On Blessing
The Power of Intention
“You are to . . . pronounce God’s blessing . . .”1
One of the most profound and beautiful responsibilities of priesthood is pronouncing God’s blessing. In Christian tradition, the art of blessing is sometimes described as “reserved” to the ordained ministry, as if blessing were something that only priests could do. It is more accurate to say that blessing is modeled by the ordained ministry (one hopes). The priest, in her words and actions, is charged with offering a pattern of blessing on behalf of the community. This is a pattern which is meant to be emulated and improved upon.
John O’Donohue implies as much when he writes that
Despite all the darkness, human hope is based on the instinct that at the deepest level of reality some intimate kindness holds sway. This is the heart of blessing. To believe in blessing is to believe that our being here, our very presence in the world, is itself the first gift, the primal blessing. As Rilke says: Hier zu sein ist so viel – to be here is immense.2
The vocation of blessing is universal. We bless because we are a blessing.
When we bless something – whether a person, place, or thing – we recognize its intrinsic holiness. We do not make it so. We are not God. We recognize that it is so, and call forth the depths of infinite kindness mediated by its very existence. To bless is to express the deepest truth we know.
To bless also acknowledges and honors relationship. We can only bless who or what we know. Blessing intensifies the intimacy of our connection to reality. People who live behind well-defended walls - whether psychological, physical, or both - are unable to bless, because they are cut off from the intimate kindness of reality. Blessing is only possible where there is vulnerability.
There are ritual blessings – the blessing of the water of Holy Baptism, the blessing of the bread and wine of Holy Communion, the nuptial blessing at a wedding, the commendation of the dead, table blessings – recognizable words and gestures that provide the pattern of blessing. Blessing is not limited to these ritual contexts. Rather, they school us in the art of blessing, so that we may communicate blessing to others in the daily round of life.
Training in the art of blessing - perceiving and calling forth the intimate kindness in people and situations - is simply part of becoming fully human. This is a skill developed over the course of a lifetime. The vocation of our elders, in particular, is to bless us. The poet Robert Bly once said, “If you are a young man, and you are not being admired by an older man, you are being hurt.” The blessing of the elders, women and men, is crucial to the health of a community. A culture that no longer cultivates the art of blessing loses its identity and descends into callous cruelty.
Blessing and cursing are related to each other. Blessing recognizes the infinite kindness in the depths of reality fostering life. Cursing recognizes the finite cruelty that brings death by exploiting vulnerability. While we should be generous in blessing, we should be very, very hesitant in cursing. The recognition of cruelty is one thing; pronouncing it cursed may amplify its resonance. This calls for careful discernment.
Blessing and cursing are often misused. We bless things – like military weapons – that in no way serve the infinite kindness at the heart of reality. These are instruments of domination and division. Conversely, we curse the very people who are the victims of unkindness, failing to recognize the blessedness of their being. Jesus’ blessing of the poor, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for justice, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those persecuted for the sake of justice should give pause to those who are cursing immigrants, feminists, queers, and antiracists today.3 We too often curse what God blesses.
The gravest example of our failure to bless is our treatment of the earth itself. The climate crisis is a consequence of our failure to perceive the intimate kindness at the heart of reality, the very ground of life that sustains the earth community. We have separated ourselves from the web of life. We no longer know the creatures and elements of the earth as kindred beings. We cannot bless what we do not know.
When we use language in ways that misuse blessing and cursing, we violate the third commandment: “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.”4 Taking God’s name in vain isn’t about salty language. It is about distorting reality. It is about using language to deceive and exploit rather than to name and bless. Those who lie about the integrity of the 2020 election or about the reality of the climate crisis are prime examples.
Blessing and cursing operate through the force of intention. Language is powerful. It summons what it names. The awakened heart exercises the power to bless by establishing a radiant field of energy that influences reality. This energetic resonance increases exponentially through collective prayer. As Donohue notes,
We have no idea the effect we actually have on one another. This is where blessing can achieve so much. Blessing as powerful and positive intention can transform situations and people. The force of blessing must be even more powerful when we consider how the intention of blessing corresponds with the deepest desire of reality for creativity, healing, and wholesomeness. Blessing has pure agency because it animates the deepest threshold between being and becoming; it mines the territories of memory to awaken and draw forth possibilities we cannot even begin to imagine!5
Cultivating the art of blessing begins with learning to see as Jesus sees.
“The Eyes of Jesus”6
I imagine the eyes of Jesus Were harvest brown, The light of their gazing Suffused with the seasons: The shadow of winter, The mind of spring, The blues of summer, And amber harvest. A gaze that is perfect sister To the kindness that dwells In his beautiful hands. The eyes of Jesus gaze on us, Stirring in the heart's clay The confidence of seasons That never lose their way to harvest. This gaze knows the signature Of our heartbeat, the first glimmer From the dawn that dreamed our minds, The crevices where thoughts grow Long before the longing in the bone Sends them toward the mind's eye, The artistry of the emptiness That knows to slow the hunger Of outside things until they weave Into the twilight side of the heart, A gaze full of all that is still future Looking out for us to glimpse The jeweled light in winter stone, Quickening the eyes that look at us To see through to where words Are blind to say what we would love, Forever falling softly on our faces, His gaze plies the soul with light, Laying down a luminous layer Beneath our brief and brittle days Until the appointed dawn comes Assured and harvest deft To unravel the last black knot And we are back home in the house That we have never left.
Who has blessed you? Who or what will you choose to bless today? It is never too late to cultivate the art of blessing.
From The Examination in the Ordinal, The Book of Common Prayer, p. 531.
John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings (New York: Random House, Inc., 2008), p. 186.
Matthew 5:1-12.
Exodus 20:7.
O’Donohue, op cit, p. 217.
O’Donohue, p. 219-220.