by Jo Wardhaugh Doyle                                 Ireland                                        24.01.2026

Do we notice the imperceptible change of the dark nights of January? I don’t, not really, but what I notice is my hope. The light is coming. Hope is a great virtue, it’s like spring, yet we are still in the dark hauls of January. I wonder how dark it is in Bethlehem in January. Is it cold at night? How far is Bethlehem to Egypt. I would have guessed it was a good few days of travel. But to the border it is fifty miles. There they would meet border people. Where their border checks? Did they have family in Egypt? If you Google Joseph and Mary’s journey into Egypt, it will tell you about the various places and caves that they stayed in, further North in Egypt. The journey to the caves would be around 320 miles, give or take, the length of Ireland. And that is how far they had to walk. That’s quite a distance. Hiking up through Gaza and along part of the Nile.

Meanwhile, back home infants were being slaughtered like a new Passover. I wondered what changes in the centuries of our lives. How did Mary, young mother, woman with her own infant, feel with Joseph, the slightly older wisdom figure that their child was spared. The kings had come, you see and warned them. The kings had come with gifts and now on their journey they held tightly to these gifts, wondering what they were about. These treasured gifts were significant, and they were taking them through these dark January nights into the heart of Egypt. Imagine the kings arrived in Bethlehem around about the 6th of January, give or take! They stayed with Joseph and Mary for a short while before heading home in a different direction. So how long would it take Joseph, the donkey, and Mary with child to arrive in the higher caves of Egypt. I would guess they would arrive sometime in late January carrying their gifts.

Yes, these three gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Deeply Spiritual gifts used for their life’s journey.

Myrrh. It does not tell you that life will be easy. There will be suffering, a suffering that no one can avoid. It’s part of our journey. But sometimes Myrrh will help to sustain you through that suffering and into finding your purpose in life. Then frankincense, where Christ found his identity as priest. Maybe that gift is for us to find our true self, our identity, who we are and meant to be. Then the Gold, for Christ it is his kingship, but for me it is like the gold in the Japanese cracked bowls called kintsugi. The strength of the gold brings our vulnerable fractured bits together to reveal beauty.

I have thought for a long-time what gifts I have given to people. What is important to give to someone a gift that has depth and love and meaning? But for a while I wondered what gifts have been revealed within me, that is the journey. From my Bethlehem to my Egypt. My journey may be dark and cold, frightening, and lonely, but yes, we are called to journey and find the hidden gift we were given, the hidden gift we are and asked to reveal to the world. Imagine that if during our lifetime we found these gifts and shared them with our friends, family, and world. What a difference that could make in our planet today.