Hi, I'm Edward Sree, and welcome to all things Catholic where real faith meets real life. Here at the tail end of the Christmas season having just heard those readings from the

great feast of epiphany I've been wondering what was it that made those magi pick up, leave their homes in

Persia and travel afar to go find a baby king in Israel.

I mean, what was it that got them to pick up and move?

We often hear about a star, but think about this.

They travel from Persia all the way to Jerusalem,

then they talk to Herod, and then they go from Jerusalem

to the house in Bethlehem what was it that

was really guiding them listen carefully to what the Gospel of Matthew actually

tells us in Matthew chapter 2 verse 9, it says,

When they had heard the King, they went their way, and lo!

The star which they had seen in the East went before them,

till it came to rest over the place where the child was born.

When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.

Now what was this star?

You know, some common interpretations in the modern world about this star that guides the magi.

Some say it was a comet. Maybe it was like Haley's comet. Some people speculate that Haley's comet passed through

our solar system, maybe around 7 BC you know not exactly about the time when

Jesus born but somewhere close to that maybe that's what Matthew is referring to or

was it a supernova that appeared in the sky a A popular view is that there was a planetary

conjunction like we just had at the end of 2020. You may have seen in the news

Jupiter and Saturn came together and it looks like a bigger brighter star in the sky.

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