Deacon Mike Meyer / Sunday, January 5, 2025 / Categories: Blog, Homilies The Missing Piece Homily for the Epiphany of the Lord In Shel Silverstein’s children’s book, The Missing Piece, we follow a little round guy, who looks a lot like Pac-Man, as he sets out to find his missing piece—he has a wedge cut out of him like Pac-Man’s mouth. He rolls along slowly— you can’t roll very fast with a missing piece—but he doesn’t mind because it gives him time to enjoy the flowers and bugs he meets along the way. After testing out several potential candidates, he finally finds a piece that fits him just right, and he’s happy. Whether we know it or not, we’re all searching for our missing piece. Our Gospel makes clear to the whole world who that is. Today, we celebrate the Epiphany of the Lord, the day Jesus was made known to the nations through the magi. As our Gospel tells us, the magi saw a star rising that they interpreted as an announcement of the birth of a new King of the Jews. So, they left their home country to find him and pay him homage. Guided by that star and a little help from King Herod’s minions, the magi found the one they sought, the fulfillment of human longing.[1] Overjoyed by the sight, they fell to the ground and worshipped him. A beautiful story, for sure, but I can’t help but wonder why the magi left the comfort of their homes to find the newborn king in the first place and why they were so happy when they found him. The short answer is: the child is God, and searching for God is human nature. Allow me to explain. Humans are both physical and spiritual beings. Our physical nature helps us live in our physical world. Our spiritual nature helps us transcend it; it helps us look beyond ourselves so we can engage with the universe, with other people, and with God. This transcendent, spiritual nature moves us to ask questions, explore the universe, love others, ponder the meaning of life, and search for our missing piece. It compels us to search for God. Christians believe that God’s the fullness of Being and all that’s perfect, and our yearning for God is written in our hearts.[2] As Saint Paul told the Athenians, God made us “so that people might seek God, even perhaps grope for him and find him” (Acts 17:27). God initiates this desire in humanity and never stops trying to draw us to himself. He invites, he intrigues, he inspires, but he never forces himself on us. We have to find him. Why? Because the things we yearn for deep down in our soul—truth, justice, peace, joy, love, and the fullness of life—can only be found in God.[3] People have an infinite thirst for the truth that will only be satisfied by infinite truth, an infinite thirst for love that will only be satisfied by infinite love, and an infinite thirst for life that can only be fulfilled by the infinite source of life itself. We Christians call infinite truth, infinite love, and the infinite source of life God.[4] So whenever we long for these things, we’re longing for God. Whenever we seek these things, we’re seeking God. God is our missing piece. If that doesn’t convince you, when asked what people should do with their lives, Chris Langan, the man with the highest IQ in the world, said, “Search for God!” That means that the smartest guy in the world and Chris Langan are telling you that you need to search for God. So, where do we find God in a world wracked with wars, woes, poverty, and pain? God isn’t walking in the Garden with us as he did with Adam and Eve; he isn’t dwelling among us the way Jesus did some two thousand years ago. But just as Jesus promised, God is with us always, until the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). We find God in Scripture and really present in the Eucharist, of course. But we also find God in the mother who stays up all night with her sick child and the father who works two jobs to make ends meet. We find God in the homeless person who pleads for a dollar on the street and the first responder who charges into a burning building to save someone he’s never even met. We find God in the nurse who holds a dying woman’s hand when no family member cares enough to do so, and in the toddler who draws an indecipherable picture just for you. We find God in aardvarks and zebras, in toucans and tarantulas. God reveals himself to us in all of these people, acts of kindness, and, yes, animals, vegetables, and minerals, too. Finding God, finding our missing piece, isn’t all that difficult after all. God’s all around us, just waiting to be found. From my experience, I can tell you that what Saint Catherine of Siena said in her beautiful prayer is true: “The more I search, the more I find, and the more I find, the more I search for You.” I’ll add that the more we find God, the happier we are; psychological studies prove it. People who find God in their lives are happier and healthier than those who do not. They have fewer instances of anxiety and depression, and they find meaning in life that sustains them through the toughest times. Why? Because we find in God, and only in God, all of the things we really want and need. We find our missing piece. Archbishop Fulton Sheen once observed that the human heart isn’t perfect like a Valentine’s heart. It’s irregular in shape, as if a small piece of it were missing from its side. Sheen suggests that the missing part may mean that when God created each human heart, he kept a small piece of it in heaven and sent the rest of it into the world, where it would learn that it could never be really happy, that it could never be wholly in love, that it could never be whole-hearted until it rested with the Risen Christ, who holds that missing piece in his heart for safekeeping.[5] God’s waiting for us. Keep searching for God, like the magi did, and you’ll find your missing piece. Readings: Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72; Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6; Matthew 2:1-12 [1] John Shea, The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers: Following Love into Mystery, Feasts, Funerals, Weddings (Collegeville, Liturgical Press, 2010), 58. [2] Catechism of the Catholic Church 27. [3] Ibid. [4] Elizabeth A. Johnson, Consider Jesus: Waves of Renewal in Christology (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2005), 23-24. [5] Archbishop Fulton Sheen, Manifestations of Christ. 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