This post was written by Andrew Preston, one of our Ministry Residents. The liturgy provided below was introduced at our worship service on the first Sunday after Epiphany: Jan 10, 2021, where we blessed chalk and distributed physical copies of the document below.
In the Christian imagination there is a profound sense of sacredness to the spaces we inhabit. A Home Blessing Liturgy intends to help us remember and reimagine that our common places are, in fact, places of holy habitation—sacred space that is set apart, where we ought to expect to encounter God in every room, at the table, inside the closet, and behind every nook and cranny.
Despite its seemingly ordinariness, our dwellings are actually meant to draw us deeper into a participation of God’s divine life. What if the bedroom was a place where we learn to acknowledge our need for rest, and that our true rest is found in Christ? Our sleeping and waking are daily rhythms that remind us to die to ourselves and our own strength, and in turn, rise to walk in the newness of life brought through our union in Christ’s death and resurrection. What if the bathroom was re-envisioned as a space where water is the symbol that reminds us of how the Lord cleanses us from all sin that we might serve him, and this was sacramentally embodied in our baptism? What if the dining room table was lived as an extension of the Eucharistic Table? A place where we lift our hearts up to the Lord and give him thanks for both food and drink to sustain us and make us glad in him. At the table we learn to feast on the goodness of God as well as hunger for the great Wedding Feast of the Lamb. What if our living rooms where a space set apart for fellowship, which reminded us that we live in communion with one another? And yet, our communion extends beyond family, friends, and the church visible, but that we are connected to the communion of saints and are surrounded on the sofa by a great cloud of witnesses. Perhaps heaven and earth are not so distant after all.
May this liturgy stir your heart and imagination in such ways, to invite the Lord’s blessing into our spaces so that we may live always aware of the presence of God amidst our common places.
Andrew Preston
Epiphany 2021
The liturgy in this booklet is adapted from the services of various sources including: “Celebration for a Home” and “A Shorter Blessing of a Home” in The Book of Occasional Services 2018 (pp.156-167); also, “An Anglican House Blessing” and the various sources cited therein, which can be found online at hopeanglican.us/housblessing.pdf, as well as “The Blessing of a Home” and the various resources generously provided by Fr. Trevor McMaken at City of Light Anglican Church.
