Celebrating the Epiphany of the Lord: A Proclamation and a Blessing

This weekend we observe the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord.  At our Masses we will hear “The Announcement of Easter and the Movable Feasts,” proclaimed after the Gospel. The tradition of announcing the date of Easter on the celebration of the Epiphany began in the early centuries of Christianity, before the ordinary person had access to a personal calendar (much less to radio, TV, or the internet). As we know, the date of Easter changes from year to year. Since the Easter Triduum is the center of the liturgical year, several other feasts depend upon its date: Ash Wednesday, the Ascension, Pentecost, and the First Sunday of Advent.  In all of the celebrations of the year, Christ is at the center, the “Lord of time and history.”

       After our Epiphany Masses we will be invited to take pieces of blessed chalk with us, to use as part of a blessing for our homes. When we ask God for this blessing, we use the chalk to write above the front doorway, (on the inside): 

20 C+M+B+20 – 2020 for the year and C, M, B for Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar (traditional names of the Magi) and also for Christus mansionem benedicat ( Latin for “May Christ, bless this house”). This custom may have originated in central Europe. Perhaps the Magi are invoked because they visited the Christ Child in his home, and protected him by refusing to report his whereabouts to Herod.