Today we celebrate Epiphany, the day the magi show up at the house in Bethlehem to adore the newborn King (see Matthew 2:1-12). I thought I’d give a Boat (or house blessing for those of you on land) that you can use with your family.
I was first exposed to this at the Monastery of St. Gertrude while living nearby. I had visited for a session of spiritual direction, and my director invited me to join in worship afterwards. This was a part of our regular time together, but rather than moving to the chapel, we moved downstairs to the main entrance. I then participated as we prayed and sang, and the lintel of the door was marked in chalk with a blessing.
Epiphany is the celebration of the end of the Christmas season (the 12 days following Christmas), and celebrates the Wise men/women (too, ?) coming from the East as they followed the star (see Matthew 2:1-12). As Christianity spread out of the Jewish community to include the Gentile community, Epiphany became important as a reminder that Christ came to all.
It has been a very long tradition to bless human dwellings by marking the door posts/lintels (take for instance the Exodus stories). Epiphany has become a time of blessing dwellings, too. This is often done with chalk with the following notations:
20 + C + M + B + 21
Casper, Melchoir and Balthasar (the C, M and B) have become the names of what tradition has now identified as the three (there have also been 24 and 12 over the years) magi. So a reading of this blessing could be as follows:
The three wise men,
Casper, Melchoir and Balthasar
followed the star of God’s Son,
who became human
20 thousand
21 years ago.
++ May Christ bless our home,
++ And remain with us through out the year. Amen.
I should also mention that C M B can also be (might originally be?) shorthand for the Latin: Christus Mansionem Benedicat (loosely translated “may Christ this House Bless”).
There are a number of prayers that can go with this blessing process – including having a pastor/priest bless the chalk during a worship service, and the congregation taking home the chalk to bless the house. Gertrude Nelson Mueller has a delightful book To Dance With God: Family Ritual and Commuity Celebration. (Paulist Press, 1986) that includes this ritual and others. When I find my copy again (I’ve misplaced it) I’ll write a book review for you. Rev. Basco Peters has an excellent web page about rituals and liturgy (Liturgy: worship that works – spirituality that connects) which I used for some of this information, check it out. He has lots of prayers and ritual suggestions for Epiphany.
Boat’s don’t really have lintels, but we do have hatches, which is what we have used in the past following a similar ritual. We have added a prayer out of the United Methodist Hymnal (#255):
Epiphany
O God,
you made of one blood all nations,
and, by a star in the East,
revealed to all peoples him whose name is Emmanuel.
Enable us to know your presence with us
so to proclaim his unsearchable riches
that all may come to his light
and bow before the brightness of his rising,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
now and forever. Amen.(Laurence Hull Stookey – based on Matt 2:1-12)
Hoping your Epiphany is blessed and wishing you a blessed New Year,
Rev. Joel