From the Desk of
Bishop Edward U. Kmiec

April 8, 2007

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

"The Fourth Wise Man" was written in 1895 by Henry Van Dyke. It begins like a Christmas story, but ends as an Easter story. The protagonist is the fourth wise man, Artaban, who was late for the journey to Bethlehem because he stopped along the way to help someone in trouble. He missed the trip.

For the next 33 years, Artaban tries to find the promised Messiah, only to miss Him at every turn because he is constantly being sidetracked to help people. In his last effort, he arrives at Calvary just after Jesus had died on the cross.

At that moment, an earthquake strikes and Artaban is struck by a rock. As he lay there dying, he is broken-hearted because his quest to find the Messiah was never realized. But suddenly the risen Lord appears to him. Jesus tells him that for the past 33 years, he had, in fact, been found by the fourth wise man in the person of all the people he had helped. Whatever Artaban had done to the least of God's people, he had done to Jesus himself.

Like the fourth wise man and the three women in the Easter Gospel who came to the tomb seeking the Lord who was crucified, we often look for Jesus in all the wrong places, expecting to find Him in places, people or circumstances where we imagine Him to be or should be, but He surprises us when He shows up elsewhere. Often we go in search of the Lord among our successes, but fail to see Him in our failures or among the unwanted living among us. Often we look for Jesus in a church, shrine or other sacred place, only to pass Him by in secular places where he can be found as well: the marketplace, factories or offices.

We should not be amazed when we find the risen Lord in the beauty of nature or His other works of creation for He is everywhere. Nor should we be amazed to experience Him in strange places or unforeseen events, as long as we are open to His revelations and not limited by our own expectations.

We don't have to journey to Jerusalem or Lourdes to look for Jesus. He is as close as the sounds of our cities, or the silence of the night. He is as near as our next door neighbor or within our families and among our friends.

You need not be amazed. The angel tells us on Easter Sunday, "The risen Lord you are looking for has gone ahead of you to Galilee, to the Galilee of your homes and your places of work and play. There you will find Him, as He told you, in whatever you do, do for the least of His people."

I wish you a blessed and Happy Easter.

+Most Rev. Edward U. Kmiec
Bishop of Buffalo