Giving out about the state of things in the world is not a Christian occupation, says psychotherapist Paul Andrews SJ. But blessing is. We have the power to bless and approve, and it carries more weight than we imagine
If you are into Googling, you might try the word, blessing, and enjoy what comes up on the computer. There is a lovely Irish blessing, with pictures and music to lift you, at e-water.net/irishblessing_en.html But it, and all the other blessings listed there, are just words and pictures on a screen.
Not easily given
A blessing is not something objective that can be learned like a poem or handed on like paper money. It is personal. If I bless somebody, part of me goes out in the blessing. If it is real; it is not easily given.
In the first book of the Bible (Gen 32:27), Jacob wrestles all night with God, and as dawn is breaking, he cries: I will not let you go unless you bless me. God responds with a blessing, changing Jacob’s name to Israel. This was an important event, as were God’s blessing of the patriarch Abraham, and Isaac’s blessing of his son Jacob. You remember the powerful poetry of Isaac blessing Jacob:
Then his father Isaac said to Jacob,
‘Come near and kiss me, my son.’
So he came near and kissed him;
and he smelled the smell of his garments,
and blessed him, and said,
Ah, the smell of my son is like
the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed.
May God give you of the dew of heaven,
and of the fatness of the earth,
and plenty of grain and wine.
Let peoples serve you,
and nations bow down to you.
Be lord over your brothers,
and may your mother’s sons bow down to you.
Cursed be everyone who curses you,
and blessed be everyone who blesses you!’
Old and young
When Jacob spoke this blessing, he was an old man, within sight of death. We old people know the feeling of impotence that comes with the failing of physical powers and the slowing down of mind and memory. We are tempted to criticize and disparage, and point out what is wrong with the world. That is too easy a role to play. Giving out about the state of things is not a Christian occupation.
But blessing is. We still have the power to approve and bless, and it carries more weight than we might imagine. Children who hear constant rebuke and criticism from their parents, gravitate to grandparents who are happy to bless and approve of them.
That sort of approval is meat and drink to a child. It is not blinkered. Granny does not imagine that young Bill is an angel in all his behaviour. She knows that he, like his parents, is fallible. But her blessing tells him that despite that behaviour he is precious, treasured, good to have around.
Approval
There are times when blessing carries particular weight. I knew a father who sent his sons to boarding school. At the end of holidays, as they went off to catch the train, they came individually to their dad and he solemnly laid his hands on them and blessed them. They went off knowing that he approved of them, treasured them. You could see it in the sons. They took themselves seriously; their self-esteem was high and solid.
The Bible tends to point to fathers’ blessing. Clearly mothers bless too, maybe less in words than in caresses and care. When a girl is married, it is often her father who walks her up the aisle and entrusts her to her new husband. But I have known girls who insisted that they walk up the aisle between their two parents, who have both had such a part in bringing her to this day, and whose approval remains important as they start a new life.
It is not only parents or grandparents whose blessing counts. When I bless a person I am saying: I approve of you, I wish you well. That can carry weight when it comes from a friend, a teacher, a poor person (Blessed are the poor), or a child. The blessing need not be in words. A touch, a kiss, a smile, can convey as much.
Blessing oneself
What do we mean by blessing ourselves? We do it with a gesture, with holy water, or with words; and it is always asking God to be with us, and approve of us.
Ten years ago at the funeral of Princess Diana, there was one unrehearsed gesture that all the cameras caught and replayed again and again. As the gun-carriage with Diana’s body passed the five princes, Charles Spencer, Diana’s brother, solemnly and reverently blessed himself with the sign of the cross.
Only he and God really knew what that meant. It was certainly a prayer, an invocation, a visible act of faith, something intensely personal in the middle of the splendid public liturgy. It was a reminder of how precious and universal that gesture is: to bless yourself in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Crisis and emotion
You spot people blessing themselves in all sorts of situations: absent-mindedly on the way into church; solemnly at the end of Mass; in delighted gratitude, as when a footballer scores a goal or a runner wins a race; poignantly, in the case of Charles Spencer or mourners at a grave.
In extreme sickness, when the brain can no longer form words, the only way we can turn to God may be with our feeble fingers, forming a cross. This sign can grow hurried and thoughtless through custom, but in moments of crisis and deep emotion, there are few gestures as rich in meaning as blessing ourselves.
But bless others too. Fellow-ancients, we may feel there is not much more we can do in this world. But let our mark on the people around us be benign. We can still bless, and it makes a difference.
This article first appeared in The Messenger (November 2007), a publication of the Irish Jesuits.
