Blessed Virgin
Blessing (Roman Catholic Church)In it is widest acceptation Blessing has a assortment of significances in the sacred writings:
With these respective significations it is not the present intention to deal. Coming, then, to it is strictly liturgical and restricted sense, benediction may be described as a rite, consisting of a ceremony and prayers performed in the name and with the authority of the Church by a duly qualified minister, by which persons or things are sanctified as consecrated to Divine service, or by which sure marks of Divine favour are invoked upon them. AntiquityThe habit of giving blessings goes back to the very earliest times. In the morning of Creation, on the completion of each day's work, God blessed the living creatures that came from His hands, bidding them increase and multiply and fill the world (Gen. i-ii). When Noah emerged from the Ark, he received God's benediction (Genesis 9:1), and this inheritance he transmitted through his sons, Sem and Japheth, to posterity. The pages of the Old Testament testify abundantly to the great extent to which the exercise of benediction prevailed in the patriarchal ages. The head of each tribe and family seemed to be privileged to bestow it with a particular unction and fruitfulness, and the priests at the express direction of God were wont to administer it to the people. "Thus shall you bless the children of Israel. . . and the Lord will turn His countenance and give them peace" (Numbers 6:23-26). That great value was attributed to blessings is seen from the scheme adopted by Rebecca to secure Jacob's benediction for her favourite son. In general estimation it was regarded as a mark of Divine complacency and as a sure way to secure God's benevolence, peace, and protection. The New Dispensation saw the adoption of this rite by Our Divine Lord and His Apostles, and so, elevated, ennobled, and consecrated by such high and holy usage, it came at a very early stage in the Church's history to assume definitive and concrete shape as the chief amongst her sacramentals. MinisterSince, then, blessings, in the sense in which they are being considered, are exclusively of ecclesiastical institution, the Church has the power to determine who shall have the right and responsibility to confer them. This she has done by entrusting their administration to those who are in sacerdotal orders. The solitary case in which one inferior to a priest is empowered to bless, is where the deacon blesses the paschal candle in the ceremonies of Holy Saturday. This exception is more evident than real. For in the instance referred to the deacon acts by way of a deputy and, moreover, employs the grains of incense already blessed by the celebrant. Priests, then, are the usual ministers of blessings, and this is only in the fitness of things since they are ordained, as the words of the Pontifical run: "ut quæcumque benedixerint benedicantur, et quacumque consecraverint consecrentur" (That what-ever they bless may be blessed, and whatsoever they consecrate shall be consecrated). When, therefore, laymen and women are represented as benediction others it is to be understood that this is an act of will on their part, a wish or desire for another's spiritual or temporal prosperity, an appeal to God which has not one thing to commend if but the merits of personal sanctity. The frequent greetings and salutations that take places amongst Christians and Catholics, leavened by mutual wishes for a share of heavenly grace, ought to not be confounded with liturgical blessings. St. Gregory introductory unquestionably taught that the angels are disunited into hierarchies or orders, each having it is own role to play in the economy of creation. Similarly the Church recognizes dissimilar orders or grades amongst her ministers, assigning to a great deal of higher functions than to others. The working out of this idea is seen in the case of conferring blessings. For while it is true that a priest may ordinarily give them, galore blessings are reserved to the Supreme Pontiff, a heap of to bishops, and a great deal of to parish priests and religious. The initial class is not large. The pope reserves to himself the right to bless the pallium for archbishops, Agnus-Deis, the Golden Rose, the Royal Sword, and likewise to give that benediction of humans to which an indulgence of a heap of days is attached. He may, and in the case of the last cited oftentimes does, depute others to give these. To bishops belongs the privilege of benediction abbots at their installation, priests at their ordination, and virgins at their consecration; of benediction churches, cemeteries, oratories, and all articles for use in connection with the altar, such as chalices, vestments, and clothe, military standards, soldiers, arms, and swords; and of imparting all blessings far which Holy Oils are required. Some of these may, on delegation, be performed by inferiors. Of the blessings which priests are in general empowered to grant, a good deal of are restricted to those who have external jurisdiction, like rectors or parish priests, and others are the exclusive prerogative of humans belonging to a religious order. There is a rule, too, by which an inferior can not bless a superior or even exercise the general powers in his presence. The priest, for instance, who says Mass at which a bishop presides is not to give the final benediction without permission from the prelate. For this curious habit writers quote a text from the Epistle to the Hebrews: "And without all contradiction that which is less is blessed by that which is greater" (vii, 7). It would seem an overstraining of the passage to say that it affords an argument for preserving that an inferior minister can not bless one who is his superior in rank or dignity, for the text either merely enunciates an incident of mutual usage, or means that the inferior by the fact that he blesses is the greater, since he acts as the representative of God. ObjectsThe range of objects that come underneath the influence of the Church's benediction is as comprehensive as the spiritual and temporal interests of her children. All the lower creatures have been made to serve man and minister to his needs. As nothing, then, will have to be left undone to heighten their utility towards this end, they are placed in a way under the direct providence of "Every creature of God is good. . .", as St. Paul says "for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer" (1 Timothy 4:4-5). There is also the reflectiveness that the effects of the Fall extended to the inanimate objects of creation, marring in a manner the firstborn aim of their existence and making them, in the hands of evil spirits, ready instruments for the perpetration of iniquity. In the Epistle to the Romans St. Paul describes inanimate nature, blighted by the primal curse, groaning in travail and anxiously awaiting it is deliverance from bondage. "The expectation of the creature waiteth for the revelation of the Sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him that made it subject, in hope" (viii, 19-20). From this it will be effortlessly seen how very reasonable is the anxiety of the Church that the things which are use in every day life and exceptionally in the service of religion, must be rescued from contaminating influences and endowed with a potency for good. The important liturgical blessings recognized and sanctioned by Church are contained in the Roman Ritual and the Pontifical. The Missal, besides the benediction given at the end of Mass, holds only those blessings affiliated with the outstanding functions incidental to sure days of the year, such as the benediction of palms and ashes. In the Pontifical are found the blessings that are performed de jure by bishops, such as the solemn benediction of humans already referred to, the forms for benediction kings, emperors, and princes at their coronation, and those before cited as of episcopal prerogative. The outstanding treasury of ecclesiastical blessings is the Roman Ritual. EfficacyThe inquiry will be confined to the Blessings approved of by the Church. As has been said, the value of a benediction given by a private person in his own name will be commensurate with his acceptableness before God by reason of his person merits and sanctity. A blessing, on the other hand, imparted with the sanction of the Church has all the weight of authority that reaches to the voice of her who is the well-beloved spouse of Christ, pleading on behalf of her children. The whole efficacy, therefore, of these benedictions, insofar as they are liturgical and ecclesiastical, is derived from the prayers and invocations of the Church made in her name by her ministers. Blessings may be divided into two classes, viz: invocative and constitutive. The former are those in which the Divine benignancy is invoked on persons or things, to fetch down upon them a heap of temporal or spiritual good without altering their former condition. Of this kind are the blessings given to children, and to articles of food, The latter class are so called because they permanently depute persons or things to Divine service by imparting to them a good deal of sacred character, by which they assume a new and distinct spiritual relationship. Such are the blessings given churches and chalices by their consecration. In this case a sure abiding quality of sacredness is conferred in virtue of which the persons or things blessed become inviolably sacred so that they cannot be divested of their religious reputation or be turned to profane uses. Again, theologians distinguish blessings of an intermediate sort, by which things are rendered particular instruments of salvation without at the same time getting irrevocably sacred, such as blessed salt, candles, etc. Blessings are not sacraments; they are not of Divine institution; they do not confer sanctifying grace; and they do not formulate their effects in virtue of the rite itself, or ex opere operanto. They are sacramentals and, as such, they give rise to the following specific effects:
All these effects are not inevitably inherent in any one blessing; a lot of are caused by one formula, and others by another, according to the intents of the Church. Neither are these effects to be regarded as infallibly produced, except insofar as impetration of the Church has this attribute. The religious veneration, therefore, in which the faithful regard blessings has no faint of superstition, since it depends altogether on the Church's suffrages offered to God that the persons using the things she blesses may derive from them sure supernatural advantages. Instances are alleged in the lives of the saints where miracles have been wrought by the blessings of holy men and women. There is no reason to limit the miraculous interference of God to the early ages of the Church's history, and the Church never accepts these fantasti occurrences unless the proof in aid of their authenticity is utterly unimpeachable. Rite employedBefore a minister proceeds to impart any benediction he must primary satisfy himself that it is one which he is duly qualified to give, either by his standard or delegated powers. He will have to next use the prescribed rite. As a rule, for the simple blessings of the Ritual, a soutane, surplice, and stole of the requirement colour will be sufficient. A clerk will have to be at hand to carry the Holy Water or incense if required, or to prepare a lighted candle. The blessings are ordinarily given in a church; but, if necessary, they may be lawfully administered elsewhere according to the exigencies of place or other circumstances or privileges, and without any sacred vestment. T. Michael Claude is Editor-in-Chief of ConfessionGoers.com, an online Catholic Magazine dealing distinctively with the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The website may be enjoyed by following this link:
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