Beloved Friends-
Happy New Year AND Happy Epiphany! Today, January 6th is the day on our church calendar we celebrate the arrival of the Wise Ones who came to visit the baby Jesus after his birth. Also known as “Three Kings Day” it has become an important part of our collective narrative as we move into the new year.
Since the Middle Ages there has been a tradition that on (or near) the feast of the Epiphany we pray for God’s blessing on our homes, marking the entrance with chalk (an incarnational image reminding us of the dust of the earth from which we were made). We mark doors of the important places in our lives with symbolic letters and numbers.
The ancient way of doing this is to use chalk to write above the home’s entrance,
20 + C + M + B + 23. The letters C, M, B have two meanings. They are the initials of the traditional names of the three magi: Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. They also abbreviate the Latin words Christus mansionem benedicat, “May Christ bless the house.”The “+” signs represent the cross and 2023 is the new year.
When we gather this Sunday to celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, we will mark the doors of the church and ask God’s blessing on our spiritual home of Trinity. We will also send you home with chalk and encourage you to do the same. If you are participating through Trinity@Home, feel free to grab some chalk and use the prayer below when you mark your home.
Visit, O blessed Lord, this home with the gladness of your presence. Bless all who live or visit here with the gift of your love; and grant that we may manifest your love to each other and to all whose lives we touch. May we grow in grace and in the knowledge and love of you; guide, comfort, and strengthen us in peace, O Jesus Christ, now and forever. Amen
This is an invitation for Jesus to be a daily guest in our homes- both at Trinity and in our own lives. It is also a reminder for the year ahead to remember God’s love in our lives throughout our comings and goings, our conversations, our work and play, our joys and sorrows.
As we say goodbye to a year now past and look into the next at our doorstep, may we do so with grace. May we forgive each other and ourselves for those things done we regret as well as those left undone. With the promise of God’s love and mercy, may we stand together, seeking out all the ways we have yet to discover in our journey to love and be loved as God’s own.
May you never forget that you are loved,
Lisa
Beannacht: A Blessing for the New Year (By John O’Donohue)
[“Beannacht” is the Gaelic word for “blessing.”
On the day when
The weight deadens on your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance to balance you.
And when your eyes
Freeze behind the grey window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colors,
indigo, red, green, and azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.
When the canvas frays
In the currach* of thought
and a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow wind work these words
Of love around you, an invisible cloak
To mind your life.
(A “currach” is a large boat used on the west coast of Ireland.)