This Christmas poem is about the Epiphany and was created the very year of Eliot"s conversion to Christianity (Fleisner, 66). Therefore the theme of religion is an important one if we are to analyse the poem correctly. In the book of Ephesians in the Bible, Paul describes the rebirth of the world upon Christ"s death, emphasising the Ephesians" new life (2:4-5). This theme of death and rebirth is present in the poem Journey of the Magi, which, I will argue, is structurally and internally divided into three stages; corresponding to the Sacrament of Penance: contrition (guilt), confession and satisfaction.

             To understand this poem, one has to understand the impact that Christ had on the World. At the time of his birth, however, the known world was not stable; people worshipped many gods, and we get a full description of the way life was by the Magus who narrates his story of their journey to Bethlehem to witness the end of an era and the birth of a new one. .

             According to the Oxford Dictionary of the Bible, "contrition is a penitent"s spiritual sorrow for the sins he has committed, and it necessarily includes hatred for such sins, as well as the determination to avoid them in the future." In the first stanza, this "spiritual sorrow" is apparent by the contrast Eliot uses, of the Magi"s difficult journey. In fact, the central focus of criticism has been on the journey; the "cold coming" (line 1) during "the worst time of the year" (line 2), emphasising the climatic statement of the stanza: "A hard time we had of it" (line 16). The Magus talks of their sorrowful past life of ease, the times they "regretted.the silken girls bringing sherbet" (lines 8-10), and in the same way that they are 'physically" moving towards Christ, they feel they are progressing spiritually, putting a personal ban on the sinful lives they have had.