What is the tradition of blessing homes on Epiphany?
When I joined Instagram a few years ago, suddenly my feed was filled with people detailing all the ways their families celebrated the liturgical year at home. Growing up, my parents had done many of these things with me and my siblings too, but some traditions were completely new to me, like the tradition of blessing the doorway to one’s home on the feast of the Epiphany. In many Catholic homes, families use the feast of the Epiphany, when the Three Kings blessed the Bethlehem home of Joseph and Mary with their gifts, to bless their own homes. It’s a short and simple prayer service that ends with the chalking of a blessing over the front door. The chalked blessing is the first two digits of the year, then the initials C, M, and B, then the last two digits of the year. In between each is a cross. So the blessing for this year would look like this:
20 + C + M + B + 23
Translating the tradition to middle school
As soon as I learned about the tradition, I wanted this to be something we did in my religion classes. Because of when our Christmas break ends, we are often in school on January 6th, the date when many Catholics and Christians celebrate the Epiphany. (In the United States the celebration is often moved to the nearest Sunday- in this year that will be the 8th. However, we still do the blessing at school on the 6th.) But for many years I just cobbled together things at the last minute using google search results.
Last year I decided to change that. I spent the time to carefully draft a script that would work for my middle school students and the Epiphany Homeroom Blessing was a highlight of that first week back to school after Christmas. Because I teach all the 7th and 8th grade religion classes, we used the blessing for their individual homerooms, traveling around the middle school building and quietly praying outside the 7th and 8th grade classrooms. We blessed a piece of sidewalk chalk and used that- nothing fancy required. After blessing the doors, a few students carefully buried our blessed chalk in the parish garden. (They thought this was super cool.)
If you’re interested in my script and lesson plan for the Homeroom Blessing, you can find it in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. I wanted it to be easy and affordable, so it’s only $1. You can also find different versions to adapt yourself from various websites. Either way, I hope this is a tradition that you can work into your religion class this year. Let me know if you do!
