But the discipline of blessings is to taste
each moment, the bitter, the sour, the sweet
and the salty, and be glad for what does not
hurt. The art is in compressing attention
to each little and big blossom of the tree
of life, to let the tongue sing each fruit,
its savor, its aroma and its use.
Attention is love, what we must give
children, mothers, fathers, pets,
our friends, the news, the woes of others.
What we want to change we curse and then
pick up a tool. Bless whatever you can
with eyes and hands and tongue. If you
can’t bless it, get ready to make it new.”
Marge Piercy, excerpted from “The Art of Blessing the Day”

 

Attention is love and that is at the heart of extending blessings.

To bless someone or something is an act of reverence, to be sure, but it’s also a lost art and a kind of stolen power. Over the centuries, we’ve conferred the power to bless upon clergy, thereby removing ourselves from this intentional act as though we are mere witnesses. We are not.

We, the community, hold the power to bless. Let me say that again, in case you inadvertently fell asleep during these early moments of my pontificating. We the community hold the power to bless. Each and every one of us.

When I officiate weddings, I make a point in all but the simplest of elopements to stand to the side. I do so not only because that’s how I was trained as a Life-Cycle Celebrant® but more importantly, as a way to decenter and disempower the “ministerial Myth” that has us imagining what I call the mirage-a-trois of minister and the two people we are marrying (although sometimes, if we’re lucky, we get to marry a thrupple!).

Yes, in the case of weddings, we are the legal reason for the day. But the blessing of the marriage is a collective one, sung to the tune of power to the people…and the faces and the places. The sun, the birds, the trees, the warm breeze, and the light rain all conspire to lend tears and blessings to the ceremony in an outdoor space. As do grandparents and parents and crying babies and best friends and aunts, uncles, cousins and co-workers and musicians.

I’m with Celtic theologian John O’Donohue when he confesses that “it would be lovely if we could rediscover our power to bless one another. I believe each of us can bless. When a blessing is invoked, it changes the atmosphere…The quiet eternal that dwells in our souls is silent and subtle; in the activity of blessing it emerges to embrace and nurture us. Let us begin to learn how to bless one another. Whenever you give a blessing, a blessing returns to enfold you.”

And so, when I read news that the Catholic Church is denouncing all of the baptisms performed by a certain Priest over the course of decades of service, because he incorrectly invoked the words, “We baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit…,” rather than “I baptize you…,” I want to shout from mountaintops that he had the correct wording all along.

Blessing is all about we the people. We are the ones who’ve always held the power but somewhere circa RIC (religious industrial complex), we began relegating the art of blessing to religious and cultural intermediaries.

As a celebrant, I’m happy and honored to be such a modern intermediary but I harbor no illusions that I hold the singular power. Performing a religious rite such as a Catholic baptism is not in my wheelhouse but all manner of life moment blessings ~ be that to honor a new parent, a baby, a pet, an adoption, a Coming of Age, new grandparents, a house or studio space, a graduation, a wedding, or some other milestone moment ~ invite the collective gathered to bestow communal wishes, prayers, and heartfelt intentions. That’s where the power is and always has been!

And so, in modern inclusive ceremony, that translates to building communal blessing rituals in as often as possible. In weddings, it’s the moment when the guests are invited to affirm the vows they’ve just heard and make a promise of their own to help the couple uphold their loving covenant. During funerals, it’s often the proffering of a gesture for the grievers to come forth to touch the urn, place a flower upon the casket, or otherwise extend their blessings to their dearly departed one in some enacted, verbalized, or heartfelt way. And with other rites of passage, it means ensuring the honoree feels welcomed into the community and celebrated in communal blessing fashion – cue the bubble and ribbon wands, the tunnels or canopies of love rituals, and the hugs and kisses.

a teen boy being welcomed back into his family, friend, and faith community
under boughs of salal branches adorned with photos and words of blessing
at the end of his Coming of Age ceremony; December 2019.

I can’t help but wonder if the defrocked priest is having a come to Jesus moment of reckoning with his chosen faith. If he’s being very honest with himself, he must surely be remembering the spiritual authenticity of those ceremonial moments, even and especially when he invoked the royal we.

In ritual studies, such moments are categorized as ritual failure or in semantics, as a failed performative utterance. And yet just as the Catholic Church has been quick to deconsecrate these baptisms and the most devout amongst the sloppily baptized will be worriedly rushing to reenact these sacraments for their official “passport into heaven” documents, I hope it invites the rest of us to pause, circa 2022, and get real.

As the scroll on my cheeky Pope Innocent III action figure notes, “Filii Hohenstaufenin, osculamini asinum meum,” which loosely translated, means, “Sons of the Hohenstaufenin (aka Holy Catholic Empire), kiss my ass.” 

We are the ones who get to decide the fine art, the power, and the efficacy of blessing. No matter the religious infusion or papal decrees, these rituals we dare to enact are human-made constructs.

From me to you to we to us, and from when to now to a someday then, I say unto you: bless our hearts, peace be upon us, and let us sing we, we, we all the way home.

And if you want to put your left foot in and shake it all about and call that a holy baptism in the name of the Holy Spirit who has you affirming the real ride of this one wild and precious life of yours, I’m here for that, too.