W3K 2026
In 2026 Mother Kim will come and bless anyone’s home who moved in 2025. If you would like to bless your home and all who enter it in the season of Epiphany you are welcome to pick up chalk after services on Sunday 1/4/26, to perform an Epiphany blessing at your own home between now and February 15, when Lent begins.
For more information about the 20+C+M+B+26 blessing history, tradition and practice read the following written by The Rev. Canon Matthew Tucker.
For more information about the 20+C+M+B+26 blessing history, tradition and practice read the following written by The Rev. Canon Matthew Tucker.
With the Epiphany of Our Lord coming up next week, here's a short primer on what the Epiphany is and why we celebrate the way we do:
The feast of the Epiphany, also called the Manifestation of Our Lord to the Gentiles, is one of the principal feasts of the Church year. It celebrates the occasion of the visit of a number of Wise Men from the East, who, having discerned the arrival of the Messiah, traveled a great distance to pay homage to Jesus. Because the Gospel according to Matthew tells us that they brought three gifts – gold, frankincense, and myrrh – tradition holds that there were three Wise Men, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar.
It was to these wise men that Jesus was first revealed to the wider world. Jesus then had a fairly normal upbringing, until His identity was revealed once again at His baptism, when the Holy Spirit appeared above Him and John the Baptist as a dove, and when His Father’s voice was heard, saying “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Jesus’s identity as the Son of God was then fully revealed to His disciples and the world at a wedding at Cana, where He performed His first miracle, turning water into wine.
The gifts of the wise men, as well as being traditional gifts of one sovereign to another, hold symbolic meaning in this case. Gold, having great value, was a befitting gift as a sign of Jesus’ Kingship. Frankincense, which is a rare resin from the Boswellia tree, native to Somalia and southern coastal Arabia, was a sign of the divinity of Jesus. The burning of incense as an offering to God is ancient and continuing, and the smoke is symbolic of our prayers going up to heaven. Myrrh, a gum resin from the Commiphora abyssinica tree, is used as an ingredient in the embalming process, and so is a symbol of Jesus’ salvific death. On the Epiphany, gold, frankincense, and myrrh are blessed and given to the faithful as a reminder of the kingship, divinity, and death of Jesus. These gifts may be kept as a devotion or burnt during prayer.
The feast of the Epiphany is the traditional time for the blessing of houses. During the Mass on the Epiphany, chalk is blessed for the purpose of marking the doors of Christian homes with a special inscription. Each time that we enter our home or other homes so marked, we see the inscription and remember to are marked as Christ’s own at baptism, and so are reminded to rededicate our lives to the Lord. As our homes are blessed with the inscription, so too are those who pass under it and into our homes.
The inscription follows a type of formula; this year’s inscription is: 20+C+M+B+26. The C, M, and B correspond to the name of the Wise Men, Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. The numbers of the year are the bookends of the inscription. The C, M, and B can also stand for Christus Mansionem Benedicat, Latin for “Christ, this house Bless.”
To bless your house with chalk, first write the inscription on the lintel above your front door (or on the door itself), and then recite this prayer: O Lord holy, Father almighty, everlasting God, we beseech thee to hear us: and vouchsafe to send thy holy Angel from heaven, to guard and cherish, protect and visit, and evermore defend all that dwell in this house. I call upon thy Saints, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, to protect my family and my home from every harm and danger, and I place this mark over my door to remain as a constant reminder to us and all who enter here that my house is truly a house of the Lord. O God, make the door of my house the gateway to thine Eternal Kingdom. All this we ask through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord. Amen.
The feast of the Epiphany, also called the Manifestation of Our Lord to the Gentiles, is one of the principal feasts of the Church year. It celebrates the occasion of the visit of a number of Wise Men from the East, who, having discerned the arrival of the Messiah, traveled a great distance to pay homage to Jesus. Because the Gospel according to Matthew tells us that they brought three gifts – gold, frankincense, and myrrh – tradition holds that there were three Wise Men, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar.
It was to these wise men that Jesus was first revealed to the wider world. Jesus then had a fairly normal upbringing, until His identity was revealed once again at His baptism, when the Holy Spirit appeared above Him and John the Baptist as a dove, and when His Father’s voice was heard, saying “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Jesus’s identity as the Son of God was then fully revealed to His disciples and the world at a wedding at Cana, where He performed His first miracle, turning water into wine.
The gifts of the wise men, as well as being traditional gifts of one sovereign to another, hold symbolic meaning in this case. Gold, having great value, was a befitting gift as a sign of Jesus’ Kingship. Frankincense, which is a rare resin from the Boswellia tree, native to Somalia and southern coastal Arabia, was a sign of the divinity of Jesus. The burning of incense as an offering to God is ancient and continuing, and the smoke is symbolic of our prayers going up to heaven. Myrrh, a gum resin from the Commiphora abyssinica tree, is used as an ingredient in the embalming process, and so is a symbol of Jesus’ salvific death. On the Epiphany, gold, frankincense, and myrrh are blessed and given to the faithful as a reminder of the kingship, divinity, and death of Jesus. These gifts may be kept as a devotion or burnt during prayer.
The feast of the Epiphany is the traditional time for the blessing of houses. During the Mass on the Epiphany, chalk is blessed for the purpose of marking the doors of Christian homes with a special inscription. Each time that we enter our home or other homes so marked, we see the inscription and remember to are marked as Christ’s own at baptism, and so are reminded to rededicate our lives to the Lord. As our homes are blessed with the inscription, so too are those who pass under it and into our homes.
The inscription follows a type of formula; this year’s inscription is: 20+C+M+B+26. The C, M, and B correspond to the name of the Wise Men, Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. The numbers of the year are the bookends of the inscription. The C, M, and B can also stand for Christus Mansionem Benedicat, Latin for “Christ, this house Bless.”
To bless your house with chalk, first write the inscription on the lintel above your front door (or on the door itself), and then recite this prayer: O Lord holy, Father almighty, everlasting God, we beseech thee to hear us: and vouchsafe to send thy holy Angel from heaven, to guard and cherish, protect and visit, and evermore defend all that dwell in this house. I call upon thy Saints, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, to protect my family and my home from every harm and danger, and I place this mark over my door to remain as a constant reminder to us and all who enter here that my house is truly a house of the Lord. O God, make the door of my house the gateway to thine Eternal Kingdom. All this we ask through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord. Amen.