By Joannie Watson, Integrated Catholic, Jan. 5, 2024
Joan Watson was born and raised in Lafayette, Indiana, but college and graduate school took her to Virginia, Ohio, and Rome. After graduating from Christendom College with a B.A. in History and Franciscan University with a M.A. in Theology, she moved to Nashville, Tennessee to be part of the explosion of Catholic culture in the middle of the Bible Belt. …
As I’ve written here many times before, I’ve always been intrigued by the Magi. Their story forms the majority of Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus Christ, and yet there remain so many questions about these mysterious figures. Where did they come from? How did they know to follow the star? What did they think when they found the Holy Family?
I once attended an art history lecture focusing on the art of the infancy narratives, where the art historian informed us that the Magi were just a nice fictional story, symbolic of the Gentile’s search for the Messiah. After all, she joked, are we really to believe men traveled from the east to Bethlehem following a star? People in the room chuckled, although I suspect most of them had never really thought about it and just wanted to look mature in front of the expert. But I wanted to raise my hand and ask, “Are we really to believe God became man?” (I kept my mouth shut.) …