20 + C + M + B + 14?

And now begin, and bless the house of thy servant, that it may endure for ever before thee: because thou, O Lord God, hast spoken it, and with thy blessing let the house of thy servant be blessed for ever. 2 Samuel 7:29

Blessed Epiphany! Meaning the day on the Christian calendar commemoration the visit of the Three Wise Men and not the large scary nurse on General Hospital.

The time immediately after Epiphany can be a time of mystery. Mainly, the mystery of why the Catholic neighbors have 20 + C + M + B + 14 written on their door.

Turns out, there is a Catholic custom of blessing the house on Epiphany. I'd actually never heard of it before this morning when I watched the Mass on EWTN and the priest mentioned it. (I'm a Catholic convert.)

You don't need to have a priest come to your house to do this blessing. It's traditional for the head of household, usually the father/husband, to do it. (Since I'm the only household member that isn't a cat, it was up to me.

Chalk is used mark the doors of the household. For Catholics, blessed chalk may be provided by your parish priest. The ceremony he will use to bless the chalk can be found here. The Magnificat, which is a part of the prayers, can be found in your Bible at: Luke 1:46-55.

The prayers can be found here.  The prayers mention the use of holy water, which any Catholic can keep in the home (you can get it from the holy water container in your church, in my church it's a big thing in the back that they refill the holy water fonts from.) It also mentions the use of incense, which I think is mainly for if you have a priest come bless your home. It's not really customary for lay Catholics to do the incense thing at home.

The chalk inscription for this year is: 20 + C + M + B + 14. The numbers are those of the year. The letters are the initials of the traditional names for the Three Wise Men: Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar. It's also the initials for the Latin blessing Christius Mansionem Benedicat which means “May Christ Bless this House”.

The blessing of the house, that is, praying for God to bless your house/home, is a tradition that dates back to Old Testament days. Jews traditionally fastened scrolls with Scripture passages to their doorways as a blessing on their home.

Why do a house blessing at Epiphany? Epiphany is the wind-up to the Advent/Christmas season when we are preparing our hearts for the arrival of the Christ-child. Also, the coming of the Wise Men to the home of the Holy Family bearing gifts might be seen as a sort of blessing on the home by the Wise Men. And certainly they blessed the baby Jesus by not telling Herod where He lived!

If you have a nativity scene in your home, another way to mark Epiphany is to not put out your Wise Men figures until Epiphany. (If you have a full Nativity village, you can let them spend the time until Epiphany in other places in the village.) In my own case I just started collecting Nativity scene figures this year and so I don't have Wise Men yet. Or shepherds, or angels, or even a stable. Just the Holy Family and a too-small goat who is wondering who put the Baby in his hay supply.

There are a lot of 'high church' Protestants who won't have any problem using the Catholic blessing I've linked to pretty much 'as-is'. But for Evangelicals and 'low-church' Protestants you can just as well do your own informal blessing with words from the Bible, omitting any problematic elements such as holy water or blessed chalk or cryptic chalk inscriptions.

Have you ever heard of the Epiphany house blessing tradition? Have you ever blessed your house? How did you do it?

Here are some more posts on the Epiphany house blessing:
Catholic Icing: Epiphany House Blessing
Fish Eaters: Feast of the Epiphany
Blessing Your House on Epiphany 2014

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