Your Family At-Home Mission is to together as a family, mark the mantle of your front door with chalk (blessed, if possible) and pray the Family Epiphany Blessing. Be ready to share your Family Epiphany Blessing experience, as well as your front door mantle (take a picture and send it to us), at Week 3’s gathering of families. (Family Mission Activities adapted from Catholic Digest.) Then, and watch the videos about The Transfiguration.
Step 1: Use the Family Epiphany Blessing below and chalk to ask God’s blessing upon your home together as a family. (Do you have the blessed chalk from last year? We have some if you don't, or if you weren't with us last year, that we can give at next Sunday's family session if you'd like, since this week's was cancelled due to bad weather.)
Family Epiphany Blessing
“The practice of writing a special code over the entrance to a home with blessed chalk is a centuries-old traditional blessing that takes place each January. It’s a reminder of God’s presence in our daily lives, and a dedication of the year and everything that will happen during it, to God. It’s also a great witness for our guests, not to mention that it looks pretty cool!” (From CathFamily) Anyone who walks through the door is blessed!
How to do it...
1. Take a stick of chalk that’s been blessed by a priest or deacon, and write above your home’s front entrance (inside or outside), 20 + C + M + B + 24. (For years following 2023, replace 23 with the last two digits of the current year.)
2. A family member reads this explanation: “The letters C, M, and B have two meanings. They are the initials of the traditional names of the three magi who brought gifts to Jesus sometime soon after his birth: Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. They also abbreviate the Latin words Christus Mansionem Benedicat, which translates to “May Christ bless this house.” The ‘+’ signs represent the cross and the numbers, the year.”
3. The head of the house leads the prayer: Dear God, we ask Your blessings on our home and family and anyone who visits here. We invite Your Son, Jesus, to be a part of our family and to always be with us in our home, in our comings and goings, our conversations, our work and play, our joys and sorrows. We thank You and we love You. We make the following words of Joshua our own: “As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15). Hail Mary… We ask all this in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
(adapted from https://cathfamily.org/chalking-the-door/; for an alternative prayer, see the USCCB’s Blessing of the Home and Household on Epiphany)
Step 2: Get ready to share about your Family Epiphany Blessing experience, as well as your front door mantle (send or bring a picture), at Week 3’s gathering of families.
