Blessing in the Catholic Church in the context of Catholic Church

⭐ Core Definition: Blessing in the Catholic Church

In the Catholic Church, a blessing is a rite consisting of a ceremony and prayers performed in the name and with the authority of the Church by a duly qualified minister by which persons or things are sanctified as dedicated to divine service or by which certain marks of divine favour are invoked upon them. In a wider sense blessing has a variety of meanings in the sacred writings:

Synonymous with praise; thus the Psalmist, "I will bless the Lord at all times; praise shall be always in my mouth."
A wish or desire that all good fortune, especially of a spiritual or supernatural kind, may go with the person or thing, as the Psalmist says, "Blessed art thou, and it shall be well with thee".
The sanctification or dedication of a person or thing to some sacred purpose; e.g., Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it....
A gift, as when Naaman addresses Eliseus: "Now therefore, I pray thee, take a blessing of thy servant".

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Blessing in the Catholic Church in the context of Roman Rite

The Roman Rite (Latin: Rītus Rōmānus) is the most common ritual family for performing the ecclesiastical services of the Latin Church, the largest of the sui iuris particular churches that comprise the Catholic Church. The Roman Rite governs rites such as the Roman Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours as well as the manner in which sacraments and blessings are performed.

The Roman Rite developed in the Latin language in the city of Rome and, while distinct Latin liturgical rites such as the Ambrosian Rite remain, the Roman Rite has gradually been adopted almost everywhere in the Latin Church. In medieval times there were numerous local variants, even if all of them did not amount to distinct rites, yet uniformity increased as a result of the invention of printing and in obedience to the decrees of the Council of Trent of 1545–1563 (see Quo primum). Several Latin liturgical rites which had survived into the 20th century were abandoned after the Second Vatican Council. The Roman Rite is now the most widespread liturgical rite not only in the Catholic Church but in Christianity as a whole.

View the full Wikipedia page for Roman Rite

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