At the closing of a Year of the Priest appreciation event after our parent/student CCD program, all in the church were invited to extend their hand toward the priest in attendance and sing “May the blessing of the Lord be upon you, we bless you in the name of the Lord…” as a blessing. My question is “Is this licit or not, and if not, what documents can be used to show that it is illicit?”
As soon as I heard this was going to take place, I thought it was incorrect to do, but I have not been able to find anything official to back up my thought. I suggested to the organizer that a prayer for the priest was appropriate, but not a blessing as such. I appreciate any references that can be pointed out, or if is is acceptable, I will leave it as such and not make an issue of it.
Thanks.
No, it’s not acceptable. In fact it’s a serious problem in many ways.
The canon law which was already quoted would probably be your best source. Only bishops, priests, and deacons can impart blessings. Since a deacon is limited to “only those blessings which are expressly permitted to him by law” it stands to reason that laypersons cannot impart blessings which are not permitted to them by law–or else we would have a situation where a layman can impart blessings, but once ordained a deacon he would no longer be able to impart such blessings, and that would make no sense at all.
When this subject comes up, many posters will quote the new “Book of Blessings” or similar texts which seem to imply that laypersons can impart blessings. The problem is that the texts (in English) are rather vague in the descriptions of the rites, and do not make the same distinction that is very clearly made in the actual ritual. Turn to any of the “blessings” in the Book of Blessings which can be “celebrated” by a layperson, and one will notice a clear distinction between an actual blessing imparted by a cleric, and a prayer said by a layperson. The rubrics typically read as follows:
A minister who is a priest or deacon says the prayer of blessing with hands outstretched over the family members; a lay minister says the prayer with hands joined.
That is from the “Blessing of a Family” #57.
It’s no accident that the rubric makes a distinction between a “prayer of blessing” on the one hand and a “prayer” on the other hand. The rubric does
not say, for example, “a priest says the prayer of blessing with hands outstretched; a lay minister says the prayer of blessing with hands joined.” There is a definite distinction made between a blessing and a prayer, even though it’s not an obvious one at first glance.
In other examples, the rubrics are vague, but then the text itself is clear. Take for example, the “prayer of blessing” of wedding rings on an anniversary. Paragraph #125 (B of B) provides a prayer to be used by laypersons (which, despite the title lacks any blessing of the rings) or an outright blessing to be used by clerics. Only the form used by clerics has an actual blessing being imparted to the rings.
Personally, I think the problem is that in the English language, we sometimes merge two ideas of “imparting blessing” and “speaking well of someone/thing” into one word and say “blessing.” Even further, the verb “to bless” can be used in English in so many different ways, that it can cause a lot of confusion. “The mayor gave his blessing to the new project” does’t mean that the mayor blessed anything, but merely that he approved it. The phrase “bless someone” is even used as a euphemism for speaking ill of someone in rude terms (example: “I was so mad, I blessed him out!” might be heard in the South). Other than to use the term “impart a blessing” I have yet to learn of any clear language to make the distinction between an actual blessing and a prayer for someone.
More directly to the point, the very idea of laypersons “blessing” (so-called) the priest is very problematic. It is, after all, the priest who is in the person of Christ in a unique way; not only when he is celebrating a Sacrament, but also in a way distinct from the way in which all Christians are called to be another Christ. The idea of having laypersons “bless” the priest is a strange role-reversal which both diminishes the ministry of the priest, and at the same time, encourages a strange and false clericalism on the part of the laity–especially the part of having everyone extend their hands in a blessing gesture. I can see nothing positive in this contrived ritual. I can’t help but point-out the irony that in a celebration which is supposed to be about the year of the priest, it concludes with a statement that seems to say “we don’t need priests, we’ll do our own blessing, thank you very much.” Are they truly celebrating the priest (better yet, celebrating God’s gift to us of the priesthood), or are they celebrating themselves??? The organizers would do better to conclude the celebration by asking the priest to bless the gathering.
