God Bless You

In our lives, the ordinary things sometimes go unnoticed. This past weekend two of our visiting friars were impressed that so many of our Hispanic brothers and sisters sought out the priest’s blessing as they left the church after Sunday Eucharist. I explained to them that this was an ordinary request each week. The occasion of the request was a birthday, a sickness, a pregnancy, a journey back to their native country. Other times it may be that a family has gotten back together as their other family members have come to visit.

The practice of blessing people is not only a Latino custom but a long-standing Catholic ritual. The most frequent custom is to ask for a priest’s blessing. Other times, in some cultures, the parents bless their children as they leave the house. Parents frequently bless their children and their beds as they tuck in their children at bedtime.

An often expressed wish, even in our secular culture, is to say “God bless you” when someone sneezes. Despite our secularism, it is not uncommon to risk political correctness with a “God-bless-you” in a public place on the occasion of a sneeze! What happens in this blessing experience?

Blessed in the Presence of God
When we bless someone, something, or some occasion, we remember the presence of God around us. In thinking about blessings, I recalled a long ago experience in Catholic grade school. The experience was a devotion taught by several of the good Sister, Servants of the Immaculate Heart. Without a formal name, at least in my memory, it was simply “recalling the presence of God”.

The devotion was simple. At the beginning of each hour, exactly on the hour, one of the boys or girls was charged with checking the clock and then promptly standing in the aisle next to his/her desk. In a show of devotion and power, the student would declared to their classmates: “Let us remember the holy presence of God.” All would stand and silently remember that God was with us in our classroom.

I can’t remember whether any other prayers were recited before we all sat down and continued with our tasks. What a great way to remember that at every moment God was with us throughout the day?

Remembering and Blessing
In liturgical studies years later, I would appreciate the good common sense theology of that Catholic school practice. I learned in more nuanced theological language that blessing was about publically remembering and making real the Presence of God. I was to learn that to bless something was about remembering and never forgetting the good deeds of God in our life.

The Eucharist is a primary experience of this blessing of the Father in Christ. While a believer could remember alone and silently, there is something intensely life-giving in remembering publically and aloud in the assembly of the believers. In that public and faith-filled way, God makes himself known to us and we come to be touched by his Presence. In blessing the Father we, in fact, become blessed. Our lives are transformed into the mystery of God.

In the Eucharist, we “bless” bread and wine, while in fact the bread and wine become the occasion for “blessing” God himself in Christ. Unlike our common misunderstanding, blessing does not make something holy, but rather the holiness of God is discovered in creation, both things and people. In remembering the past deeds of God, we receive them in the present moment and we hope for them in the future.

In our sacraments and sacrmentals, we Catholics bless things. At times we confuse our secular division of life with those things which are holy. We wrongly try to make them holy as if they were somehow not holy. Rather, a more authentic theology of blessing is incarnational. Christ took on our humanness and made all things holy. Blessing allows us to discover the holiness of God in all things and in all people. In that we become thankful for these things and people as gifts. Life inside and outside church becomes a blessing.

CDH