Today is Epiphany, and there was an impressive prayer service and blessing of the house at the Catholic Worker on Mason Street. Was there a blessing of the chalk? There was. Was the chalk used to bless the lintels of the house? It was. Was there an intercessory prayer for the collectives of Worcester? There was. Did people look for a bean in some pie? They did.
20 Caspar + Balthazar + Melchior 13
Epiphany always puts me in mind of my great-grandfather Emil, of whom it was discovered, by his family, after his death, that his name had actually been Melchior, a name he had apparently never liked.
Down in DC, Witness Against Torture began their annual days of action today, leading up to the January 11 anniversary of the opening of the prison at Guantanamo.
With your blessing may it no longer be the ordinary marker we know so well as the tool teachers use on chalkboards and children use to mark walls and sidewalks with their secret words or joyful games. Make it, for this Epiphany occasion, a special marker for us who use it in faith so that we may mark the doorway of our home with the names of the wisemen – Caspar, Balthasar and Melchior.