Since the divisive "issue du jour" facing us at General Convention next month is the Blessing of Same Sex Relationships, I thought I'd spend a moment offering a meditation on the word: Blessing. As in, count your blessings. As in, blessed are you among women. As in, bless me, for I have sinned." In his first public sermon on the mount, Jesus used this word almost exclusively: Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . the meek . . . the peacemakers.
If you look up the word in the Old English Dictionary, you will find that one of its derivative words is "blood." I once heard Martin Smith, SSJE, say that the word blessing, like many words in the English language, came to us from the good monks of St. Gregory. Now, St. Gregory is reported to have loved the Jacob cycle stories in Genesis, and of them, his favorite was the story of Jacob's wrestling with the angel.
St. Gregory described the end of the fight, as dawn was breaking, as a "kairos" moment when time was suspended and Jacob, he said, was "splattered with the blood of Christ" ^Ö or, "blooded." Jacob, he said, was blooded by the encounter with the angel, and left that encounter changed and transformed, never again to be the same. You will remember that Jacob's name was changed, and, forever after, he walked with a limp.
It is often hard to see the blessing through life's "blooding." Jonathan Kozol's latest book Ordinary Resurrections describes life in the Mott Haven section of the South Bronx, NY. His special interests are the children of P.S. 30, especially those who attend the after school program at St. Ann's Episcopal Church. Mother Martha is the rector there and pastor to the children. She was once a trial lawyer, a graduate of Radcliffe in the 60's, who gave up a prestigious law practice when her brother died of AIDS in the mid 80's. She went to a NY seminary and took on this congregation in a neighborhood where:
Mother Martha blesses the children once a week with Holy Water. These children who have been blooded by life LOVE to be blessed by Mother Martha. They anticipate the weekly ritual with great joy. Kozol reports (pg. 69-70): "When Mother Martha sprinkles holy water over Elio his face is radiant. But hers is radiant as well. Both of them are laughing. Watching them, I start to understand the meaning of a priest in Massachusetts who had told me he believes that children minister to grown-ups quite as much as grown-ups minister to children. 'Holy water blesses children who receive it, but the faces of the children also bless the one who gives it. The spirits of the children and the longings of the grown up intertwine and wrap themselves around each other. In this way the healing that the blessing brings goes back and forth.'"
"It's easy to believe this when you see the pastor mobbed by all the little ones as she comes down the stairs into the afterschool holding a bowl of water in her hands. "Of all the things I have to do here at the church," she told me once, "this is the part I love the most."
"There is so much happiness and youthful expectation in her voice! Weariness and worry over tragedies and troubles of all kinds appeared to fall away. The boys and girls came running as they saw her on the stairs. "Mother Martha! Mother Martha!" . . . Mother Martha raised the silver staff and shook it wildly in the air."
"Bless me, Mother!"
"Me, too, Mother!"
"Don't forget me, Mother!"
"Bless me, Mother!"
"Bless me!"
"Bless me!"
"Bless me!"
The questions I leave for your consideration are these:
Bless the Lord, O my soul. Let all that is within me bless God's holy name.
Bless me, a sinner.
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