Editor’s note: Over the course of this week, in celebration of Epiphany, we will be publishing a series of poems on the Magi by Bishop Graham Kings, originally included in Andrew Wheeler’s Desire of Nations: The Magi, their Journey and the Child (2015).
Offerings Presented
Away from home,
Mission accomplished:
It is finished.
Star trek over,
King discovered,
But not as they know it.
Rapturous joy,
Offerings unwrapped.
Mined mineral, for brilliant mind;
Sweet savour, for sense of spirit;
Balm of burial, for enwrapped body.
Warned and turned,
They follow the Way:
Another way home.
The featured image is from Ninian Comper’s reredos in the Lady Chapel of Downside Abbey. The photo was taken by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P., and is licensed under Creative Commons.
The Rt. Rev. Dr. Graham Kings, in his retirement in Cambridge, is honorary assistant bishop in the Diocese of Ely and research associate at the the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide, which he founded in 1995. He has served as Mission Theologian in the Anglican Communion; Bishop of Sherborne; and vicar of St. Mary’s Church, Islington, London, where he co-founded Fulcrum.
