Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles celebrated the feast day of The Epiphany of the Lord, which is celebrated on the first Sunday of the New Year when the church remembers the first manifestation of Jesus Christ to the wise men. 

The wise men were also known as Magi, and traveled from far away to pay homage to the Christ child, after tradition holds that they tracked a star which led them to where the messiah was. 

"My brothers and sisters, today we celebrate the solemn Feast of the Epiphany," Gomez tweeted. "The day our Lord Jesus Christ was manifested – the day he was revealed as the Savior of Israel and the nations and the peoples of the whole world.”

“While we don’t really know much about the Magi, but the point of this beautiful solemnity is that they were the first Gentiles – the first people outside of the Jewish faith to worship Jesus.”

“In the Magi – who comes to pay homage to Jesus – the pilgrimage of all peoples to God begins,” Gomez tweeted.

This year, the feast of the Epiphany was celebrated on Jan. 2. 

According to Learn Religions, “Around the time of Jesus’s birth, Herod heard that a ‘king of the Jews’ had been born. Wise Men from the East were traveling to Jesus to honor him, and Herod called the Wise Men before him and instructed them to come back and tell him Jesus’s location. Herod told the Wise Men he wanted to visit Jesus so that he, too, could honor him, but the Wise Men were warned in a dream to not to trust him. They took a different route home. An angel visited Joseph in a dream and warned him to take Mary and Jesus and flee to Egypt.  King Herod learned that the Wise Men had tricked him and ordered all of the boys in Bethlehem and nearby who were two years old or younger to be slaughtered. The Holy Family returned to Israel after Herod’s death.”

The church often relates the Magi’s search for Christ to our own journeys, as we seek to find Jesus, whether that is to find him and the redemption that he secured for our souls or seek out his will for our own lives.