Purradise Springs is a glamping resort in north Florida.  If you’re not familiar with the word “glamping,” it refers to camping in large, semi-permanent tents outfitted with the kind of furniture and amenities one finds in a vacation resort.   

Purradise Springs offers the putative additional benefit of glamping with approximately 150 cats that have free run of the resort’s nine-acre property.  Resort guests stay in a Purrt, as the luxury yurts are called, featuring a queen or king size bed and, crucially, a locker to protect one’s clothing from being refashioned into a daytime nest by one or more of the resident cats. 

The cats were abandoned by former owners and rescued by the couple who run the resort.  If a guest takes a liking to a cat, or vice versa, the cats are available for adoption.  Prospective guests are warned that they must be prepared to cope with cat hair, theft of food, and the occasional surprise attack.  The resort managers readily admit that vacationing amidst hordes of cats doesn’t appeal to everyone, but there appear to be no lack of people to whom it does appeal. 

Pet ownership is one of the many things in life that are entirely subjective judgments.  Some people prefer cats to dogs, others prefer more exotic animals, still others prefer not to keep pets.  There is an old Latin adage that describes the nature of subjective judgments: “de gustibus non disputandum est.”  In English, the adage means: it’s pointless to disagree about personal preferences.  Personal preferences are precisely, and only, that: personal, in the sense of individual, and a matter of subjective preference. 

While there is no reason to disagree with someone about their personal preferences, such as the choice of vacation venues, there is every reason to distinguish between personal preferences and public morality.  Although it is perfectly (or purrfectly), acceptable to choose to vacation with cats, it is much less acceptable to surprise an unsuspecting friend or acquaintance with a weekend stay at a cat resort. 

Personal and subjective judgments are valid and necessary, but acknowledgment of objective truth is equally necessary.  Sadly, we live at a time when “truth” has been redefined as something strictly subjective, that is, something that is only a matter of personal taste.  A recent editorial in a national newspaper stated that Americans now experience something that hasn’t been true for quite some time, that is, Americans today are united; they are united, however, in their distrust of the nation’s civil and social institutions.  I’m not convinced that distrust is a reliable basis for unity.  I am convinced, however, that misrepresenting personal preference as objective truth leads only to injustice. 

The feast of the Epiphany that we celebrate today is a feast of objective truth rather than subjective preference.  The Scriptures and the Creeds claim that God’s offer of salvation in the death of Jesus is divinely revealed truth.*  The “truth” about salvation is universal in the sense that it is true for all people at all times; that is to say, it is true independently of personal opinion.  Furthermore, there is only one way to encounter the saving truth.  The universality of God’s offer of salvation and the unicity of the path to saving truth are not available to the unaided human mind; these are truths that God reveals to us because we are capable of understanding them but we are not capable of discovering them on our own. 

A clear distinction between objective truth and subjective truth is required in order to come to knowledge of saving truth revealed by God.  Today’s Gospel reading provides ample evidence of this necessity. 

Matthew’s Infancy Narrative describes the way in which all God’s varied creatures come to know the one truth of salvation.  In the Infancy Narrative, the angels saw Jesus’ birth from the vantage point of heaven, but the shepherds saw it just as clearly from the fields in the wilderness.  The magi saw a star that announced the Savior’s birth, and the scholars of the law knew of the Savior through the Scriptures.  Herod perceived the birth of the Savior as well, but as an event that threatened the corruption of the world upon which Herod’s reign depended. 

All mentioned above came to knowledge of the Savior’s birth.  The truth known was the same truth.  The Savior encountered was the same Savior.  The path followed, however, was unique to each person.  The angels, the shepherds, the magi, Mary and Joseph, the religious scholars, and Herod started their encounter with truth in the individual circumstances of their lives, but they completed their encounter with truth by moving out of their personal circumstances and giving themselves over to God’s act of revelation.  All except Herod, that is. 

In Matthew’s Infancy Narrative, those who found saving truth were the ones willing to step out of their subjectivity in order to encounter objective truth revealed by God.  On the other hand, the one who failed to find salvation did so because he refused to consider the possibility of any truth beyond the personal truth of his political power. 

The feast of the Epiphany is a celebration of the fact that those who live in the light recognize the objective truth of God’s revelation in Jesus, while those who do not recognize the universal truth revealed by Jesus live in darkness.   

If you recognize the objective (that is, universal and unchanging), wisdom of God’s saving truth, you live in the light because you have encountered saving truth in Jesus, God’s incarnate Son.   

If you struggle with the distinction between objective truth and subjective opinion, there is an easy way to resolve the struggle. Take a look at secular society and you will see the potential dangers associated with revering your opinion as immutable truth.  If you look closely, you will notice that we live in a society populated by Herods, people who believe their personal truth should apply universally to all people.  Such an opinion is both non-sensical and the cause of senseless violence of the sort Herod was famous for perpetrating. 

When subjective opinion is misrepresented as objective truth, it is unavoidable that people (that is, subjects) will be treated as things (that is, objects).  A society that condones or encourages misrepresenting subjectivity as objectivity will quickly lose its abhorrence for violence, threats, slander, and chronic conflict.  Does this sound familiar?  If you find it offensive to be treated as if you are a thing, don’t do that to anyone.

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*In the second reading, the author of the letter to the Ephesians referred to “the mystery made known” by revelation. (Eph 3:3)  In the Scriptures, the word “mystery” refers to objective truth revealed by God.  “Mystery” is neither unknowable nor still hidden; rather, it is intelligible truth that only God could reveal.