To close off the Christmas season, we mark Sunday the feast of "The Three Kings" who upset Herod with a request directions: "Where is the newborn king of Jews?. We have seen his star rising in the east and come to honor him."

Matthew didn't call them "kings" but "magi" - scholars who studied the stars and gained insights into earth. Was the star Halley's Comet, estimated to have appeared in 12 B.C.? Was it light from that comet, flashing with blinding speed through thousands of years that the Magi saw? "Suppose your car travels at the speed of light," Steven Wright wisecracks. "Would your headlights work?."

The people of Bethlehem were blind to what the Magi saw beyond the star. But prophecies came to pass. Psalm 72: "The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents." And Isaiah: "They shall bring gold and incense and they shall show forth praises of the Lord."

Year after year, the story triggers reaction that range from the thoughtful to the hilarious.. It depends on the teller's background.

Daniel McNamara, for example, is an Ateneo de Manila university astrophysicist. The Magi were "men acquainted with the heavens," he writes in Windhover." They would not have known these "supernovas…are recognized today, by modern science as generators of the chemical elements, born in the stars, 14,000 billion years ago. These make life possible on earth.

"The physical life that the Magi and we live is based on the chemical residues of these stars," he adds. "These same elements form the body of the Babe born of Mary. As he designed to partake of our elements, He invites us, through a living faith…to follow the brightest nova, Himself…

For the Magi, "the star calls them to leave their comfort zone and journey in faith, as Abraham did...When the Star disappears, they are on their own and must use their own resources. They are in a strange land at the mercy of powers they can not control. So, submit they do, always guided by their trust in the star's guidance."

The star triggered Herod's massacre two year olds in Bethlehem, after the Magi refused to say where the Child was. They "returned to their country by another way." Herod was attracted by what John the Baptist proclaimed, a friend from Malaysia reminded me. But Herod's greed squelched that opening to light.

"Remember what the old Indian chief told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people, like you and me. "Son, the battle is between two 'wolves' inside us all," he said.

"One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, and ego. And the other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, generosity, truth, compassion."

The grandson mulled this over. Then, he asked: "Which wolf wins?" The old man simply replied: "The one you feed."

Reaction from a former lady UN colleague in Paris was lighter: "This is the time of year when many people think back to when Gaspar, Balthazar and Melchor knelt before the Babe and "presented unto Him gifts; gold, frankincense, and myrrh," a former lady UN colleague in Paris emailed.

"But there's no mention of wrapping paper in Matthew's account. He would have written: "Lo, the gifts were inside 600 square cubits of paper" Joseph was going to throw it away but Mary protested: "Saveth it for next year!"

"The first Christmas gifts were not wrapped. Why? Because the Magi were: (a) wise; and were (b) men.

"Men are not gift wrappers. They don't understand putting paper on a gift just so somebody can tear it off. This is not just my opinion. It is a scientific conclusion, validated by a statistical survey of two friends - both men.

"My point is: gift-wrapping is a skill like having babies. It comes more naturally to women than to men. So, I counsel men friends: When possible, buy gifts already wrapped. If the recipient doesn't recognize it, just say: "It is myrrh."

"Remember: The important thing is not what you give, or how you wrap it. The critical thing, during this very special time of year, is that you save the receipt. Author Unknown (but definitely male)"

But what if you were 21 years old and just equaled Jose Rizal's grades at Ateneo? A young Horacio de la Costa did that 55 years ago. A brilliant legal or literary career awaited him, but he joined the Jesuits and in the Novaliches novitiate wrote: "The Secret of the Star:"

"I do not think the Three Wise Men/ Were Persian kings at all./ I think it much more likely they/ Set sail from our Manita Bay,/ In answer to the call.

"And though the great historians/May stare at me, and frown,/I still maintain the Three Wise Men/Were Kings from my hometown.

"And if you ask my I affirm/That Melchor was King of Tondo,/When Gaspar ruled Sampaloc, / And Baltazar Binondo.

"We will not argue. We will walk / The streets on Christmas Eve, / And I will show you the poor man's rafter/Where hangs the Star the Kings sought after/High above Christian prayer and laughter - / You will see it, and believe.

"For when they crossed the sea again/From Bethlehem afar,/They lost their camels in the sea,/And they forgot the Christmas tree./But they brought back to you and me/The secret of the Star."

(E-mail: juan_mercado@boholchronicle.com)