Lay People Blessing

[mommas_boy]

I've been curious about this, so I did some research. The Catholic Encyclopedia states in [url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02599b.htm"]its entry on blessings[/url]:

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Since, then, blessings, in the sense in which they are being considered, are entirely of ecclesiastical institution, the Church has the power to determine who shall have the right and duty to confer them. This she has done by entrusting their administration to those who are in sacerdotal orders ... Priests, then, are the ordinary ministers of blessings
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It continues:

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When, therefore, laymen and women are represented as blessing others it is to be understood that this is an act of will on their part, a wish or desire for another's spiritual or temporal prosperity, an appeal to God which has nothing to recommend if but the merits of personal sanctity. The ordinary greetings and salutations that take places between Christians and Catholics, leavened by mutual wishes for a share of heavenly grace, must not be confounded with liturgical blessings.
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Yet, the encyclopedia also states:

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In the morning of Creation, on the completion of each day's work, God blessed the living creatures that came from His hands, bidding them increase and multiply and fill the earth (Gen. i-ii). When Noah emerged from the Ark, he received God's benediction (Genesis 9:1), and this heritage he transmitted through his sons, Sem and Japheth, to posterity. The pages of the Old Testament testify abundantly to the great extent to which the practice of blessing prevailed in the patriarchal ages. [b]The head of each tribe and family seemed to be privileged to bestow it with a special unction and fruitfulness ... That great value was attributed to blessings is seen from the strategy adopted by Rebecca to secure Jacob's blessing for her favourite son[/b].
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The Catechism also states in paragraph 1669:

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Sacramentals derive from the baptismal priesthood: every baptized person is called to be a "blessing", and to bless. Hence, lay people may preside at certain blessings; the more a blessing concerns ecclesial and sacramental life, the more is its administration reserved to the ordained ministry
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That paragraph also references a number of biblical passages. In Luke 6:28, Jesus is speaking to "a great crowd of his disciples and a large number of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon", and tells them to "bless those who curse you". Romans 12:14 repeats this: "Bless those who persecute (you), bless and do not curse them", as does 1 Peter 3:9, "Do not return evil for evil, or insult for insult; but, on the contrary, a blessing, because to this you were called, that you might inherit a blessing". These passages in particular seem to speak of a blessing as the proper Christian response to persecution. But, these blessings seem to be markedly different from the blessings of the Old Testament patriarchs. What most catches my eye in the stories of Abraham and his posterity is the fact that their blessings given to [b]family[/b] seemed to have, as the Catholic Encyclopedia puts it, "a special unction and fruitfulness".

Which brings me to my question(s):

Is there a difference between a lay person blessing each of the following:

[list]
[*]A stranger,
[*]An acquaintance,
[*]A close friend,
[*]A fiance or significant other,
[*]A brother or sister,
[*]A parent,
[*]A spouse,
[*]Or a son or daughter?
[/list]

I tend to think that toward the bottom of this list, something changes. Is that real, or just apparent? If it is real, What is the difference between someone blessing their child, and a priest blessing that same child? [i]Can/should[/i] parents bless their children, or is that best left to the Ordained ministries?

Thanks in advance.
Kris

[cappie]

I think you can divide blessings into 2 groups. The Church’s Book of Blessings lists the blessings that may be given by lay people (p.xxviii). Parents may bless their children. Baptised lay people who carry out functions on behalf of the Church may also give blessings: catechists may bless their students, and Eucharistic ministers with a special role of visiting the sick may bless the sick. Lay people may bless the sick, food, a new home, seeds at planting time, and throats on the feast of St. Blaise. Liturgical blessing is reserved to priests and deacons.

Two men wrote to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (CDW) asking about this practice. Their query asked if there are “particular guidelines or restrictions” concerning the practice of a minister or extraordinary minister giving the person a blessing.

The response from the CDW was in the form of a letter (Protocol No. 930/08/L), dated November 22, 2008, signed by Father Anthony Ward, SM, Under-secretary of the Congregation.



1. The liturgical blessing of the Holy Mass is properly given to each and to all at the conclusion of the Mass, just a few moments subsequent to the distribution of Holy Communion.

2. Lay people, within the context of Holy Mass, are unable to confer blessings. These blessings, rather, are the competence of the priest (cf. Ecclesia de Mysterio, Notitiae 34 (15 Aug. 1997), art. 6, § 2; Canon 1169, § 2; and Roman Ritual De Benedictionibus (1985), n. 18).

3. Furthermore, the laying on of a hand or hands — which has its own sacramental significance, inappropriate here — by those distributing Holy Communion, in substitution for its reception, is to be explicitly discouraged.

4. The Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio n. 84, “forbids any pastor, for whatever reason to pretext even of a pastoral nature, to perform ceremonies of any kind for divorced people who remarry”. To be feared is that any form of blessing in substitution for communion would give the impression that the divorced and remarried have been returned, in some sense, to the status of Catholics in good standing.

5. In a similar way, for others who are not to be admitted to Holy Communion in accord with the norm of law, the Church’s discipline has already made clear that they should not approach Holy Communion nor receive a blessing. This would include non-Catholics and those envisaged in can. 915 (i.e., those under the penalty of excommunication or interdict, and others who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin).

[Theoketos]

There is unfortunately many things that are unclear because of the book of blessings, but you nail the principle already. All the Baptized may bless, as an act of the will. Priests' blessings are of a different, ecclesiastic character, the blessings of the Patriarchs are closer to that of the second character.