Epiphany Boat (or House) Blessing

Last night, one of our middle school daughters asked us if we were going to do the blessing with chalk again for Epiphany. Unbeknownst to us parents, we have started a tradition. In case you have, too, I thought I'd better update a previous post regarding the ritual of blessing your house (or boat, for some of us). I forgot to take a picture after the blessing last year. However,  here is a photo of what it looks like a year later.  As you can see, no worries about this becoming permanent (and this is on oiled wood, rather than varnish or paint).

Blessed Be,

Joel

Updated From a few years ago:

Epiphany was [is] celebrated in the West yesterday [today] (January 6th), and I thought I'd give a prayer and point to some boat (house) blessings today.

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 + 15

Casper, Melchoir and Balthasar (the C, M and B) have become the names of what tradition has now identified as the three magi (there have also been 24 and 12 over the years). 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 for
20 thousand
15 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 ("May Christ Bless this House").

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 used last night following a similar ritual. Adding 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 for ever. Amen.
(Laurence Hull Stookey - based on Matt 2:1-12)

Hoping your Epiphany was [is] blessed and wishing you a blessed New Year,

Joel