Blessing of religious items

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Lynn-D

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This Christmas I received as a gift a beautiful gold necklace and a cross. The cross has the image of Jesus on it and really is an eye catcher. I live in a predominately protestant area so it will clearly show I am Catholic.
My question is this: When in Catholic School we would have all our medals and religious articles blessed by the priest. Usually it was done on a day appointed just for that. I belong to a very quiet parish now and our priest only comes from another parish to say mass and perform scheduled sacraments like mass, confession, weddings, funerals, etc. His time is very restricted. I have never seen the blessing of religious items although I have been anointed with oils myself before a major surgery and that was done before mass.
I wonder if it would be rude to ask the priest before mass to bless the cross I just received? Is it still custom I wonder?
Thanks
 
it is still a wonderful custom. and it would be quite appropriate to ask the priest to bless an item for you. it only takes a brief moment. our parish does not have a special time set aside for this either. the priest just does it as people ask him to.

leigh
 
I’d just ask on Sunday before or after Mass; or call and see when he thinks is a good time.
 
Thanks to some great posters on this web site, I recently learned that an ordained deacon may also bless an item. I think the whole process takes about 10 seconds.
 
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Seamus:
Thanks to some great posters on this web site, I recently learned that an ordained deacon may also bless an item. I think the whole process takes about 10 seconds.
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Our Deacon blessed my rosary recently. I made it myself, and I brought it to my RCIA class only to show one of our instructors (we had previously had this discussion), and Deacon saw it, and asked me if it was blessed, which it wasn’t, and then if I would like it blessed–of course I did! 😃 The whole think took about 10 seconds.
 
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auppie:
Our Deacon blessed my rosary recently. I made it myself, and I brought it to my RCIA class only to show one of our instructors (we had previously had this discussion), and Deacon saw it, and asked me if it was blessed, which it wasn’t, and then if I would like it blessed–of course I did! 😃 The whole think took about 10 seconds.
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It’s funny that just before reading your post, I was taking a look at a web site created by a great group of people that make their own Rosaries and then donate them to others.

rosaryarmy.com/default.aspx

Congratulations on taking the RCIA class. God bless!
 
I don’t know if this is relevent to this discussion or not…but I know when I was growing up our priest would bless food that was brought into the church on the Saturday before Easter Sunday…I don’t know if this was only in our parish…but then again I grew up in a polish catholic parish which for the first few years that I can remember had parts of the mass in polish. Eventually (through the years) the polish was replaced by english until it got to the point that the only polish that was spoken was when the choir sang in Polish. (I have some very beautiful memories of Christmas mass with beautiful songs in Polish…with a nearly dark church lit by only candles…brought chills to me then).

Also at New years the priest would go around to all the homes in the parish and bless them…I remember going around with the priest to assist (I was an altar boy)…and the priest would mark something in chalk over the main threshold to the house. I don’t know of too many other people that recall this…so maybe it is a polish tradition.
 
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lantzcaper:
I don’t know if this is relevent to this discussion or not…but I know when I was growing up our priest would bless food that was brought into the church on the Saturday before Easter Sunday…I don’t know if this was only in our parish…but then again I grew up in a polish catholic parish which for the first few years that I can remember had parts of the mass in polish. Eventually (through the years) the polish was replaced by english until it got to the point that the only polish that was spoken was when the choir sang in Polish. (I have some very beautiful memories of Christmas mass with beautiful songs in Polish…with a nearly dark church lit by only candles…brought chills to me then).

Also at New years the priest would go around to all the homes in the parish and bless them…I remember going around with the priest to assist (I was an altar boy)…and the priest would mark something in chalk over the main threshold to the house. I don’t know of too many other people that recall this…so maybe it is a polish tradition.
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It would seem to me eastern Euopean and Italian parishes are a lot alike.
 
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Seamus:
It’s funny that just before reading your post, I was taking a look at a web site created by a great group of people that make their own Rosaries and then donate them to others.

rosaryarmy.com/default.aspx

Congratulations on taking the RCIA class. God bless!
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Thanks! 🙂

I’ve seen that site, and others that do the same. I am hoping that one day soon, I can join the ranks of those who are donating the rosaries they make.
 
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lgatny:
it is still a wonderful custom. and it would be quite appropriate to ask the priest to bless an item for you. it only takes a brief moment. our parish does not have a special time set aside for this either. the priest just does it as people ask him to.

leigh
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Thank you all for your kind advice.
I do have wonderful memories of the blessings of religious items and also food brought to many of the festivities at my childhood parish, St Thomas Aquinas in Brooklyn, NY. We had the new church, the old church and still needed to hold masses in the basements of the original school and the new school. Shame, but now schools being closed for lack of participation.
I just am concerned because I know how busy our priest is and really did not want to intrude. But you are all right, I need to ask him when he greets us upon our exiting if he would bless this most beautiful cross. It does not feel right to me if not blessed.
Lynn-D
 
I am just curious as to why we bless stuff anyway. Isn’t that fact that we have something blessing enough? If God is omnipresent, then why do we need to have items blessed anyway? God is present in all things. Does the earthly blessing supercede the fact that God is part of everything?
 
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gogogirl:
I am just curious as to why we bless stuff anyway. Isn’t that fact that we have something blessing enough? If God is omnipresent, then why do we need to have items blessed anyway? God is present in all things. Does the earthly blessing supercede the fact that God is part of everything?
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I am not really certain why we consider blessings but believe it might just be an act that brings us in closer contact with God. Perhaps if one takes baptism as an example of blessing it might be better understood. All of our sacraments are a form of blessings are they not? Even Jesus was blessed by John The Baptist even though He the Son of God really did not need any blessings.
I think perhaps it is a form of our recognition to our spiritual connection with God and our denial of the Devil.
Lynn-D
 
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