The Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)
Dear brothers
and sisters,
A
week from today the Bishop will come to bless our new organ, which you have not
yet heard because it has not yet been set aside for divine worship. Today King
David says, “Bless the Lord, my
soul” and the Lord Jesus tells us to “bless those who curse you” (Psalm 103:1;
Luke 6:28). We speak, then, of blessing things, of blessing God, and of
blessing people, but surely blessing things, blessing God, and blessing people does not carry the same connotation. What, then, does it mean to bless?
It
seems to me that when some people think of blessings, they think of blessings
over objects, whether it be a Bible, rosary, candle, statue, medal, or other
object of religious devotion. Some mistakenly think that such a blessing somehow
grants a quasi-magical power to the blessed object; this, of course, is not the
case. What, then, does it mean to bless something or someone, or to bless God?
Our
English word “bless” comes from the Old English word bletsian, meaning “to
consecrate by a religious rite, make holy, give thanks.” To consecrate
something – literally, to make something holy – is to remove it from the
everyday world, to set it aside exclusively for divine purposes. This is what
the Church does when she blesses an object. For example, during the blessing of
an organ, the Church first blesses God – she thanks and praises him - by calling
to mind the great celestial hymn sung by the angels and, indeed, by all of
creation. Similarly, during the blessing of sacred vestments, the Church
blesses God – she thanks and praises him - for the priesthood of Jesus Christ
in which ministers of the New Covenant share.
In
the texts of these two blessings, we can learn something important about what the
Church does through blessings: “Blessings … refer first and foremost to God,
whose majesty and goodness they extol…;” David blesses God by praising his
goodness and rejoicing in his majesty.[1] Here we must come to
another meaning of blessings: we cannot set God apart from our everyday lives because
he is not of this world; consequently, there must be another meaning, a
secondary meaning, of blessing.
Our
English word “blessing” is used when the Latin texts speak of a benedictio,
a word comprising two Latin words: bene, meaning “good,” and dictio,
meaning “I speak.” In Latin, then, a blessing, a benediction, is good words
that are spoken. To bless God is to speak good things about him, which is to say,
words spoken in praise of God because of his goodness which he continually
communicates to us.
Perhaps
paradoxically, it is precisely by invoking God’s goodness that blessings “also
involve human beings, whom he governs and in his providence [he] protects.
Further, blessings apply to created things through which, in their abundance
and variety, God blesses human beings.”[2] For this reason, when the
Church sets aside an organ explicitly for sacred use, she prays that the organ’s
music “may lead us to express our prayer and praise in melodies that are pleasing
to you [God].”[3]
Similarly, when the Church sets aside certain vestments for the exclusive
worship of God, she prays that the sacred ministers who wear them may be “prepared
for the celebration of the liturgy and set apart by your blessing, wear them
with reverence and honor them [the vestments] by the holiness of their lives.”[4] But the sacred vestments
do not simply remind bishops, priests, and deacons of the holiness of life to
which they are called; through the holiness of their lives and the noble beauty
of the garments, you, too, ought to be inspired and led to greater holiness of
life so you might bless God through the witness of your lives.
In
these two blessings, we see that we bless God “by praising him and thanking him
and by offering him … reverent worship and service.”[5] Consequently, in order
that the Christian faithful may bless God through and with their very lives, the
Church also blesses people because “Christ, the Father’s supreme blessing upon
us, is portrayed in the gospel as blessing those he encountered, especially the
children, and as offering to his Father prayers of blessing.”[6]
Regardless
of whether they pertain to God, to things, or to people, blessings are aimed at
growth in holiness, which “is the goal of Christian life.”[7] Indeed, “what God wants most of all for each
one of you is that you should become holy. He loves you much more than you
could ever begin to imagine, and he wants the very best for you. And by far the
best thing for you is to grow in holiness.”[8]
We grow in holiness when we bless God because we call to him his own holiness. We
grow in holiness when we bless people because we recall God’s activity and presence
in their lives. We grow in holiness when we bless objects because we recall God’s
particular care for us in the things he has made.
This is why the Second Vatican Council taught
that, through her blessings, the Church
sanctifies almost every event
of [our] lives with the divine grace which flows from the Paschal mystery of
the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ. There is scarcely any proper
use of material things which cannot thus be directed toward the sanctification
of men and the praise of God.[9]
Blessings,
then, are “a promise of divine help, a proclamation of his favor, [and] a
reassurance of his faithfulness to the covenant he made with his people.”[10] When we sing in the
Psalms, “Bless the Lord, my soul,” we remember God’s faithful love; when we
follow the command of Jesus to “bless those who curse you,” we remember God’s great
mercy toward us; when we bless objects, we remember God’s fatherly care for us.
Through each of these forms of blessing, may our lives, too, become a blessing,
a hymn of praise to God raised in gratitude to him. Amen.
