Blessings

This past Sunday was St. Francis Day, and my church, like many others, celebrating by holding a blessing of the animals. My cats were blessed when they were kittens, and they don't like being among the crowd of people and (especially!) dogs, so I don't take them anymore. Instead, I followed the lead of a former deacon of the church by bringing in an animal from nature: they brought an almond bug; I brought a tree frog.

I like to think of bringing those wild animals in to be blessed, and then releasing them into the wild to carry their blessings to the rest of nature. A friend of mine liked the idea, but also commented that they'd always thought of nature as having its own connection to God, so that such blessings wouldn't be necessary. I don't disagree with the idea that the plants and animals have their own connections to God, but the comment got me wondering about what it is we're really doing when we bless something or someone.

The first thing I think needs to be clear is that blessing isn't the same as consecrating. To consecrate something is to set it aside for sacred use, like the bread and wine at communion, or the water for baptism, or the sanctuary of a church. Anything that's consecrated has to be used for sacred purposes or disposed of reverently (i.e. by eating the bread, drinking the wine/water or pouring it onto the ground, or de-consecrating it if it's a church building that will no longer be used for worship). But we bless stuff all the time that isn't for sacred use. Like many members of my church, I had my house blessed shortly after my husband and I moved in. My cats have been blessed, we bless the food when we say grace, and the priest pronounces a blessing on the congregation at the end of the worship service. None of these make the people, places, or things sacred in the way that consecration does. (So what about consecrating a bishop then? Surely they're only being consecrated in their role as a member of the clergy, not in their entire life – everyone has to deal with the practical as well as the sacred.)

The other thing is that blessing isn't magical. I don't think whether or not your dinner has been blessed is going to affect its nutritional properties. The fact that my house has been blessed doesn't mean it can't burn down, and the blessing at the end of Sunday worship doesn't keep bad stuff from happening to everyone all week. But it is meaningful. Any future homes and pets will also be blessed, and I would miss the blessing on Sunday if we didn't have it as part of the liturgy. (I do, however, tend to be sadly remiss about blessing food. Maybe something to take on during Lent...)

So why is it meaningful? I find myself drawn to the language used to describe the sacraments – the “outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.” Blessing something isn't a sacrament, but it still has a sort of special significance. In general, it wouldn't be as meaningful for someone to just say, “I hope your cat has a long and happy life,” or even “I hope God gives your cat a long and happy life,” though I can imagine a kind of person who could use just those words and still be pronouncing a blessing. And maybe that can give some hint about where the meaning comes from. This person I'm imagining is someone who would be so connected to God that it would be evident even when they're just doing normal stuff, so that if they're wishing your cat well, of course God is brought into it, because God is brought into everything they do. And different people I've met or known have been like that at different times. But most of us need more intentionality to connect to God in that way, and the specific words and gestures help form that intention. I guess the hope is that we'll all eventually reach a point where that's not needed, where being deeply connected to God is the norm - “the earth as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the seas are full of water” - but I'm a long way from that point, so I need my rites and liturgy and beautiful language.

So blessing seems to have something to do with intentionally recognizing a connection between God and that which is being blessed. Of course the connection exists no matter what, because God is God and is present in all His creation. So that means it doesn't create anything that isn't already there, except within our minds. (Which does not make it real or unimportant – so much of what we do is in our minds!) But it does make me think that if someone was interacting with something that had been blessed, but didn't know it had been blessed, that the blessing wouldn't matter to that person's experience. (Though I will accept that praying for someone can be beneficial to them even if they don't know they're being prayed for, so I'm not sure about this). My thought is that blessing something or being present when it is blessed reminds us that it's part of God's creation, that it's meant to be used/treated in accordance with God's will, and that it's a good gift from God for which joy and gratitude are appropriate responses. And we use the language and gestures of blessing instead of just saying “Hey, remember that this is God's” because in many cases the beauty and specialness speak to us in a way beyond just the words and seem to allow the reality of God's care to penetrate more deeply into our hearts. (That said, there are times, I think, when informal language is appropriate: the informal and occasionally somewhat humorous mealtime prayers among friends and family cement our bonds in other ways that are equally part of our life with God). After the blessing itself is over to remember it or to be told that something is blessed allows us to reconnect with that reality that both this particular thing and all the world belong to God, to His glory and our joy.