Domestic Church Customs: Epiphany Octave & Epiphanytide

A bit late for the actual Feast and the King Cake, but well worth bookmarking for next year. Remember, Christmas isn't over until 1 February!

From One Peter Five

By Genie Shaw

Today the Magi gaze in deep wonder at what they see: heaven on earth, earth in heaven, man in God, God in man, one whom the whole universe cannot contain now enclosed in a tiny body.As they look, they believe and do not question, as their symbolic gifts bear witness: incense for God, gold for a king, myrrh for one who is to die. – St. Peter Chrysologus

Epiphanytide is our last big hurrah of the Christmas season before Candlemas ends the cycle on February 2nd. Always falling on January 6th in the traditional calendar, and the first Sunday after New Year’s Day in the new calendar, this feast celebrates the Wise Men’s finding of the Christ Child after following a star and is one of three times Our Lord’s divinity is revealed. As such, the title Epiphany aptly means manifestation. We can find an eloquent description of this reality in the 19th century Epiphanytide hymn “Songs of Thankfulness and Praise” by Christpher Wordsworth, William Wordsworth’s nephew, whose chorus rings:

Anthems be to you addressed,
God in man made manifest.

In Anticipation of the Feast…

The Journey of the Magi

In our home, the Wise Men’s impending arrival is signified by what we call “The Journey of the Magi”. Early on I realized our family would not be able to keep up with the tradition of moving our St. Joseph and Mary on a donkey figures through the house all Advent. The season was already packed to the gills with outside obligations and all the fun surprises I wanted to include with them were much more fitting in the joyous celebration of Christmastide versus the penitential anticipation of Advent. So instead, we began moving the Three Kings from our Nativity scene from room to room, inside or out, each of the 12 days of Christmas. The children follow a clue to find them and often the Three Kings are discovered with a little Christmas surprise related to the feast of the day. We’ve tailored the clues to our family’s season of life each year, but they always follow the same format with a carol reference. For flexibility, I cut stars out of gold glitter scrapbook paper and laminated them so I could reuse them for the clues each year with a wet erase marker. You could definitely pick twelve clues and surprises for your family to use year after year. For example, this is our clue from St. Stephen’s day:

On the 2nd day of Christmas…
The Magi reached where the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even.
Brightly shone the moon and the winds blew cold as ice.

For the Feast of St. Stephen the Wise Men usually bring either ingredients or money for a deep dish pizza supper (“deep and crisp and even”) or the makings of our St. Stephen’s Sundaes of rocky road ice cream and chocolate coal stones with the Christmas Spiced Peaches (stone fruit) we canned in the summer. The children found the Kings in one of the freezers this year.

We started this family tradition long before the Elf of the Shelf craze, however, I found unexpected encouragement when later reading about a similar traveling Wise Men practice in Elsa Chaney’s The Twelve Days of Christmas from 1955.

Make Way for Camels

Similar to our St. Nicholas Eve tradition, on Twelfth Night the children put a bowl of water and their hay-filled shoes out on the front porch as a treat for the camels after their long journey. I don’t know if camels eat hay, but that’s what they get – just like all the other livestock on our farmstead. When we happen to have sand on hand we sprinkle some on the porch and draw camel prints. Regardless, the hay and water are always gone by the morning. In their gratitude the Magi graciously leave a little something to make us wiser in the coming year, typically an Epiphany or Catechetical book to share. There are an abundance of Epiphany related books, but some of our family’s recent favorites are Raymond Arroyo’s The Wise Men Who Found Christmas, Gennady Spirin’s We Three Kings,Fredrick Thury’s The Last Straw, and Tomie dePaola’s The Story of the Three Wise Kings.

During the Octave…

Throughout Epiphanytide the main way we continue to observe the feast is by marking each day with the same additional prayers. We add the Benedictine Meal Blessing Verses for Epiphanytide that Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey and its oblates use and one of the following prayers per meal.

Benedictine Epiphanytide Meal Blessings

The verse before the meal:
V. Reges Tharsis * et ínsulæ
múnera ófferent, allelúia: *
reges Arabum et Saba dona
addúcent, allelúia.

V. The kings of Tharsis *and of the isles shall offer
presents alleluia, * the kings
of the Arabians and of Saba
bring gifts, alleluia.

The verse after the meal:
V. Omnes * de Saba vénient,
allelúia: * aurum et thus
deferéntes, allelúia.

V. All they * from Saba shall
come, alleluia, * bringing
gold and frankincense,
alleluia.

Individual Meal Prayers

Collect from the Roman Missal

O God, Who on this day didst manifest Thine only-begotten Son to the Gentiles by the guidance of a star: graciously grant, that we, who know Thee now by faith, may be led even to contemplate the beauty of Thy Majesty. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

Mozarabic Collect

O Jesus Christ our King, whose sign to the Wise Men was a bright shining star; Enlighten us ever by Thy Grace, and fill us with all wisdom and spiritual understanding; Grant this of thy goodness, O our Lord, whose kingdom and dominion endure throughout all ages. Amen.

Epiphany Prayer by St. Alphonsus Liguori

Give me, therefore, I pray Thee, this gold, this incense, and this myrrh. Give me the gold of Thy holy love; give me the spirit of holy prayer, give me the desire and strength to mortify myself in everything that displeases Thee. I am resolved to obey Thee and to love Thee; but Thou knowest my weakness, oh, give me the grace to be faithful to Thee! 

In our experience, our family is more diligent in new devotions when we pair them with something else that must be done each day such as a meal. We don’t aim for memorization of these prayers each year, just for more familiarity year over year. On a related note, sometimes we are back to schoolwork on the 7th and we use these prayers for our language arts studies for all ages including handwriting, copywork, spelling, dictation, sentence diagrams, etc… Other times we continue our break from school work until the end of the octave. It all depends on things like how healthy everyone is or if a new baby is due in the coming months.

In addition to our daily prayers, we also spread several annual Epiphany activities and traditions throughout the octave. We attend the Boar’s Head Yule Log Festival in Fort Worth, Texas – an English medieval tradition similar to an Epiphany pageant with beefeaters, carols, and sprites. One of the afternoons we put on a much simpler Epiphany Pageant for fun at the house. It is not swanky or complicated, however, I love keeping this tradition alive as it is a carry over from my own childhood and many years of our church putting on Kathie Hill’s musical Wise Guys and Starry Skies. This album is great kids’ car and playtime listening for the week as well.

Epiphanytide is also when our children finally get to shop using the Advent Alms they have saved through their sacrifices. Our local discalced carmelites rely on food donations to fill their meatless pantry during the year, so at Easter and Epiphany we let the children use their penny alms, that were transformed to dollars on Easter and Christmas day, to get items off the sisters’ list. In this way, the children get to give their own gift of gold when we drop the sisters’ food at the convent.

Epiphany House Blessing

The octave of Epiphany is a time historically set aside for the annual blessing of the Catholic home. Traditionally a priest would be invited over for a meal followed by the house being walked through and blessed with Epiphany water. Then the door would be chalked with the year and initials of the wisemen, Casper, Melchior, and Balthasar who were said to be from Africa, Asia, & Europe. These initials also served as an acronym for the Latin phrase, “Christus mansionem benedicat,” or “May Christ bless the house.”

If you are unable to have your priest come over to perform the blessing your family can easily do it. On Epiphany Sunday look for the blessed chalk, a sacramental, put out by your parish and bring a bottle or jar for the Epiphany water. You can use a branch from your Christmas tree for showering the Epiphany water.

Epiphany water is special in that it requires an extra long (about 45 minute) ritual to make it blessed. It also has two exorcisms and contains a small amount of blessed salt. A lot of folks keep it around to sip on fasting days or in times of sickness. If you can’t find Epiphany water just use regular holy water or visit your local FSSP parish.

During Epiphanytide it is also customary to have salt blessed to be used at home throughout the year. Never hesitate to ask your parish priest to bless something for your family. Giving blessings is an important part of their vocation and I’ve yet to come across a priest that wasn’t pleased to do so.

Following the house blessing your family can party with king cake and Epiphany hymns like “We Three Kings” and “Songs of Thankfulness and Praise.”

King Cake

Now I just mentioned King Cake, and even though this may be controversial I have a confession to make… My family can’t stand traditional King Cakes. Shocking, I know. To still keep the Epiphanytide custom alive, for years we made a super simple shortcut cake. We have used canned cinnamon roll dough, roll them up in a bundt pan, & bake for 25-30 minutes or weave them into a ring on a cookie sheet. But our children really didn’t care for those either, so there was still a lot of leftover waste. Thankfully, things changed when I got the idea to adapt one of our family’s favorite autumn recipes & turn it into our go-to King Cake. Chock-full of 3 apples, spices, pecans, & golden raisins, our King of Kings Apple Cake has ingredients to signify each of the Magi and their 3 gifts. Also baked in a bundt pan, this cousin of coffee cake is not overly sweet & doesn’t require additional icing except to give it the traditional green, purple, & yellow Mardi Gras king cake look. And the best part is our family actually inhales it! You can call it King of Kings Apple Cake, if you want to join us in also using it for the Feast of Christ the King, or just Three Kings Apple Cake will do when an Epiphanytide only treat. Make it your family’s own! And don’t worry if you don’t have an actual Baby Jesus to put in your cake – after it cools a bit! We use a little peg doll from one of our nativities, but a bean, a ring, or a coin are all historical alternatives.

Besides King Cake we keep our festal food for Epiphany pretty simple with just two staples that are traditions: my Aunt Honey’s King Ranch Chicken on Epiphany and star cheese quesadillas for Friday’s lunch.

Three Kings Apple Cake

Yield: one bundt cake

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 tea. vanilla
• 3 cups flour
• 1 tea. salt
• 1 tea. baking soda
• 1 tea. cinnamon — frankincense
• 1 tea. ginger — frankincense
• 1 cup pecans, chopped — myrrh
• 1 cup golden raisins — gold
• 1/2 cup rum to soak the raisins
• 3 granny smith apples, peeled & evenly diced to about 1/2in.
• pieces — 3 kings

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F and spray your bundt pan with cooking spray.
2. Toast the pecans by baking in the preheating oven for 5 minutes or until fragrant.
3. Soak the raisins by covering them in rum while in a small dish and zapping them in the microwave for 2 minutes to plump. Drain the excess liquid.
4. Mix together the sugar and wet ingredients
5. Next sift all the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and stir until combined.
6. Add the gifts and the 3 Kings one at a time. This batter is very thick.
7. Pour into your bundt pan and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
8. Finally, pop your Baby Jesus into the bottom of the mostly cooled cake. All the apples, nuts, and raisins make the hunt for Baby Jesus a littl more challenging!

The final few things we try to hit during the Epiphany Octave are a picture study or two on a gorgeous depiction of the Adoration of the Magi, the reading of T. S. Eliot’s poem “The Journey of the Magi” and O. Henry’s short story The Gift of the Magi. These are simple ways to ease back into school work after the holiday break or as a quiet afternoon activity.

January and the continuation of Christmas Cycle

Following the Epiphany Octave there is still a little time remaining in the Christmas Cycle until Candlemas, sometimes oddly overlapping with Septuagesima. And at home our family wants to continue the Christmas focus on the birth and infancy of Christ through this period. Although our carol calendar ends the last day of the Epiphany octave, the month of January is dedicated to the infancy of Christ and the Most Holy Name of Jesus. Therefore, the last family devotion we hold onto with our nativity and the writings of St. Alphonsus Liguori in these final days is our Most Holy Name Chain. Each day of January we look up a name of Jesus in the Bible, the older children practicing their “sword drills” (Bible trivia), and add that title to our gradually growing gold paper chain. This little devotion helps us to not just fizzle out after the month of festivities and provides more opportunities for gaining familiarity with the Scriptures. A win win in my book. I just have to remember to print out the paper strips on New Year’s Day. (*adds new google reminder*)

For Catholic parents the Christmas Cycle can be a stressful, exhausting time when the pressure to catechize while making lasting memories can be overwhelming. But my prayer is that some of the ideas above will help you utilize the span of this season to disperse some of that burden and receive the Epiphany Octave into your home as the blessing and gift it truly is.