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Citation: Burggraeve, Roger. 2023.
BLESSING: Exploring the Religious,
Anthropological and Ethical
Meaning. Religions 14: 599. https://
doi.org/10.3390/rel14050599
Academic Editors: Glenn Morrison
and Christopher Metress
Received: 17 February 2023
Revised: 11 April 2023
Accepted: 24 April 2023
Published: 4 May 2023
Copyright: © 2023 by the author.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article
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Attribution (CC BY) license (https://
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4.0/).
religions
Article
BLESSING: Exploring the Religious, Anthropological and
Ethical Meaning
Roger Burggraeve
Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, BE-3000 Leuven, Belgium; roger.burggraeve@kuleuven.be
Abstract:
The point of departure for this essay, which reflects on the religious, anthropological
and ethical meaning of the act of blessing, is the multifaceted tradition of all kinds of blessings
in the Catholic faith community, both in a sacramental and non-sacramental context. To properly
understand the act of blessing, it is necessary to outline the existential and religious background of the
blessing as an experience and condition. Starting from the general biblical background of blessing as
an earthly reality, attention is paid to the transition from the implicit to the explicit religious meaning
of blessing as a gift. Subsequently, the act of blessing in its bi-dimensional modality, namely as word
and gesture, receives the necessary attention. This is accomplished by a shift from a theological to
a philosophical understanding; this is anthropological and existential understanding of blessing.
First, the specificity of the blessing as a language event is examined. Then, the bodily and possibly
material form of the act of blessing is explored phenomenologically. Thus, it will appear that what
is specifically Christian also has universal significance, is literally “catholic”, that is, “kat’ holon”,
meaningful “for everyone”. Last but not least, consideration is given to the “power” of the act of
blessing, both its “founding” power and the risk of magical derailment.
Keywords:
being blessed; act of blessing; speech act; performative language; expressivity; bodiliness;
power of blessing; magical derailment; phenomenology; ethics
1. Multifaceted Tradition of Blessings
At a first glance, it becomes clear that the Catholic faith community knows the practice
of all kinds of blessings. This is fully reflected in “De benedictionibus” (1984) (blessings) of
the post-conciliar revised “The Roman Ritual” (1984) (Weller 2017): from the sending of
missionaries to the blessing of a table, a house, a tabernacle, a cemetery; the blessing of a
mother before childbirth, the blessing of the sick and aged; the blessing of animals (horses,
pets, etc.) or of tools. There are blessings for places, things (objects such as ‘founding stone’
or vehicles; buildings such as seminaries, new homes, factories, facilities for care and relief,
etc.); individuals, and groups or communities; and for ‘special circumstances.’ There are
also blessings for objects or things that are erected or used in places of worship (churches),
such as a baptismal font, as well as for objects of popular devotion, such as scapulars and
neck crosses. We can distinguish between blessings in the context of parish life, blessings in
family life or religious communities, blessings in the context of public life (for example, of
a fire brigade), and blessings for general use. It is clear that blessings exist not only within
but also outside the sacramental and official liturgical context (Davison 2014).
Many ecclesiastically recognized blessings fall under the heading of “sacramental”.
“These [sacramentals] are sacred signs which bear a resemblance to the sacraments. They
signify effects, particularly of a spiritual nature, which are obtained through the Church’s
intercession. By them men are disposed to receive the chief effect of the sacraments, and
various occasions in life are rendered holy” (Vatican II, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy
1963, n
◦
60) (Flannery 2014). They are instituted to sanctify ecclesiastical offices, states
of life, and all kinds of circumstances of Christian life. It is important to point to these
sacramentals as an opportunity. In addition to the blessings that belong to the recognized
Religions 2023,14, 599. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14050599 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions
Religions 2023,14, 599 2 of 12
sacramentals, all kinds of blessings that accompany daily life have developed and continue
to develop in popular religion. There are also circuits of alternative blessings, for example,
in the Christian women’s movement, which believes that traditional blessings affirm the
subordination of women too much (Walton 1985). It is not the purpose of this essay to go
into this diversity and its tensions. Rather, our approach tends to be global and focuses on
the act of the blessing, whatever its form, the minister or “performer”, and the recipient.
2. Blessing as Being Blessed: Earthly and Religious Experience
To properly understand the Christian act of blessing, we need to look at how blessing
is taught or evoked in the Bible. We mainly focus on the general biblical interpretation,
without offering a detailed exegetical study of the different modalities and contexts of
the blessing (see: Mitchell 1987). It is striking how, in the Scripture, there is never talk of
blessing as an act (performance or ritual) unless the idea of blessing as a state and gift
experienced by a human being is supposed.
2.1. An Earthly Reality That Is Experienced as a Blessing
Starting from the Old Testament, blessing can be described as a positive tangible
reality: health, water, life, wealth, fertility, wholeness, and well-being, in short, everything
that is good and beneficial. Synthetically, the Bible makes a direct connection between
blessing and life, in the sense that blessing stands for the fullness of life as an earthly created
reality.
Even today, people still use the word “blessing” to denote the good that comes to
them in some way. Positive things such as (sufficiently) good health, prosperity, children, a
successful operation, a caring partner, and loyal grandchildren are experienced as a blessing
and happiness, as “gifts” that happen to us. In our striving for self-determination, these
experiences bring us into contact with the heteronomous, the coming from elsewhere, that
which is beyond our control. There is something of a “fortunate fate” in this, which happens
to us despite our power and is therefore undeserved—in contrast to the “unfortunate fate”,
which is all about tragedy and curse. Not only the special but also the ordinary “things”
that make us happy are both of the order of the gift and of the order of abundance. That is
precisely why people continue to call those things a blessing in a profane context.
2.2. From Implicit to Explicit Religious Significance of Blessing
The question is, how are blessings and God connected? At first glance, the mentioned
forms of being blessed seem to have little religious significance. They concern earthly
realities that people experience or interpret as blessings. It could be questioned whether a
completely non-religious use of the word blessing is possible. After all, there is, at least
implicitly—and in our secular world—a reference to a “power” that brings good things to
us. People recognize that one is not the almighty, nor the initiator, nor the alpha and omega
that determine meaning and purpose. Blessing is being blessed. This passivity means that
people almost naturally interpret the word “blessing” religiously, or at least presuppose the
religious dimension. In everyday language, a “coincidence”, as “good luck”, is regularly
connected with the expression “from-god-knows-where . . . ”.
The same implicit religiosity also applies to the “pronounced blessing”, the act of
blessing. In blessing, both for those who promise it and for those who receive it, there
is always a reference to a heteronomous element: something that comes from elsewhere
through something or someone else. Therefore, the word “blessing”, and certainly the act
of blessing, is almost naturally interpreted as religious—or at least the religious dimension
is assumed. After all, the one who blesses appeals to the unconditional and absolute,
without being able to find it in oneself. By blessing one refers—in the blessing itself—as
it were, to an absolute reliability, which far exceeds the one who blesses. In the blessing,
one also connects the person on whom the blessing is pronounced with “the absolute”.
One cannot pronounce a blessing unless one does not also, at least implicitly, resort to a
“higher” authority that guarantees the outcome of the blessing. In other words, by blessing,
Religions 2023,14, 599 3 of 12
the person who blesses appeals to his explicit or implicit conception of God. In this respect,
we discover how, in the blessing, a theological meaning is implied, that is, a reference to
the divine, although the one performing the blessing and the one receiving the blessing are
not necessarily aware of this theological significance.
The biblical blessing implies an explicitly religious meaning: blessing is always “from
God”. As creatures created by a Creator, we experience creation as a gift given to us “from
elsewhere”. Our creation is not a diabolical curse but a divine blessing. This implies that
the explicit reference to God-Creator is a qualified reference, namely an experience of God
as benevolent beneficence. God is not a neutral explanatory principle, but an ethically
qualified reality. The earthly fullness of being and life is simultaneously seen as a sign of
divine grace: God’s ethical goodness is a blessing to us! In other words, this implies that
not just any idea of God can be associated with blessing. This is only possible if God is
seen and experienced as a graceful God: a God who is a blessing himself, and of which an
expression and ‘radiation’ can then be found in creation.
With Matthew Fox, we can also call creation the “original blessing”, in contrast to the
“original sin” (Fox 1983). Based on today’s sensitivity to the environment and earth, he
argues for a paradigm shift. While, in the past, too one-sided an emphasis has been placed
on the Fall or Original Sin and the curse associated with it, the gift of creation deserves
at least as much attention as the paradigm of sin and redemption. While the fall and
redemption strongly emphasize the negativity of failure and human smallness, a swing
to the creation paradigm allows us to place a stronger emphasis on power and creativity.
Humans were created as connected to the world, and the world was given to them as an
environment in which it is good to live. Creation is the blessing of God Himself for humans,
and moreover, it itself is also blessed by God. Insofar as creation is God’s blessing, we can
also experience the world religiously as a gift: “God is the giver of all good”. In our creation,
we relate to the world in gratitude, grateful as we are for the gift received. In addition,
through the gift of creation, the human being also shares in the divine energy deposited in
creation. Creation is a divine blessing to humans because it also bestows divine energy and
creativity on them, as God also blesses living beings with dynamism and fruitfulness (Gen
1:22.28). God blesses humans through creation, making the world and the stream of life a
blessing and gift to humans. The redeeming and liberating grace of God, which Christians
especially receive and experience in Christ, must not be separated from the way in which
God gives himself to humans in creation. Based on our belief in God’s creation, blessing
is the active, creative presence of God in his creation and his creatures: in nature, in all
living beings (plants and animals), in fellow human beings, in our own lives and in its joys
(without this leading to a deification of creation). Without becoming blind to the dark side
and the ambiguity that is also attached to creation—as a finite reality—which means that it
is sometimes experienced as chaos and curse, creation is, for those who profess that God is
the Creator of heaven and earth, an essential act of faith to receive and experience the gifts
of creation as blessings from God. We may enjoy creation and life, because they have been
given to us as a blessing from God! That creation blessing is not over with the Fall. Even
after the flood, in which the very existence of the earth was threatened, the divine blessing
of fertility is confirmed. Moreover, throughout the Noah story, the creation blessing evolves
into a covenant blessing, because God makes a covenant with Noah and his descendants,
and with all living beings (Gen 9:11).
In the Gospel, the New Testament, the idea of God’s grace as blessing, is consistently
included and extended in its own way. Jesus also reveals God to be a “blessing full of grace”.
According to the synoptic Gospels, this is evident from his proclamation of God’s kingship
(“Basileia tou Theou”) (Mc 1:15) (Merklein 1981, pp. 17–45). This implies that Jesus never
speaks of God per se as some sort of neutral ontological given or indifferent “fact of being”,
although this is the grandest and most powerful fact of Being. He always speaks of God in
a specific way, namely by always connecting God with the idea of kingdom, or rather with
“reign”, for he does not mean a place but an active event. He then assigns a paradoxical
meaning to this active “reigning” by, as it were, turning it inside out and connecting it with
Religions 2023,14, 599 4 of 12
a serving and liberating approach to people. Through this “reversal” of the worldly power
category of “dominion”, Jesus proclaims a near God who empties oneself of one’s majesty
that causes “fear and trembling” to associate with the “poor, weeping, hungry, crushed,
persecuted” (cf. Beatitudes’) (Mt 5:1–11). They are bestowed with gifts by God Himself,
comforted, satisfied, raised up, restored: “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:10b).
This echoes the way in which God revealed Himself as the Merciful since Abraham in the
First Testament. This mercy is to be understood as “uterinity” or “wombness”, in the sense
that “rahamim” (mercy) goes back to the root word “rehem” (uterus, womb). In the words
of Emmanuel Levinas: “What is the meaning of the word Merciful (Rahamim)? It means
that the Eternal One is defined by Mercy. Rahamim goes back to the word ‘rehem’, which
means uterus. Rahamim is the relation of the womb to the other, whose gestation takes place
in it [to be born] [“trembling of the womb where the other is in gestation in the same”]
(Levinas 1994, p. 142). Rahamim is maternity itself. God is merciful; God is defined by
maternity. Perhaps maternity is sensibility itself [i.e., touchability and vulnerability by and
for the other], of which so much ill is said among the Nietzscheans” (Levinas 1990, p. 183).
By his proclamation of the Kingdom of God, Jesus not only proclaimed God’s mercy, but
also put it into practice and incarnated it in his whole being. Jesus ‘is’ what he does and
says: “agere sequitur esse” becomes “esse sequitur agree”, being follows from doing and
saying. Not only is Jesus the face of God’s Rahamim, but through his humanity he makes
divine mercy tangible and sensible in his flesh and blood in this world, among people.
He literally “does” God, namely through all kinds of acts of recognition and appreciation,
communion at the table, exorcism of all kinds of “evil demons” who occupy and obsess
humans, forgiveness of sins, healings and raising people from the dead
. . .
Through his
“ethics”—being merciful to vulnerable people—Jesus reveals and embodies God’s rahamim.
Jesus’ ethics is our grace. Therefore, it becomes clear how God’s ethical quality—the One’s
“extravagant merciful love”—is our blessing: Jesus Christ is God’s incarnated blessing for
us!
3. The Act of Blessing as Language Event
It is this proclaimed divine blessing of creation and life, and of the “Reign of Love”,
that brings believers to the act of blessing. Henceforth, we turn our attention to this
religious act of blessing as a human act. It is important to note that we do not primarily aim
to use a Christian–theological approach (Davison 2014), even if that approach is not absent
(Greiner), but rather pursue a philosophical, i.e., phenomenological, anthropological and
existential understanding (Austin, Dolto, Ginters, Ladrière, Marcel, Searle). First, we focus
on the blessing as a language event and then, in a subsequent part, we pay the necessary
attention to the “incarnation” of the blessing through gesture and its material modality,
namely the material elements that possibly accompany the word and gesture of blessing.
3.1. Blessing as an Elementary Language Act
With Dorothea Greiner, we can say that blessing as a language event is an “elementary
language act” according to distinct aspects (Greiner 1998, pp. 36–38).
First, blessing is elementary because it is a simple act. According to the Latin term,
the blessing does nothing but say something good: “bene-dicere”. Three words suffice for
the religious blessing: “God bless you”. This formula is recognizable in many religious
traditions and contexts. In addition, the blessing formula is usually accompanied by a
simple gesture, sign (cross) or concise ritual, without frills and mannerisms, and is short
and powerful.
Next, the blessing is an elementary act because it relates to a basic human desire,
namely the pursuit of acceptance and healing. People are looking for places, persons
and figures of ultimate trust, of ultimate surrender to lasting meaning and future, to life
stronger than death, to a love stronger than all disaster and evil. As a language event, the
blessing creates space for this ultimate trust, the belief that one is ultimately safe and saved,
that life is worth living in the end. The blessing uniquely meets our great desire—our
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hunger and craving—for fullness of life. In this regard, there is a deep connection between
blessing and promise. The promise transcends the ruptures that certain experiences create
in our existence: negative ruptures of evil that seem irrevocable. The promise leaves
open the possibility that the irrevocable can be revoked, that one can trust in the future
in spite of everything. Hence, the Christian faith professes God as a promise of healing,
redemption and reconciliation through Christ, through which the unexpected can be born
and everything can become new. This is the ultimate, far-reaching meaning of the religious
Christian blessing.
Thirdly, blessing is an elementary act because, as a language act, it has a creative
and “founding” meaning. Blessing does not only imply proclamation, but is also the
commitment and realization of its own promise. What the blessing pronounces is also
accomplished through the blessing itself. Through the blessing that is spoken to persons,
they experience that they are or become blessed. In this respect, the blessing is a “per-
formative” speech act (Searle 1979). It is a “language act”, with the emphasis on “act”,
because the blessing accomplishes something. Moreover, it concerns a “performative” act,
to be distinguished from a descriptive or informative act. An informative statement simply
reflects a certain state of affairs, communicates a certain content of knowledge, and affirms
that a certain “given” (object to person) behaves in a certain way, that something occurred
in some way, and so on (Austin 1962). A performative statement affects, or at least intends
to affect, something in the person to whom it is spoken, and also in the person who utters
it. The language act itself creates a new situation that was not there before. Through what
is said, both the addressed and the speaking person are involved in the new situation. As
a result of this, they change, literally become “different” and are also called on to react
and to “do” something with what is said (Ladrière 1973). From this distinction between
informative and performative language, it is clear that the blessing is a performative speech
act. The word of blessing is an act that effects what it communicates, namely that the person
to whom or about whom the blessing is pronounced is the beneficiary of God’s love. That
the One first loved us (1 Jn 4:19) is not only the core of the Christian message, but also the
ground and transformative effectiveness of every Christian blessing. As a speech act, the
religious (Christian) blessing introduces the receiving person to the “experience” that one’s
existence has ground under its feet, that one’s existence is anchored and surrounded by
a Reality to which one not only can give oneself, but from whom one can also gratefully
receive and cherish oneself.
3.2. Specificity of Blessing as a Modality of Religious Language
After this exploration of blessing as a speech act, we now want to examine the reli-
gious specificity of blessing by distinguishing it from wish and intercession (Greiner 1998,
pp. 43–54
). At first glance, the blessing seems closely related to the wish, in the sense that
whoever blesses someone wishes the other well. Sometimes, a wish is even called a blessing.
Both the wish and the blessing are marked by desire; they are a form of eager anticipation
and, therefore, of hope. Typical of the wish is that it relates to the relationship between two
people: I wish you all the best. The wish is a dual reciprocal relationship: “I—you”. In the
wish, the emphasis is on the other (as object) and on the I (subject) that expresses the wish.
Even if the I is omitted, as in “Good luck with your marriage!”, the expression means: “I
wish you good luck with your marriage!” The wish does not require a third party to act
as guarantor. The wish leaves open who or which body is responsible for the addressed
“happiness”: fate, God, the addressee her- or himself, etc. Just think of the Happy New
Year ’s wish: “I wish you a very good new year”. Remarkably, those who wish for a happy
year do not guarantee it themselves. The guarantor is left undetermined. The religious
blessing, however, manifests itself unequivocally as a “triad” or triangular relationship:
it involves a relationship between three persons. In that blessing, there is always a clear
reference to a third person, besides you and me, namely God (or his “representative”). The
emphasis is not on the I, the subject who blesses another, but on the One who guarantees
the blessing: “God grant you a good year”; “God grant you that your marriage succeeds”.
Religions 2023,14, 599 6 of 12
In this respect, the ego withdraws to make room for God: a form of human anachoresis or
kenosis. Moreover, God cannot be equated with fate (“fatum”). It is not just “something or
someone in general”, or “fate” as “fortuna”, that is invoked. After all, by fate, the object of
the blessing is anything but assured. Fate can give all or nothing, be lenient or brutal; fate
is, by definition, indifferent, neutral, un-preferential, wild and unreasonable, and therefore
full of tragedy (“doom”). In the religious blessing, it is always a loving God who intends
true good for human beings. We know this from the Biblical proclamation of the good news.
However, the blessing is more than proclamation, for it also declares—and by pronouncing,
also accomplishes (as stated above)—that God as “embracing grace” wills the very best for
the blessed person (community, group, etc.).
This shows how the blessing is, par excellence, a religious act. The speech act of
blessing introduces God, as a third person as essential, in this speech. It is not the one
who pronounces the blessing that bestows the blessing. God is the founding referent of the
blessing. The one who pronounces the blessing does not refer to her- or himself, but to God,
who is the real subject—the real Agent—of the blessing. The blessing is primarily concerned
with the relationship between God and the blessed. God and the human being are brought
into a personal relationship with each other, which is true religion. This connection is not
established by the blessed person (or group) but by the blessing pronounced by a person
other than the blessed person(s). At the same time, the person who blesses withdraws
as much as possible, because that person is only a “mediator”: only God is the source of
the blessing. This is also shown in the famous Aaron’s blessing: “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” (Num 6:24–26). With this,
we encounter a double “extra nos:” the blessing brings people “outside themselves”, both
the blessing one and the blessed person. The one who blesses does not bless oneself, just as
the blessed does not bless oneself. Whoever blesses points away from oneself in a twofold
way: to the blessed other and the Blessing One. The blessed person is not the source of
the spoken blessing; he or she is blessed by another. This is precisely the event of grace
that breaks open humans from their self-confinement and directs them toward an other
than themselves: the divine Other. The person who is blessed is connected with the divine
Other One, and so, too, with the human person who speaks the blessing. In this respect,
the blessing is completely at odds with the autonomistic self-redemption tendency, which
one believes one can possibly achieve through all kinds of techniques and methods (of
“mindfulness” and others).
The distinction between wish and blessing has not yet revealed the whole uniqueness
of blessing as a language event. However, related to the wish, the blessing is more than
wish, it is also, and above all, prayer. Hence, another comparison arises, with intercession
or supplication. This relationship is so striking that one does not always perceive the
difference between the two. The gesture that often accompanies both shows the difference.
When people pray with their arms open and upraised, we know that they are addressing
God “in heaven”, the true addressee of prayer. In intercessory prayer, people turn to God
asking for help and assistance from someone, an individual or group. When someone
blesses another person, for example a parent blesses their child, we see a different body
movement. People who bless address the receiving person. They extend their hands
directly to, or rather over, the addressee, or they lay hands on the other. Even the prayer for
blessing a person differs from a direct blessing. In such a prayer for blessing, one does not
extend the open arms and hands to the one who is the object of the blessing, but to God, to
heaven, for the Holy and no one else is the addressee (second person): “Lord, we implore
You: bless N.N. with your gifts”. The mere blessing, however, refers to God in the third
person and directly addresses the person (to be blessed): “The Lord (3
rd
person) bless you
and keep you (2nd person)” (cf. supra). As said, this finds expression in the bodily gesture
that accompanies the word of blessing: the language of the arms and hands gives shape to
the language of the words!
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3.3. Bodily and Material Dimension of Blessing
Through the comparison with the wish and supplication, we involuntarily arrived at
the bodily form of blessing. Sometimes, the blessing is just a word, like Jacob’s blessing of
all his sons (Gn 49:28). Usually, however, the blessing, even if it comprises a strong word,
is accompanied by a gesture or an action in the form of a well-defined sign, such as the
laying on of hands, the sign of the cross, or the sprinkling of holy water. Sometimes, but
rather exceptionally, the blessing is performed only as a gesture, a bodily touch or an action,
without any word. For the most part, word and gesture go together in an indissoluble unity.
Moreover, material elements, such as water and oil, are often used in the performance
of the blessing. There is no Christian rite where people come so close to each other as
blessing. For example, in individual blessings, the hand of the person blessing touches
the other person’s hair and scalp. If one blesses by drawing someone with the cross, one
draws this cross on the forehead (or on the hands and feet). Pouring the water over the
head of the person being baptized is not as intimate as blessing that person with a bodily
touch. In baptism, the material element of water stands as a mediating element between
the person who is baptizing and the person being baptized. On the other hand, there
is also blessing during baptism: the person being baptized is signed with the cross and
there is the laying on of hands, anointing with the chrism. In the Effeta prayer (“Open
up”), the various senses of the baptized are touched and anointed. In the sacrament of
the sick, the sick are also anointed and touched. This means that the blessing is often not
only gesture but also touch. Even if we have become accustomed to it, it remains a curious
phenomenon. Usually, people try to avoid contact with strangers or those with whom they
do not have a connection. In ordinary life, people will not touch someone’s head or hair
unless there is a more intimate relationship with that person. In the blessing, people do
touch people even though they have never met them before. If we were to touch someone
in that way in everyday life, we would apologize for it, and run the risk of being suspected
or even accused of (sexually) transgressive behavior. In other words, the blessing is a ritual
“sanctuary”. The blessing creates a situation that allows people to come close to and touch
each other without embarrassment or apology. In addition, the rite of blessing allows the
bodily proximity to become religiously transparent. The purpose of blessing as a rite is that
God comes close. After all, people do not say, while touching: “I bless you”, but “God bless
you” or “The Lord be with you”. The one who blesses does not primarily express his own
closeness through the gesture and the touch, but through divine closeness and touch.
This puts us on the trail of the expressive nature of the blessing. Gestures, signs
and material ingredients embody the word of the blessing, making the content of the
blessing tangible. In order to properly understand this expressive character, a reflection
on ‘expression’ is first necessary. Before the so-called “linguistic turn” (Rorty 1967), the
expression was often understood too spiritualistically, starting from the consciousness that
already possesses an idea, essence or content in itself, and then expresses it in a certain
form at a later stage. Such an approach implies that, on closer inspection, the form is
incidental and certainly does not co-determine the preceding essence or thought. Under the
influence of Descartes, the body was reduced to a “res extensa”: the object of consciousness
(“cogito”), source of the autonomous subject. As a result, the body could also be regarded
as an instrument that one can control and which one can use to realize one’s “projects
of meaning”. Then, the thinking consciousness becomes the active “signifier” and the
body the object and instrument of signifying. Since the linguistic turn in philosophy, we
have gradually started to think differently about this, although the turnaround has still
not fully taken effect. A careful study of speech makes us understand that the language
in which an idea expresses itself also helps to create the idea. The form is not only a
decoration, but also a “founding” for the content. Our body is not incidental but essential
and constitutive of our humanity. It is not only an object of “signification”, it is itself a
“signifier”. Even if we cannot reduce our humanity to our bodiliness, which would create a
flat materialism, we do not only “have” a body, but we also “are” our body (Gabriel Marcel)
(
Troisfontaines 1968, pp. 173–75
). The body provides us with a number of meanings that
Religions 2023,14, 599 8 of 12
invite us to look at things differently. This is, perhaps, the truly expressive character of the
human bodily experience. Our body as a “lived body” also characterizes our intentional
giving of meaning. In itself, the spirit is an abstraction; it only exists thanks to the living
and lived body. The human body has a spiritual dimension in the sense that it facilitates
and orients the spiritual—and thus is also a source of meaning.
When applied to the act of blessing, this means that the bodily form not only gives
shape to the content, but also co-establishes and creates that content itself. This means
that blessing is a special kind of act, namely an “expressive act” (“Ausdruckshandlung”)
(Ginters 1976, pp. 11–18, 36–44). This action must be distinguished from instrumental action,
which is based on a functional relationship between the goal, namely the effect one wants
to achieve, and the means to achieve this goal, namely the action. The primary goal here is
an outcome that lies outside the action itself. In addition, the cost–benefit analysis plays a
central role. The value criterion lies in the balance between advantages and disadvantages,
or rather the positive outcomes must prevail over the negative outcomes. However, our
actions cannot be reduced to instrumental functionality and pragmatic effectiveness. They
are much richer and multidimensional. After all, in addition to instrumental acting, there
is also “intrinsically meaningful acting”. Such actions are performed for the sake of the
value or meaning of the act itself and not for some beneficial objective or external effect.
The desired effect lies in the action itself: means and goal coincide. In this respect, the value
of the action lies in the quality of the action itself. We can think, for example, of play and
of artistic expression in any form. Moreover, we perform many instrumental actions not
only because of their usefulness, but also because of the intrinsic, qualitative sense of the
action itself. Then, those actions become “sur-determined” in the sense that they acquire
an “additional meaning” that elevates them above everyday neediness and usefulness. It
is remarkable that they then also acquire their expressive character from the reversal of
the utilitarian benefit–cost ratio, in the sense that they often cost more than they produce
in benefits. That is why outsiders often call them a form of waste: “costly expressive
acts” (“kostspielige Ausdruckhandlungen”), which are not only “expensive”, but often
also imply a form of exuberance and exaggeration, which can go as far as to be wasteful
(
Ginters 1982, pp. 94–97
). Even if they are not wasteful, they are usually economically
unnecessary and even useless. Last but not least, the expressive nature of the expressive
actions also has a relational dimension, in the sense that they direct what is expressed to
another, and thus not only enable but also realize relationships (cf. infra).
The act of blessing is pre-eminently an intrinsically meaningful act that is expressive in
word and gesture. By audibly and tangibly shaping the divine blessing, the act of blessing
itself realizes that blessing “here and now”. In this respect, the blessing is not an “extrinsic”
but an “intrinsic sign”. Both types of signs refer to something other than themselves. With
the extrinsic sign, the “other reality” lies outside the sign itself, as becomes clear in all
sorts of functional, conventional signs in society. In the intrinsic sign, the signified reality
coincides with the sign itself, so that the signified—the reality of blessing—is fulfilled by
the act of blessing. The gesture of the blessing, together with the audibly pronounced word
and any material elements, can therefore be labeled—by analogy with the sacraments—as
an “efficacious sign” (“signum efficax”): it realizes what it signifies. To bless someone by
the laying on of hands means that the blessing is realized here and now by the sign on
the person in question, so that the person “is” also a blessed person from the moment of
the blessing. Moreover, the act of blessing as an audible and tangible expression of God’s
blessing connects the blessed with the Holy One as well as with the one who performs the
act of blessing, and with the community in which the blessing may be performed.
4. Power and Powerlessness of the Blessing
The expressive character of the act of blessing leads us directly to the “power” of the
benediction, which deserves separate and explicit attention (although it already appears in
the above reflections). On the one hand, we reflect on the special power of the blessing; on
the other hand, we examine the risk involved.
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4.1. The “Founding” Power of Blessing
First, there is the creative power of the blessing. In contrast to the curse, the French
psychoanalyst Françoise Dolto (Pohier 1985) puts us on the trail of the “founding” power of
blessing. Through her fellow psychoanalyst Chertok, who specialized in suggestion under
hypnosis, she came to understand that the curse is something against which hypnosis is
powerless. The curse forms such a harsh reality that even hypnosis cannot get through or
overcome it. Someone who was cursed at conception cannot be helped by hypnotherapy.
A curse, which the child knows about through its parents and applies to the father of the
child and his offspring or to the child himself, exerts an indelible influence on the whole of
his life, on the fruits of his labor and his sexuality.
Conversely, this also applies to the act of blessing and the being blessed that forms
the basis of this. In order to become human, one depends on the blessing that others
give us. One is dependent on the blessing of others in order to experience one’s own life
as a blessing. As the curse kills, so the blessing creates life. Even if a blessing does not
immediately help, it is, for the blessed one, the assurance of protection and hold in trouble,
a promise for the future. The blessing is not an incidental thing, such as clothing, it is
so strongly intertwined with existence that it determines the positive or negative sense
of what a person is and produces. You can meet people who have a radiant feeling that
everything will work out. Even though they may not have much reason to believe this at
present, they firmly believe that the future will be positive, “because someone told me so,
and I trust it!” Sometimes, you hear people say: “I will succeed because my father (or my
mother) said that I will succeed. I may not experience it anymore, but my children will
certainly experience it”. However, this feeling of confidence is not the result of one’s own
performance. It is not one’s own creation but a gift from someone else: a blessing given to
me. This is the ground for the deep emotion of knowing oneself to be blessed, despite all
that is happening!
The Bible also assumes the efficacy and power of the blessing. Four aspects stand out
regarding the impact of the blessing on the blessed (Greiner 1998, pp. 143–48).
First, there is the strengthening effect, which consists of strengthening the blessed.
Thanks to the blessing, people, individually or collectively—for example, the people of
Israel—find resilience and become strong and fruitful. Sometimes a new name, and thus
a new identity, is the sign and confirmation of this. For example, after wrestling with the
stranger (an angel of God), Jacob asks the angel for his blessing (Gen 32:23–33). However,
before the angel blesses Jacob, he also gives him a different name, and thus a new identity
and meaning, namely “Israel”: he who wrestles with God and was victorious. The blessing
that follows confirms the new identity and gives strength to face the new existence and the
new mission.
Second, there is the protective effect, in the sense that the blessing offers shelter against
all kinds of evil, threat and suffering. The blessing protects against misfortune and disaster,
with the risk that the blessing will be perverted by the recipient into a magical power that
one tries to exorcise or bend to one’s own will (more on that later). The blessing stems from
the acute awareness that reality and history, both great and small, are not always rosy, but
are often marked by obstinacy, boundaries and setbacks. In a perfect world, humans would
be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, without question and uncertainty, so that they
would not have to step outside themselves and knock on someone else’s door. Whoever
asks or receives a blessing confesses that he is not the “master and possessor of this world”.
The blessing presupposes humble and small people, not masochistic people who indulge
in their smallness and wallow in it narcissistically, but realistic people who realize not only
that they are finite and fragile but also that they cannot survive on their own. Asking for a
blessing is a sign of realism and humble self-knowledge without self-abasement!
Thirdly, there is the healing effect: the blessing offers redemption. After all, people
are also personally afflicted by all kinds of calamity and evil, especially by their sinfulness
and weakness as ethical beings. Today, emphasis is often placed on finiteness and thus on
error and failure. However, humans, as ethical and therefore free and responsible beings,
Religions 2023,14, 599 10 of 12
are also beings of evil and immoral actions. Humans are not innocent creatures; they are
“sinners”: “fallible beings” with a wounded freedom (Ricoeur 1986). This implies that they
need redemption and healing from their sins and freedom. That, too, belongs to the intent
and power of the blessing: to heal people from sin and evil, to deliver people from the guilt
that traumatizes them.
Last but not least, there is the community-building effect of the act of blessing. Thus,
in the Bible, the blessing is the beginning of the history of the covenant between God and
Abram (and Israel) (Gen 12:2–3). A blessing always shows a binding force, as indicated
above. It establishes involvement and communication between the “partners”. Thanks
to the one who addresses the blessing from God about (to) the addressee, involvement
also arises, both between God and the addressee and between God and the blessing
person. However, involvement grows also between the blessing person and the recipient,
implying that, as a religious act, the blessing also establishes interpersonal interaction and
relationality. In other words, the blessing not only contains a statement and declaration
of a promising and merciful perspective, it is also a relationship event that makes clear:
“You are not alone. We won’t let you down, we love you!” Not only is there the divine
Other, and compassion for people, blessings also connect the one who utters the words of
blessing with those people. Blessing someone is impossible, or at least lying, if one does
not have a positive attitude towards the other person and does not want the best for him
or her. Hence, the curse is radically opposed to the blessing. After all, a curse not only
pronounces a curse on someone else, that curse also expresses the aversion and rejection of
the one who pronounces the curse. In the blessing, I not only wish the other person the
best, but I also express that I am close to the other and that I support the blessed person.
4.2. Risk of Magical Derailment
There is also a downside to the effectiveness of the blessing. After all, it can derail into
magical claim and even obsession. Because of their finitude, people tend to use the blessing
as a magic spell, the mere utterance or muttering of which they believe can bring about its
intended good. Blessing formulas are used to influence and control certain supernatural
or extra-natural forces. Some even claim that blessings always function as spells, and
therefore they should be rejected. This extreme view, however, confuses blessings with
“incantations”, which turn wishes into demands by expressing them in imperative form.
The incantation presupposes a divine or demonic power to which one has no direct access
and which one, therefore, cannot easily understand nor immediately control. By means of
a kind of “magic formula or ritual” people try to get a grip on that power. One hopes to be
able to force that power to please the person who uses the magic formula, or at least not to
harm that person (which is certainly true when this concerns an “evil power”).
However, this must be distinguished from authentic dealing with blessings. After
all, authentic religiosity is not based on fear and therefore does not resort to attempts
to “coerce” divine powers. Magic seduces or even bribes the “gods” into action, while
authentic faith rests on trust and hope without certainty. The blessing remains a prayer
and never becomes a “demand”, in the sense that one entrusts oneself in surrender to
God’s love. Therefore, authentic blessing requires a culture of impotence, strange as this
may sound. Only if, in pronouncing or receiving the blessing, one accepts that one cannot
exercise power over the result of the blessing, can one avoid getting bogged down in the
despair of the convulsive grip on the divine. Then, people accept that the blessing does
not work immediately, but sometimes only much later. Then, people also accept that it
may work completely differently than expected, or that it might not even work. As Job
confidently puts it: “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name
of the LORD” (Job 1:21b).
A special aspect that can protect us from the magical derailment of the blessing is
the ethical appeal contained in the blessing. The blessing of the divine fullness of grace,
to which the blessing refers both in its origin and in its purpose, immediately implies an
invitation to the person pronouncing the blessing to act blissfully. In fact, this is about
Religions 2023,14, 599 11 of 12
more than the desire that spontaneously bubbles up from being blessed. This is not
about a possibility but about an incentive, even a “commandment”: whoever receives a
blessing from God should not keep it to oneself, but must pass it on to others, not only by
pronouncing blessings on others but also, and especially, by treating others benevolently,
namely by treating them with incarnated “deeds” of blessing.
5. To Conclude: Blessed to Bless
“No one knows the power of the body” (Atlan 1996, p. 209). Paraphrasing this
statement by Spinoza, we dare to put the following into words at the end of our quest:
“No one knows the power of blessing!” This can be expressed, both humanly, religiously
and Christianly, in word and gesture! That the religious act of blessing, right down to its
anthropological basis as an event of language and body, has a unique meaning and special
effect, became phenomenologically clear in a multifaceted way. This phenomenological
analysis also makes the religious blessing accessible and valuable “for everyone”; it is
literally “catholic”—“kat’ holon”, with a universal meaning. From the general biblical
perspective, it also became clear that the experience of religion in general and the practice
of the Christian faith in particular needs the “blessing of God” in all its facets: the gift of life
and creation, love and redemption. Moreover, this “grace” needs moments of condensation
through which God’s blessing becomes concrete and tangible for earthly beings. Blessings
are such condensing moments. Through word and sign (and matter), they embody God’s
proximity. Moreover, that ‘blessing from God’ not only invites surrender but also makes
that surrender possible. Precisely because of this, the blessing also provides the strength
needed to get up and carry on, and even more so to take on the ethical commitment of
blessing others. A synthesis of grace and ethics occurs: “You are blessed to bless; not only
in word and gesture, but also and above all in deeds!”
Funding: This research received no external funding.
Institutional Review Board Statement: Not applicable.
Informed Consent Statement: Not applicable.
Data Availability Statement: Not applicable.
Conflicts of Interest: The author declares no conflict of interest.
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