Recently, as I was in the lift of Mater Dei Hospital, I encountered a child patient who was presumably accompanied by his teacher. Before the lift stopped I blessed the little one. As they both left I heard the teacher saying to the child: “It’s nice to be blessed!” Her kind comment motivated me to keep blessing the people I meet.
The Cathecism of the Catholic Church illustrates that “although every baptised person is called to be a ‘blessing,’ and to bless, (which explains why) lay people may preside at certain blessings; the more a blessing concerns ecclesial and sacramental life, the more its administration is reserved to the ordained ministry (bishops, priests, or deacons)” (§1669). The Church has constantly believed that the blessing of a priest carries within itself explicit importance.
Priests of the Old Covenant had been bestowed with a special authority from God to bless. In fact, God chose Aaron and his sons for the priestly service and through his servant Moses he commissioned them to bless. “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” (Num 6, 23-27).
In Jesus Christ, the Eternal High Priest of the New Covenant, whom the Father sent to bless us all (see Acts 3, 26) we have the fullness of God’s blessing. Thanks to his authority which he received at his ordination, the priest of the New Covenant is authorised by the Father to give to the people, in the name of Jesus Christ, “the fullness of the blessing of Christ” (Rom 15, 29). The Catechism clearly states that it is Christ himself who works and blesses through our priests.
“In the ecclesial service of the ordained minister, it is Christ himself who is present to his Church as Head of his Body, Shepherd of his flock, high priest of the redemptive sacrifice, Teacher of Truth.
This is what the Church means by saying that the priest, by virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders, acts in persona Christi Capitis: It is the same priest, Christ Jesus, whose sacred person his minister truly represents. Now the minister, by reason of the sacerdotal consecration which he has received, is truly made and possesses the authority to act in the power and place of the person of Christ himself (virtute ac persona ipsius Christi)” (§ 1548).
Likewise, Mother Julia, expresses the Church’s elaborate teaching in her simple yet deepening words of faith: “The priest’s blessing is a wonderful gift coming to us from God. It is God Himself who on the day of his ordination gave the priest the power to bless”.
Pope Benedict XVI pointed out the intimate link between Jesus’ sacred hands and those of his ordained presbyter. “‘He took bread in his sacred hands…’ Let us look at those hands with which he healed men and women; the hands with which he blessed babies; the hands that he laid upon men; the hands that were nailed to the Cross and that forever bear the stigmata as signs of his readiness to die for love. Now we are commissioned to do what he did: To take bread in our hands so that through the Eucharistic Prayer it will be transformed. At our priestly ordination, our hands were anointed, so that they could become hands of blessing. Let us pray to the Lord at this hour that our hands will serve more and more to bring salvation, to bring blessing, to make his goodness present!”
Remind every priest you come across to give you Christ’s blessing! Because it is nice to be blessed!
■ Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap
San Gwann