April 26, 2005Blessings
The Latin word for “blessing” (bene-dictio) means to “speak well” of or upon someone. A person blesses God by speaking well upon (praising) God. One blesses another by asking God to do well by them. Actually, “good-bye”. Is a blessing, a contracted form of “God be with you.”
Besides the Sign of the Cross (which is a blessing upon oneself), the blessing most commonly used by Christians is the blessing upon food and upon those gathered to eat it: “Bless us O Lord, and these thy gifts…
Blessings are not magical and though the words themselves carried their own power. God is the source of every good gift, and ultimately, all blessings come from God.” “Praise God from whom all blessing flow.”
At the end of Luke’s Gospel, the risen Lord blesses the disciples, and then afterward they are described as continually in the temple blessing God.
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Every Christian can bless others. Some have a special authority to invoke God’s blessings, for example, parents upon their children…or those who are ordained to act on behalf of the Church. The Church promulgated this by publishing the Book of Blessings in 1988.
Sometimes objects are “officially” blessed insofar as they are set aside for sacred use – e.g. an altar, a chalice, a crucifix, a rosary. At other times objects are blessed insofar as one asks God’s special care – e.g. a home, a car, a boat. These objects aren’t set aside as sacred, but God is asked to be present in a special way.
Tuesday, Fifth Week of EasterThen he led them out as far as Bethany, raised his hands, and blessed them. As he blessed them he parted from them and was taken up to heaven.
Luke 24:50-51
Now on Easter Sunday night, Jesus is “taken up to heaven.” This marks the end of the appearances of Jesus in Luke’s Gospel.
Bethany is the village of Martha, Mary and Lazarus – where Jesus stayed when he visited Jerusalem. It is about two miles from the city, just over the Mount of Olives.
This also marks the end of a journey Jesus began back in the ninth chapter of Luke’s Gospel: “When the days for his being taken up were fulfilled, Jesus resolutely set his face toward Jerusalem.”
Now, 15 chapters later, after going through suffering and death, the day for his being taken up is fulfilled.
Jesus’ last act was to bless them.
It’s not a good-bye. It is the end of a brief series of extraordinary appearances immediately following the resurrection.
The risen Lord is still with us, not in extraordinary manifestations, but in the ordinary run of day-to-day life. As only someone who really loves us would do.
Spend some quiet time with the Risen Lord.
