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Alice, this is by Fr. Mark @ Vultus Christi...


For those of you who keep the Epiphany of the Lord on the traditional date of January 6th, and for those of you who haven't yet blessed your houses for the Epiphany, here again is the traditional blessing from the Roman Ritual with a little explanation of it.

Epiphany Inscription Over the Doorway of the Home
20 + C + M + B + 10

The letters have two meanings. They are the initials of the traditional names of the Three Magi: Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. They also abbreviate the Latin words Christus mansionem benedicat. May Christ bless the house.” The letters recall the day on which the inscription is made, as well as the purpose of blessing.

The crosses represent the protection of the Precious Blood of Christ, Whose Sacred Name we invoke, and also the holiness of the Three Magi sanctified by their adoration of the Infant Christ.

The inscription is made above the front door, so that all who enter and depart this year may enjoy God's blessing. The month of January still bears the name of the Roman god Janus, the doorkeeper of heaven and protector of the beginning and end of things. This blessing "christens" the ancient Roman observance of the first month. The inscription is made of chalk, a product of clay, which recalls the human nature taken by the Adorable and Eternal Word of God in the womb of the Virgin Mary, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

To bless your home this Epiphany, first read the Prologue of Saint John's Gospel, followed by the Our Father, and the Collect of the Epiphany; then write the inscription for this year above your front door with blessed chalk.

Blessing of Chalk

V. Our help is the name of the Lord.
R. Who made heaven and earth.

V. The Lord be with you.
R. And with your spirit.

Let us pray.

Bless, O Lord God, this creature chalk
to render it helpful to your people.
Grant that they who use it in faith
and with it inscribe upon the doors of their homes
the names of your saints, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar,
may through their merits and intercession
enjoy health of body and protection of soul.
Through Christ our Lord.

Alice,

In addition to what Bob has posted, this old thread discusses the custom at some length.

Many years,

Neil

Mateusz and Mary Louise,

If I came across as suggesting that either of you seemed to be instigating Latin-bashing, I didn't intend to do so. I was merely cautioning against the possibility, since the legitimate concerns that Mateusz expressed could easily lead to such - given that there are both historic and current circumstances that could easily give rise to it. While I firmly believe that Eastern Christians have legitimate issues with how they've been and sometimes still are viewed and treated by the Latin Church as an institution and by some Latins, I am convinced that we need to be proactive in overcoming those, rather than bemoaning what should have been or how it should be. That was my point.

Many years,

Neil

LC2K,

Your observations are very perceptive, my friend. We are, indeed, often still perceived as something other than Catholic as 'Catholic' is understood by the public - both Latin and otherwise. 'Oh, you're Orthodox - right?' While few of us would consider ourselves insulted by being confused with our Orthodox brethren, we are - regretably - not yet one with them in so many ways. And, as you note, the proliferation of 'other Catholics', whether of the Utrecht Confession, independent, vagante, sede vacante, schismatic, or otherwise separated from the historic Catholic Communion has not helped the situation.

Many years,

Neil

Actually it's by or borrows very heavily from Fr Paul Turner [rpinet.com], pastor of St. Munchin Parish in Cameron, Mo. Copyright © 2003 Resource Publications, Inc. Hopefully he credited Fr. Paul.

Cf. "I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church...". There's one Church.



If "Roman" includes non-Latin Catholics, then yes, this is the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsistit_in#Vatican_interpretation
However, my experience is that "majority of Roman believers" no longer believe in that, maybe except for some "traditionalists" like lefebrites, who aren't very numerous.

The "bashing" is a normal psychological reaction. When you have two different things (rites, traditions) with the same purpose (sanctification of your soul) some people will prefer one above the other, and when they see that what they've chosen "works", the other lacks things which "work" or has them in under- or overdeveloped ways, they will judge the other option as "inferior" in a variety of ways. And indeed what works for some people doesn't work for others.

On the other hand we can't allow everybody to pick what he wants, because it leads to anarchy similar to the devastation of post-1969 (Pauline) liturgy in the West, or maybe latinizations in the East. The Church gives us a possibility (not right) to choose, but you have to put roots down, live your tradition, grow in it fully. Personally I think that traditions do not attract each other, rather they repel each other. So I think we will argue endlessly over whose theology is superior etc., I think it's either schism, contempt (the notion that the Westerners are barbarians who know nothing was present in the first millenium) or latinization. Or byzantinization, but maybe not in current circumstances. But that's just my 2 cents.

On the lighter side, I remember telling my girlfriend after a weekday liturgy last Lent, that we had twice as many Roman Catholics in the aisles doing prostrations as we did Ukrainian Catholics. We're all friends though and we're all on the same side.

I think the problem is that the majority of Latin-rite Catholics simply don't realise that there are other traditions within the Church-in-communion-with-Rome. Basically, ignorance.

Though, to think a little further, surely there is only one Church. One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic. Everything else is scandal. That doesn't mean one tradition but it means that, if we were doing what we should be doing, which is precisely to live as the Lord taught us and to love one another fully, there would be no division in the Church and everyone would be in full and unimpaired communion with each other. And we wouldn't have Protestants either.

It seems to me that the people that post on this site are very knowledgable about their faith, however I think that the average "man or woman in the pew" is not. Perhaps this is where the problem lies. I have found that many Roman/Latin Catholics are not even sure of what they believe or why they believe it. I wonder if it is an issue better education by the local churches. I can only speak of my own experiances and cannot speak for other areas but as a father of two children, one who was recently confirmed and went through the mandatory classes, I found that most people treated these classes as a necessary evil and they were taught as such. And even in the CCD classes my younger son attends they are lacking in any real substance of what and why we believe. As I said I can only speak from my experiances but maybe there needs to be a grassroots effort to present the hows and whys.

The divisions in the Church are fully legitimate, and they came out of love. We can't suppose that the Apostles (and their successors) who founded different Churches in different places which resulted in different traditions did something wrong or lacked love.

Leaving the Church is no good. We are not allowed to place love of men above love of God, as following schismatics would seem. Many schisms were caused at least in part by sins of the hierarchy (although I think that in case of Protestants who aren't only schismatics but also plain heretics this factor is overemphasized - if you really wanted a reform you wouldn't have denied truths as basic as sacraments), but I don't think it's a good excuse for officially leaving the Church. Every schismatic says he takes Church with him, though.

You misread me, I think. I don't refer to a legitimate variety of praxis (legitimate as opposed to the terrible liturgical abuses we are seeing in the West at this moment) or local custom, but to disunion, disharmony.

I think that if two traditions rooted so deeply in different theology like Catholic and Orthodox meet (whether on the same territory or not) disunion and disharmony is inevitable. So I can understand the Orthodox when they insist on the concept of "canonical territories" and their demand to stop "proselytizing" and to dismantle Eastern Catholic Churches. I'm not saying that this is good, but I don't think that there's a realistic solution at all.

And so the very few in numbers Eastern Catholics are treated bad by their Western brethren as something strange and rare, and are a thorn in the eye of the Orthodox.

What strengthened the identity of the churches was the nearly total territorial exclusion of not only other religions, but other ritual and spiritual traditions in Europe for a very long time. The West was entirely of Latin tradition, the East entirely Byzantine, the exceptions were insignificant for hundreds of years. And Church and religion were a very important factor in every aspect of social, private and public life. The Eastern Catholics lacked such entities. There were no monoconfessional Eastern Catholic states, no strong missionary activity, which together with (understandable, see paragraph one) lack of sympathy from the territorial Latin hierarchy after the Union, made the Eastern Catholic Churches unable to grow from the very beginning, so it's now a small group in comparison with the total number of Catholics, fighting to purge overwhelming latinizations. But the Eastern Catholics are apparently too small a group and too dispersed to have their "own life". Their clergy has to study somewhere, so IMO is either latinization or "orthodoxization" which will naturally tend to union with the Orthodox.

This may sound harsh but I can't express myself properly in English. I am sympathetic towards Eastern Catholics and the Byzantine tradition in general

To a certain extent I agree with you - my point was simply to stress that, above and beyond all this, there is still only one Church.

I have friends studying for Orders in the Eastern Catholic context, who are being forced to study the same courses, in the same universities, as their Latin equivalents. This is something they bitterly rue. It is actually the Latinisation which is more likely to be responsible for these young men leaving our communion. They think Orthodox, and what they get is the post-VaticanII-mess-of-a-Latin-Church with slightly better taste.

Actually, the Latinisation drives me mad. Perhaps in the case of those now situated in the West, it is understandable, but things like the introduction of the Latin Rite to the Ukraine make me want to growl.

It's very wrong, isn't it?!
Are there places where Eastern or Oriental Catholics are studying more or less full time in an Orthodox seminary? I know of several in my area who have taken courses at Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute and at St. Vladimir's. I'm not sure but Fr. Maximos may have gotten a master's degree through PAOI.

This is why the Eastern "rites" of the Latin orders should be suppressed, to be replaced by authentic Eastern monasticism. Father Taft has spoken eloquently of the tensions and contradictions that come from being an Eastern Christian under a Latin rule.