Our family began this day, blessing the door to our home….
20 + C + M + B + 16
Please see: Chalking the Door: Blessing Your Home for Epiphany
The family gathers to ask God’s blessing on their home and on those who live in or visit the home. It is an invitation for Jesus to be a daily guest in our home, our comings and goings, our conversations, our work and play, our joys and sorrows.
A traditional way of doing this is to use chalk to write above the home’s entrance, 20 + C + M + B + 16. 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 2016 is the year.
Leading up to this beautiful Solemnity, yesterday I was able to hang up a few items in our freshly painted hallway. We had been without any doors on our rooms for a few years and my husband surprised me a few weeks ago, by purchasing some and having them hung. Without my knowing about it. A few days before installation of the doors, “out of the blue”, I decided that the hallway was painted way to dark and needed a fresh coat of white paint. As I informed my husband of the decision to paint, he chuckled thinking I knew he had someone coming to install new doors. I did not know and went about painting. When I finished, he had informed me of what he was planning.
My girls before bedtime often forget that we pray before bed as they are captivated by the world around them. We needed something to remind my girls that before bed, we pray the rosary together. A visual they would see besides my constant calling to them for prayer. We did this in the hallway leading to the bedrooms.
Close to three years ago, I had received a gift from my Formation Director, of a hand drawn Manuscript Illustration of the Magnificat from a Carmelite Nun, from our home in Aylesford Priory. She had given it to me as a welcome gift upon entering into the Third Order Of Carmel. I was in awe at the gift, but I had never known exactly where I should hang it. It sat on my dresser for as many years and I found myself asking our Blessed Mother what I should do. Last night, it all came together…
I knew at once, it belonged above the Rosary’s we would use to pray together with.
A few months back, I was asked to make a Rosary by a friend. It had been a while since I had made one,and my hands and fingers usually didn’t work well with the motions it takes to create them. I said yes anyway. I also told him God willing, I would do it for him. I was able to make one, and the make more, and more and more. Its turned into a beautiful little calling to do this work. Especially since its difficult for my hands to do this, but while I am creating them, I am praying them, and focusing on our Lord and not my hands, but His. The little rosary I had made for a friend, turned into a Ministry in which I have sent them to city’s across the USA, to Africa, Malaysia, and other parts of the world.
All from a simple yes to God.
There are many more pieces that I can place into this story today, but as our Holy Mother did, I feel a need to do also. To ponder them in my heart. Not in fear of how the last twenty of so years of our Lords converting my heart have come together in this life. Nor the journey in searching for Him, but in Awe of the Epiphany.
“May Christ bless the house.”
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