As the Mass comes to a close, the priest offers a blessing to all the faithful who are gathered to celebrate the Eucharist. The participants are bidden to a realization of the omnipresence of the Triune God in whose name the final blessing is invoked: “May Almighty God bless you: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
In his book, This Is the Mass, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen draws attention to the solemnity of the act: “In a beautiful liturgical gesture, the celebrant raises his hands on high as though he would draw down from heaven the Grace which now goes forth with us to guard and to guide us.” There was a time in which this benediction was thought to be so solemn and important an act, that it was reserved for the bishop. The venerable Latin phrase, Benedicat, Benedictus (may the one who is blessed bless you) emphasizes the importance of the moral character of the one who gives the blessing.
The final words of the celebrant, “Go, the Mass is ended,” suggest that the participants go into the world with renewed zeal for their mission and with greater spiritual strength to do good and resist evil. There is a continuity between the Mass and the world. The Mass on Sunday should not be isolated from the rest of the week.
With all these thoughts in mind, I began giving nighttime blessings to each of our five children. When they were tucked in bed I would administer a blessing, lightly pressing my thumb against their foreheads: Nos cum prole pia, benedicat Virgo Maria (May the Virgin Mary, with her beautiful baby, bless us). The practice became a ritual and if I were tardy, the children would cry out, “I didn’t get my blessing!” I felt that a fatherly blessing just prior to the children slipping off to slumber land was more salutary than saying, “Sweet dreams.”
When a father confers blessing on his children, he is acting in a Christ-like manner. Christ blessed children, his apostles, the sick and the lame, the loaves for the 5,000, and the Bread at the Last Supper. The 14th-century Italian Renaissance poet Petrarch, in Sonnet XLVII, blesses everything associated with his meeting with Laura: “Blessed be the hour, the day, the month, the year, the Spring, the lovely scene, the moment, the spot, etc.” When a person is in love everything seems blessed. God has blessed everything, but it takes love to perceive that blessed state.
A blessing that invokes God can be distinguished from a wish that excludes him. Nonetheless, everyone has an impulse to find God. In our secular world, however, many are reluctant to travel very far to arrive at this end. They stop at the “wish” to find God and feel that they’ve done well enough by simply expressing nice sentiments to their neighbors. For example, “Have a nice day” is a popular greeting, but it leaves God out of the picture.
The immensely popular movie, Star Wars, provided a phrase that filled a gap and captured the public imagination. It was not quite “God be with you,” but it was better than “Have a nice day.” “May the force be with you” was cosmic and those who used it felt it conferred genuine benefits. It was a phrase so tailor made for a secular audience that it needed to be commemorated. Hence, its annual celebration on May 4th (“May the Fourth be with you!”). It replaced “best wishes,” “good luck,” and “take care.”
Several U. S. presidents would conclude their speeches with the words “God Bless America.” It was offered without ceremony leaving people to wonder if it was merely politically motivated. Irving Berlin’s great patriotic song, God Bless America (notably recorded in the stentorian style of Kate Smith) was a resounding success. It earned the composer a Gold Congressional Medal conferred by the U. S. Congress. Folk singer, Woody Guthrie, however, objected to it. He felt it was too sappy, and blindly patriotic. In response, he composed, This Land Is My Land. The KKK did not like it because it was composed by a person of the Jewish faith.
We bless our home, our food, our children, people who are sick, newlyweds, and anyone who is in need of comfort. We are cautioned, however, that our blessings will be beneficial in proportion to our own state of blessedness. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ blessed the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure of heart, the peacemakers, and those who are persecuted. In this case, the blessedness of the one who blessed was Blessedness Himself.
General Omar Bradley, who fought in World Wars I and II, lamented that, “We have many men of science; too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Man is stumbling blindly through a spiritual darkness while toying with the secrets of life and death.” Bradley spoke these words on Armistice Day in 1948. But they still ring true. The current secular world has not only rejected the Sermon on the Mount, but has rejected the entire Bible.
“It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). It is also blessed to bless. As Shakespeare says of mercy, “It is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes” (The Merchant of Venice, Act 4: scene 1). Let us be prodigal, then, in giving blessings to our friends and neighbors.
Image Source: AB/Lawrence OP on Flickr
