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New Creation
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| Joined: | Thu Nov 22nd, 2007 |
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| First Name: | Paula | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | wicca 9 yrs, Anglican 5 yrs, RCIA now! |
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Posted: Wed Dec 26th, 2007 04:13 am |
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Hello again!
Well, my family and I went to our first Christmas mass together. The place was packed so they had three different assembly lines that people could receive the Eucharist. We cannot receive yet so we go up for a blessing from the priest.
My husband tried to get into the line that the priest was heading but a lay woman kind of stepped in front of him, blocking him. She somehow knew (since we are very new here...only our third mass) that we could not receive and said "you're coming for a blessing?" and Lloyd, kind of stuck really, said "yes" so she blessed each of us with the Body of Christ.
Was that appropriate? How does a lay person have the authority to bless? And a woman no less?
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always a seeker
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CajunRick
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| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Houma, Louisiana USA |
| Posts: | 4981 |
| First Name: | Rick (& Kermie) | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Lifetime Catholic, Latin Rite |
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Posted: Wed Dec 26th, 2007 08:23 am |
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New Creation wrote: Was that appropriate? How does a lay person have the authority to bless? And a woman no less?
Any person may ask God to bless any other person (male or female) but the blessing does not have the characteristic of a sacramental unless it is conveyed by an ordained minister. We bless each other all the time. We say "God bless you" when someone sneezes, or "have a blessed day" at the end of a phone conversation.
The Vatican has never given a ruling on whether Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion have authority to impart a blessing, or even whether non-communicants should come forward in the communion line. It is not permitted everywhere.
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Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
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BodRod
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| Joined: | Mon Oct 2nd, 2006 |
| Location: | Apple Valley, California USA |
| Posts: | 720 |
| First Name: | Cliff | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Raised an SDA, then Generic Christian, finally at home with ... |
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Posted: Wed Dec 26th, 2007 12:13 pm |
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| I realize that the topic here is refering to blessings of/or in a spiritual sense. However, in my opinion, we can bless each other in many ways. This topic reminds me of the story of Job. As I remember the story, Job had some "bad luck" and lost everything. His "friends" came to visit and tell him how miserable his life was and he should give it all up, curse God and die. (Jumping to the end of the story.) God would not accept the prayers and confessions of the friends. Instead, He told the friends to take offerings and go ask Job to pray for them God accepted Job's prayers and forgave his friends. My interpretation of this story (Job 42) is that Job, a human, was the instrument to bring blessings to the friends. Bringing this concept into more current times, in my olpinion, we bless those who serve us everytime we give/leave a gratuity, buy a person on the street dinner, help someone who has lost everything in a disaster, etc.
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Gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro.
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MichaelStEdmund
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| Joined: | Fri Dec 28th, 2007 |
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| First Name: | Michael | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Convert from pentacostal/charismatic/holiness background |
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Posted: Tue Jan 22nd, 2008 03:47 pm |
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New Creation wrote: Hello again!
Well, my family and I went to our first Christmas mass together. The place was packed so they had three different assembly lines that people could receive the Eucharist. We cannot receive yet so we go up for a blessing from the priest.
My husband tried to get into the line that the priest was heading but a lay woman kind of stepped in front of him, blocking him. She somehow knew (since we are very new here...only our third mass) that we could not receive and said "you're coming for a blessing?" and Lloyd, kind of stuck really, said "yes" so she blessed each of us with the Body of Christ.
Was that appropriate? How does a lay person have the authority to bless? And a woman no less?
This is a bit of a sticky situation for me. In informal circumstances, of course, anyone can bless. However, in the context of the Mass, I (this is the qualitative word here) don't think that blessing by laity is appropriate. Colin Donovan at EWTN is able to explain this much better than I can:
http://www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/blessings.htm
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"Faith seeking understanding" - St. Anselm of Canterbury.
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BodRod
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| Joined: | Mon Oct 2nd, 2006 |
| Location: | Apple Valley, California USA |
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| First Name: | Cliff | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Raised an SDA, then Generic Christian, finally at home with ... |
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Posted: Tue Jan 22nd, 2008 04:32 pm |
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MichaelStEdmund wrote: However, in the context of the Mass, I (this is the qualitative word here) don't think that blessing by laity is appropriate.
I don't think the laity are giving blessings. I think what they are actually doing, is asking God to bless that person, by way of a very short prayer for that person. If I may be so brash as to quote the blessing prayer I use: "May the Lord bless you and keep you all the days of your life".
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Gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro.
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David W. Emery
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| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
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| First Name: | David | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Catholic |
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Posted: Tue Jan 22nd, 2008 04:48 pm |
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BodRod wrote:I don't think the laity are giving blessings. I think what they are actually doing, is asking God to bless that person, by way of a very short prayer for that person. If I may be so brash as to quote the blessing prayer I use: "May the Lord bless you and keep you all the days of your life".
On the other hand, Cliff, the prayer you cite was to be said only by the priests (“Aaron and his sons” in context; Numbers 6:23).
David
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CajunRick
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Posted: Tue Jan 22nd, 2008 05:45 pm |
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This topic was covered some months ago in a Zenit dispatch. You'll find the information here.
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Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
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BodRod
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| Joined: | Mon Oct 2nd, 2006 |
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Posted: Tue Jan 22nd, 2008 06:12 pm |
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Dave, that is a little creepy!!! I don't remember reading that text. On the other hand, I must have read it because in 1959 or 1960 I "read" the Bible from cover to cover.
I just re-read that text and the texts fore and aft of that one and I don't see where you get the idea that "only" Arron and his sons could say that prayer. So, ..... where do you get that idea?
Last edited on Tue Jan 22nd, 2008 07:17 pm by BodRod
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Gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro.
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Wed Jan 23rd, 2008 12:27 am |
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Numbers 6:22–27 RSV-CE:
The LORD said to Moses, “Say to Aaron and his sons, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them, The LORD bless you and keep you: The LORD make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you: The LORD lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace. So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”
The Lord commanded Moses to tell Aaron and his sons to bless the people of Israel in this manner. He did not tell the people to bless one another, nor even the Levites (the tribe appointed for liturgical service before the Lord), but only the clan of the Aaronic priesthood, that they should bless the people.
Here is what the Navarre Bible Commentary, a work well known for its orthodoxy, says about the passage:
This is one of the earliest blessing formulae that the Bible has conserved for us. It is referred to in some psalms (cf. Ps 31:17; 67:2; etc.) and it was used by priests in the temple liturgy. It consists of three petitions, each beginning with the name of the Lord. Some ancient authors saw in this triple invocation an advance announcement of the Blessed Trinity. It goes on to pray for protection, grace and peace — three gifts which sum up man’s aspirations and which God alone can provide in all their fullness.
The Church carries on the tradition of blessing the faithful during liturgical ceremonies, especially at the end of the eucharistic celebration, beseeching God to show them his favour. The Roman Missal includes this text as one of the optional blessings the priest can use at the end of the Mass.
The Mass is by definition a liturgical act, and in the context of a liturgical act, only a priest is allowed to bless the people. I base my assertion on this biblical text, the information concerning its traditional interpretation, as given by the commentary, and the GIRM, which makes no mention of laymen liturgically blessing people. Furthermore, as the commentary indicates, the Church has traditionally followed scripture’s lead in allowing only priests to bless people in a liturgical context.
Perhaps one could attempt to justify the whole idea of a special, non-rubrical individual blessing by a non-priest for non-communicants at communion time by seeing it as a non-liturgical act in the midst of a liturgical act. But to my mind, this sort of subterfuge borders on the absurd.
Finally, let us keep in mind that this is my personal opinion, not Church doctrine. I realize that the Zenit dispatch cited by Rick, which reflects someone else’s scholarly opinion, points out that the Church makes allowance for the possibility of blessings by laymen. I even acknowledge the validity of such blessings outside of liturgical acts, as permitted by the Church. But the Mass is, start to finish, a liturgical act. I would therefore be very hesitant to say that a layman distributing communion at Mass should be allowed to pronounce a “blessing prayer” of any kind.
If the expert sponsored by Zenit (who teaches at the Regina Apostolorum, the same institution in Rome where my own pastor received his licentiate) says it can be done legitimately, perhaps it can. He does refer us to the Shorter Book of Blessings (a liturgical manual) in circumstances “when an ordained minister is absent or impeded,” and goes on to state that “in these cases lay people use the appropriate formulas designated for lay ministers.”
If an ordained minister were absent, there would be no Mass. Is the priest impeded? There may be an occasion where he is physically unable to distribute communion at all; this would definitely meet the requirements. “Impeded,” however, cannot mean “for the convenience of the congregation, that the distribution of communion not continue for an excessive period of time,” which is the usual reason extraordinary ministers are allowed in the first place. So as far as I can see, blessings by laymen serving as extraordinary ministers of holy communion should not be allowed unless in very exceptional circumstances.
This whole scenario is one of the main reasons why I have opposed individual blessings at communion time for non-communicants. Instead, I have promoted the use of the traditional prayers for a spiritual communion, such as those presented in the televised Masses on EWTN. There is no controversy whatsoever over spiritual communions.
OK, I’ve had my say. I’ll stand aside now. Other reasonings may be better than mine.
David
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