On Blessings

Can anyone - this isn't simply or merely a gay rights issue - receive a blessing when it's requested, no questions asked? This seems to me the core trouble with the recent document which the Vatican has released, which is being interpreted by many as allowing the blessing of illicit marriage. 

I don't pretend to be the best person to answer that question. Yet that doesn't mean that I, as a lay Catholic, cannot or should not mull over the implications. Indeed I should, and have the right.

Is the blessing of human beings without regard to their personal disposition analogous to priests blessing objects and animals? It strikes me that animals are innocents, so I don't think this applies to them. But I don't see that you can include objects in the same way. Objects often have intent behind them. Should a statue of Baal, or a Nazi flag, or a burning cross upon a lawn, be blessed? I should think not.

This raises an issue with offering a person a blessing no matter what. I don't see how their disposition cannot be a factor. If they ask for a blessing for themselves as they are, with no true intent of changing into a better person through the blessing, what's the point? 'Bless me as I am' appears arrogant in that light. Demanding that blessing seems to me effrontery and insolence. As such, I don't see how the person of whom the blessing is asked cannot consider the overt, and, indeed, the covert, disposition of the asker. 

That's just my two cents. And remember, I think this applies to anyone asking for a particular favor of anyone else, not solely towards the alphabet soup crowd and their loyalists. If you aren't trying to change for the better, there's no point to asking for a blessing. There's no obligation to grant it either.

Easter 2016

On this Easter morning, I am reminded that this great Holy Day seems to play second fiddle to the other greatest Christian feast, Christmas. Not that Christmas is a lowly event, either; far from it! Yet I cannot help but conclude, in reconciling the levels of attention paid to each, that we ought to focus more of our efforts, if even only slightly, on Easter.

I do not pretend to be a theologian, but as wonderful as December 25th is, it is something of a precursor to our salvation: Christ comes into the world as all the rest of us have, as a child. His is the promise: for God so loved the world that He sent His only Son for our redemption. Christmas is hope. The celebration of it demonstrates trust in the future which Our Lord has set before us.

Easter fulfills that hope and promise. Though we grieve so deeply and so rightly at the misery and death which Christ took upon Himself for us, it is not His Death but His glorious Resurrection which redeems us. Who else has come back from the dead? Who else has defeated that last obstacle to secure the possibility of our everlasting joy?

So while I attempt to tread lightly in making such comparisons I have to believe that Easter should be felt more profoundly than any other Christian celebration. He is Risen. Our Heavenly destiny is opened to us should we accept. Let us rise with Him to the level for which we were created, made possible by His love for us. Made possible through the Resurrection.

Easter Sunday

Happy Easter everyone! Christ is risen and salvation is possible. There is nothing of greater import to be said today.