Epiphany epiphany

From Helena, by Evelyn Waugh, a historical fiction about St. Helena the mother of Emperor Constantine and finder of the true Cross:

"This is my day," [Helena] thought, and these [Magi] are my kind."

Perhaps she apprehended that her fame, like theirs, would live in one historic act of devotion; that she too had emerged from a kind of... nameless realm and would vanish like them in the sinking nursery firelight among picture books and the day's toys.

"Like me," she said to them, "you were late in coming.  The shepherds were here long before; even the cattle.  They had joined the chorus of angels before you were on your way.  For you the primordial discipline of the heavens was relaxed and a new defiant light blazed amid the disconcerted stars.

"How laboriously you came, taking sights and calculating, where the shepherds had run barefoot!  How odd you looked on the road, attended by what outlandish liveries, laden with such preposterous gifts!...

..."Yet you came, and were not turned away.  You, too, found room before the manger.  Your gifts were not needed, but they were accepted and put carefully by, for they were brought with love.  In that new order of charity that had just come to life, there was room for you, too.  You were not lower in the eyes of the holy family than the ox or the ass.

"You are my especial patrons," said Helena, "and patrons of all latecomers, of all who have a tedious journey to make to the truth, of all who are confused with knowledge and speculation, of all who through politeness make themselves partners in guilt, of all who stand in danger by reason of their talents....

"For his sake who did not reject your curious gifts, pray always for the learned, the oblique, the delicate.  Let them not be quite forgotten at the throne of God when the simple come into their kingdom."