fullness that is progressively degraded, but as anticipation, a promise, a
deposit, a preparation for the fullness that must take place. If we want to
render the two concepts graphically, we could say that the first model (the
traditional one) has an initial point of origin, with an arrow that moves away
from this point and that loses consistency as time goes on (generational
transmission). The new model (that of Matthew and of the New Testament in
general), on the other hand, presents a point in the centre, which is the place
of convergence of the arrow of the past and is at the same time the point of
divergence of the arrow of the future. Everything tends towards and departs
from the Centre which is Christ. (The Old Testament stands between these two
perspectives. The past is important, but God continues to act, creates novelty,
and transmits Revelation even in the present. Furthermore, the expectation of a
future fulfilment appears more and more).
The Wise Men represent the beginning of every
spiritual quest, the first step towards fullness, the difference between zero
and one. They bring something new into the world, and this causes confusion:
"When King Herod heard this, he was greatly troubled, and all Jerusalem
with him" (Mt 2:3 NABRE). Each novelty disrupts the established order. The
new bursts into history.
Christ is the model of all novelty, and no
novelty can exist except in Him. It may be objected that not all newness is
positive, and therefore not all are in Christ. In reality, evil doesn’t produce
authentic novelties, it merely re-proposes the same models of evil. Christ is an authentic novelty, and if a novelty is authentic, it is in Christ. Let us
think, for example, of the novelties brought by Christianity: the prohibition
of divorce; the recognition of the dignity of every human person, the
necessity, consequently, of proclaiming the Gospel to all and the crisis of
slavery; the value of celibacy for the Kingdom of Heaven; modern hospitals, universities,
and banks; the social doctrine of the Church; the scientific method;
technological progress; explorations; etc. All this has been (and more will be)
possible because the tradition is seen in a Christological way, that is, as a
reference to a fullness that has already been given (the birth, death, and
Resurrection of Christ), and at the same time as the preparation of a fullness
which will come to fulfilment in the future.
The Wise Men teach us to recognize novelty. They are “detectors” of change, explorers of the desire for infinity that resides in the heart of man.
The Wise Men represent man's search for Truth,
peace, and fulfilment. The object of their desire is the star. They perceive
that that particular star, with very distinctive characteristics, can lead them
to the realization they are looking for. They also have a name for the reality
represented by the star: it is the newborn King of the Jews, the one they are
called to worship.
But what does the star symbolize?
The star, besides being a celestial phenomenon, also has a strong symbolic meaning. Let us start with the etymology. The term "star" comes from the Proto-Germanic sternan, and is related to the Indo-European root ster/str.
The root str indicates something similar to the lights that cross, are spread out/scattered/spread across the sky. Underlying this is the idea of scattering, spreading out. Words such as the Latin sterno/sternere ("to scatter"), the Greek stornymi ("to spread out, distend"), astrum (Latin for "star"), stratos (Greek for "scattered on the battlefield, troops"), and strategos (Greek for "one who leads the troops, strategist") originated from this root. The words "star" and "strategy" derive from the same root: just as the stars are scattered across the sky, the troops must be spread out with the same order and harmony on the battlefield.[4]
The star sighted and followed by the Wise Men, therefore, evokes order, harmony, strategy. The star guides them to the One who is the very Centre of cosmic/universal order and harmony. Therefore, that child King of the Jews is worthy of adoration, He is the Face of God Himself. The star indicates strategy and requires strategy in order to be followed. The Wise Men get information from Herod, a great strategist, politician, and skilled military commander. But they also play their own strategy.
If we want to delve a little more into the meaning of the star, we can refer to the origin of the word "desire". In her book Single, a suspended life, Ivana Quadrelli, speaks about desire in these terms:
"Human beings strive towards a
fullness that is 'always sought and never fully achieved”[5]. (...) Man discovers that his desires are 'the
always partial and inexorably unsatisfied expression of a more fundamental
desire, whose object escapes us.”[6] A desire for something to which we do not
know how to name. The word desire, desiderium, is linked, according to
Latin writers, to the term siderea, meaning of the stars.[7] One desires things because they are a trace
of the infinite, i.e., 'of the stars'[8]. In every human being, there is a desire to
realise a perfect love in which they can abandon themselves totally: at the
origin of this desire is, in the unconscious, the desire for God. It is a
'thirst of the soul' (...) everyone who wants to obtain something is in the
throes of desire: desire itself is the thirst of the soul. And note how many
desires are aroused in the hearts of men.[9]
Christ reveals to us the end that attracts us and for which the soul yearns.
Being created ad imago Dei, in the image of God (Gen 1:27), we are
created for love. The desire for the stars, for the Other (divine), is realised
through the other, the spouse, with tangible acts. Therein lies “the desire to
love and be loved and the propensity to self-transcend, upwards, towards the
Absolute.”[10] It is a force inscribed in us that
characterises our whole being at its very roots." [11]
Our desire for absoluteness, fullness,
fulfilment leads us to look upwards, towards the sky. After all, what is it we
desire? What do our many desires have in common? We crave food, deep
relationships, to love and be loved, the infinite, God. We crave what feeds us.
And we desire what nourishes us because we have inscribed within us the code of
fullness. We are made to strive towards self-fulfilment. The stars (de-sidera)
indicate both desire and fulfilment, the path, and the goal. In fact, there can
be no path without a purpose, and no purpose without a path. The former would
be wandering without meaning, without direction; and the latter would be
unattainable, and a purpose that is unattainable ceases to be a purpose. So,
the stars, with their shining and pulsating, become a symbol of something at
once distant and near, a symbol of contemplation and action, food, and fulfilment.
If we were not inhabited by desire, in all its forms, we would not be driven to
nourishment, and without food, there is no fulfilment. It is easy from here to
arrive at the Eucharist, food for the fullness of every human being. The stars
evoke true food, the bread from heaven. But we could go even further. If the
word "desire" comes from the stars, as a symbol of fullness, and
fullness refers to the act of nourishment (because we desire what we are
nourished with, and what we are nourished with becomes an object of desire),
what is the deeper meaning of nourishment? When I feed on something, I
assimilate the object within me, I make it part of me, and I make it a subject because I am a subject as a unique and unrepeatable individual. This means that
the desire for the stars is an eminently individual act. We all desire the same
things, but each one desires in a unique way. The desire for the infinite is
then also expressed as a desire for uniqueness, for individuation. And this is
God's desire. Yes, God also desires because God is Love. And love is the
pinnacle of desire. God desires my individuality, your individuality. He has
created us unique so that we express our uniqueness. And uniqueness is
expressed in desire, in letting ourselves be surrounded by the light of the
stars.
Desire, also from the Indo-European root means sid, "to bind oneself to the light, to be successful, to fulfil oneself, to reach perfection". From this, derives the Latin sidus/sideris, "stars, constellation", and de-siderium, "desire, what descends/is detached from (de) the stars (sidus)". Other related terms are, in Sanskrit, sidh, "to teach the way", and Siddhartha, "he who has achieved his purpose"; and the Latin considero/considerare, “to be in tune with (con) the starry sky (sidus)”.[12]
The Wise Men, in following the star, are not
only in search of the universal order and the principle of this order, given by
the Child, and they do it strategically (note the theme of spiritual warfare);
they are attracted to the star, it catalyses their desire for personal fulfilment,
total enlightenment, existential perfection. The star shows them the way.
3) Adoration
The Wise Men's destination is the place indicated by the star: "and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves (“fell down” in Greek) and did him homage (“adored/worshipped him” in Greek)" (Mt 2:11 NABRE). The baby and his mother are in a house. Adoration takes place there. This is the real temple. The temple in Jerusalem is like a subsidiary of this place. God is not in the palace, nor in the temple; He is in the house, He is the Child next to his mother. It’s a familiar, homely, nuptial scene, and at the same time is archetypal, primordial, suggestive, evocative, and powerful. Christ is in the house of man, in the family, in the places where we meet and give ourselves for one another.
The Greek term used for house is oikia
(from oikos). The Greek root oik- (including oikonomia, “house
law, economy”) is related to the Latin vis-/vic- (visitare, vicus,
“where one enters, street”, vicinus, “which is from the same village”, viculus,
“hamlet, alley”) and the Sanskrit vis- ves- (vis, “to go inside,
enter”, vesa, “house, farm”, visa, “community, tribe”). The
common root is given by the Indo-European vis, “to separate from and
bond with, to enter, pervade, live in community”.[13]
The house is the space where one enters to create community, it is the place
where one separates oneself from everything that prevents living together
(selfishness) and we access the sphere of common bonds, we allow ourselves to
be pervaded by the presence of the other. In the home, we are transformed by the
power of communion (koinonia). It’s the space of giving and receiving,
and of for-giveness. It is there that we lower our defences, show ourselves
vulnerable, bandage our wounds, regain our strength, nourish ourselves, and
weave the web of relationships. God is present in the house, in the common
space where the community is built in communion.
The Wise Men enter the house, see the child with his mother, fall to their knees and worship. The Greek verb pi'pto means "to fall, plummet", and belongs to the same family of petomai, "to rise ". The use of this term evokes the image of the Wise Men who are overwhelmed by the emotion and the awareness of finding themselves face to face with the One they have so desired, and for whom they have been preparing for so long. They lose all track of time; there is only the here and now. This is the central point of their life. Everything they have lived up to now was a preparation for this moment, and what they will experience from now on will be the consequence. Their existence and their identity are irremediably marked by this meeting. They can no longer be the same. They fall, precipitate, they no longer have certainties, knowledge, social status, power, experiences. Everything is renewed. The old man dies to make room for the new. Only by falling can we rise. And they fall/rise to adore.
But what does it mean to adore? The
Greek word is proskyne’o, made up of pros ("go
towards") and kyneo ("kiss", perhaps from kyon,
"dog", like a dog that licks his master's hand), "approach to
kiss". The Latin adorare refers to the same idea: ad (“to go
towards”) and os (“mouth”), “to bring to the mouth”. It probably refers
to the act of bringing the hand to the mouth to kiss the statue of the deity,
or to kiss the floor in front of the statue as a sign of reverence. Adoration, therefore, has to do with kissing. The kiss expresses a fundamental human
dimension, the act of eating. On a deeply symbolic level, in fact, the kiss
functions as a symbol of nutrition. By kissing the other person, I
"introject" them symbolically, I assume/assimilate them, I make them
part of me. The mother tells the child that she eats him with kisses.
The term "adoration" refers to the relationship with the divine or with a substitute for it. To adore means to feed on the object of adoration. In adoration, I feed on God. We are adoring beings; we cannot help but adore something or someone. We can worship God, or a person, an ideology, the state, or ourselves ("narcissism" comes from the myth of Narcissus as a clear example of substitutionary and dysfunctional worship. The young Narcissus falls in love with the image of himself reflected in a mirror of water and, in an attempt to kiss [to feed on/adore] the image [himself], he drowns in the lake).
In this house (communion) the Wise Men
fall/rise (open to the transcendent) and adore, feed on the
presence of God in the Child with his mother. The star led them to the
house/temple, the search ends, and a new journey begins. We live between the path
and the house, between walking through the world and the communion withdrawn
from the world. Our thirst for the infinite (desire, the star) pushes us to
seek new horizons, to explore new territories. The house is the nuptial centre
of the journey. There you find God with His mother. There you feed on real food
and drink real drink. You fall, plummet to rise and go out of yourself to find
the authentic you. In front of you, you don’t find your image, but the image of
Christ, Son of Man and Son of God, a true icon of the Father in the Spirit. In front
of this image, you see yourself for who you are and who you can be. And you are
no longer the same. The house welcomes you but also invites you to go out onto
the path and announce the transformation that awaits all who are humble and willing.
[1] Mauro Meruzzi, "You are the
light of the world", 53
[2]
Mauro Meruzzi, "You are the
light of the world" (Mt 5,14). The Mission of Christ and the Christian
starting from the Symbol of Light in the Gospel of Matthew, Assisi, Cittadella,
13.
[3]
Mauro Meruzzi, "You
are the light of the world. "17
[4]
Cf. Franco Rendich, Comparative
Etymological Dictionary of Classical Indo-European Languages, Rome 2010, 481.
[5] L. MELINA, J. NORIEGA, Domanda sul bene, domanda su Dio, PUL
Mursia 1999, 92.
[6] “linguaggio sacrale degli oracoli di augurio, in cui si ricercava
ansiosamente nelle stelle un segno, che garantisse il compimento di ciò che il
cuore spera.” L. MELINA, J. NORIEGA,
op. cit., 93.
[7] Ibidem. “Sidèreo agg. [dal lat. sidereus, der. di sidus -dĕris ‘stella’].
– 1. Delle stelle, stellare; la luce” https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/sidereo/
[8] L. MELINA, J. NORIEGA, op. cit., 93
[9] SANT’AGOSTINO, Enarrationes in psalmos, 62,5. in L. MELINA, J. NORIEGA, 92.
[10] C. ROCCHETTA, Viaggio nella Tenerezza Nuziale, Per
ri-innamorarsi ogni giorno. Edizioni Devoniane Bologna, 2003,76.
[12] Cf. Franco Rendich, LVI, 464.
[13] Cf. Franco Rendich, 408.
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