\tIt has to be said, right up front, that Catholics love blessings. We will bless almost anything: Water, candles, meals, our children, new cars, animals, boats, wedding rings, palms, ashes, salt, eggs, houses, new cars, and all kinds of people: sick people, old people, engaged couples, mothers, students, teachers\u2026. We have a blessing for almost anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\tBut what is a \u201cblessing,\u201d exactly? A blessing is a formal prayer that acknowledges God\u2019s goodness, gives thanks, and asks God to preserve, protect, or sanctify whatever\u2014or whoever– is being blessed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To someone unfamiliar with the tradition, this might seem like so much superstition.\u00a0 But at its most basic, a blessing is a prayer that takes an everyday object or person, and directs us to look through them to see the good that God is doing.\u00a0 Blessing prayers are an acknowledgement that all of creation belongs to God, and that the things we have been given all come from God\u2019s generous hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\tA blessing prayer isn\u2019t magic. Like all prayers it changes mostly the one doing the praying, helping us to see that the goodness of God reaches into every part of our world, and into every situation of our lives. Our joys and our sorrows, our evening meals and our palm branches, our anniversaries and our new years\u2014all are occasions to give thanks to God. That\u2019s what blessings are for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\tThere are many books of blessings available. One I like a lot is available from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops through their web site. It\u2019s called \u201cCatholic Household Blessings and Prayers.\u201d
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It has to be said, right up front, that Catholics love blessings. We will bless almost anything: Water, candles, meals, our children, new cars, animals, boats, wedding rings, palms, ashes, salt, eggs, houses, new cars, and all kinds of people: sick people, old people, engaged couples, mothers, students, teachers\u2026. We have a blessing for almost anything. But what is a \u201cblessing,\u201d exactly? A blessing is … Continue reading Book of Blessings<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[21],"class_list":["post-487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facts-of-faith","tag-facts-of-faith"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5FUlW-7R","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=487"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":488,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487\/revisions\/488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}