Saturday, January 9, 2016

Ephipany House Blessing

Our house was blessed last night! We were privileged to have Father Don Malin from Immaculate Heart of Mary blessing a box a salt, a gallon of water and some chalk, then marking our doors with chalk.....reading scripture, and sprinkling all the rooms in our house with the Holy water and blessed salt.




Above the front doors, the markings are this: "20 + C + M + B +16". This symbolizes the three wise men who worshiped Jesus: C for Caspar, M for Melchior, and B for Balthasar who followed the star of God’s Son who became human two thousand and sixteen years ago, and + meaning "May Christ bless our home and remain with us throughout the new year." 

This is Fr. Don writing above the lintel of our doors:



We then shared a meal together in our newly blessed house.

Gene concocted a luscious lamb stew and made crusty bread.  My contribution to our shared meal was a King's Cake because it was an Epiphany blessing.  The King's cake signifies and celebrates the arrival of the three wise men in Bethlehem and the day Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. Most of the King's Cakes I found on Pinterest and the internet called for a dozen jams to make pretty window paned, stained glass effect atop the sweet dough.  But with just two of us living in this house, we would never get through twelve jars of jelly or jam in our remaining life times.  Not even if we each ate a tablespoon of jelly a day!  

Further looking showed up another, simpler cake used in France sans all those jams.  That is what I made with puff pastry.

(using David Lebovitz' recipe here for Epiphany Cake with an almond filling).

Post Script: the Church calendar is sung here.  I had never heard of this solemnity, but it is beautiful (part of the January 3 homily by Father Isaac Karuiki follows).

We feel truly blessed.

7 comments:

  1. VERY cool! I'm so glad you blogged about it all!

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  2. What a blessing to witness! Enjoy your Sunday dear Nancy, HUGS!

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  3. So very nice! I'm glad you're one of those people that do such things...so many don't. When Dave and I moved to the farm, I blessed the farm and consecrated it for God's use and that's one reason, I believe, we've been so happy here.

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  4. How marvelous to have your house blessed for Epiphany! Hope the cake was wonderful!

    frances

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  5. Hy Nancy,
    Here in Germany four children sent by the parish go from house to house. Three are the wise men or the three kings and one carries a stick with a star on the top. They sing and recite a blessing for the house and people and then also marking the door with chalk.
    20*C+M+B+16. The star is the Star of Bethlehem, the three crosses are for the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and the C M B is for the latin words "Cristus mansionem benedicat" which means: "Christ blesses this house".

    Margit

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    1. Thank you, Margit, for replying with your German tradition of Epiphany blessings. It seems the entire community would be involved, always a good thing when more witnesses are involved. Perhaps the Latin words are more accurate for the house blessing. I will ask our priest about it.

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  6. Very interesting to have your house blessed. When the tween was finishing up preschool, we had bid upon a house where the owner had passed away in. If we had gotten that house, we would have had the house cleansed and blessed.

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