The Why & How of Blessing Things

At the end of the liturgy on Sunday morning the priest will raise their hand over the congregation and announce a blessing, making the sign of the cross over the people. This is called the benediction, which comes from the Latin meaning “good word”. You’ll see something similar at the table when the celebrant will place their hands over the bread and wine and ask God to “sanctify them by your Word and Holy Spirit…” and then pray to “sanctify us also” while the congregation makes the sign of the cross. Every time incense is used it is blessed by the priest who prays “Lord, bless this your creature incense, may you glorify the one in whose name you burn”, and makes the sign of the cross over it. We’ve seen the blessing of water at a baptism, over chalk at the Epiphany pub sing, and over pets at the blessing of the animals, to name a few. You might even ask for God’s blessing over your food when you eat. In the Christian life blessing is everywhere. But what is it and how does it work? 

To bless something is to give a good word concerning it. You could say that there are two kinds of blessing in Christian practice: one that invites God’s favor upon someone or something and another kind that fundamentally changes the state of something. Both rely on God’s authoritative word to accomplish it, and both may involve material things being used for the good purposes of God. So, for example, blessing your dog doesn’t change your dog but asks for God’s favor upon it. However, asking God to make something holy (sanctify) like water, oil, incense, or candles; or to set aside something for divine service (consecrate) like bread, wine, clergy, or altars is only possible because of God’s promise to make it so. It is blessed because God said it is. How is that accomplished? That is a great mystery for sure that leads us to a deeper more fundamental question: How is God involved in the material world?

This gets us to the heart of the matter about blessings. Can material things or people be blessed? Isn’t a blessing merely a spiritual reality? When we look upon the face of God in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, we are confronted by a God who is involved in the real world (John 1:14). Jesus’ life and ministry, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension is the story of a God not only involved in the world he created but rescuing it from destruction, death, and sin–all ways of saying “not blessed” or falling away from the purpose for which God created it. 

This redemptive work continues through our Lord to those he called to follow him. We can bless one another with a “good word” of blessing, we can even bless God with praise, or invite God’s blessing on someone we’re praying for, but there is yet another kind of blessing the church has acknowledged throughout history. When Jesus called his disciples to participate with the work of God’s Kingdom, scripture says he entrusted them with “power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal” (Luke 9:1). Jesus promised them that by his authoritative word “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 18:18) Again, Jesus told the disciples, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (John 20:23) From the first-hand experience of the disciples the church then entrusted these special acts of power and authority to those that the apostles themselves laid hands on for this ministry. As Anglicans we call this apostolic succession, or the Spirit’s working throughout the history of succession from one bishop to another, and from bishops to priests. Now in our parish, our priests administer these sacred gifts by the authority of Christ given through the historic community of his disciples. 

In the end, we may be left with more questions than simple answers about what it means to be blessed and how God is involved in the world we know. But not having enough room in your head to fit this mystery is not necessarily a puzzle needing to be solved but a sign you're seeing the world more clearly, “charged with the grandeur of God” as Gerard Manley Hopkins famously put it. 

So light your blessed candles and sit with the perplexing and uncomfortable mystery that God has called this light “blessed”, and that you live in a world in which the divine life permeates the mundane. Look at your worn hands and skin, feel the stresses your body carries, acknowledge what burdens your heart and mind. Then remember the sign of the cross you made on your body when the priest prayed authoritatively in Christ’s name to “sanctify us also”. Then remember the sign of the cross you made on your body in agreement with, “the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit , be among you, and remain with you always. Amen.” 

Friends, we are blessed not because things go well for us or don’t. We are blessed because God has said so, through the eternal Word who has the first and last say, Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns now and forever. Amen. 

Fr. Shawn McCain Tirres