Our Lady’s Love of children from Holy Childhood
Bless Your Children
by Archabbot Ignatius Esser, O. S. B.
GRAIL PUBLICATIONS
St. Meinrad, Indiana.
Nihil obstat: Fintan G. Walker, Ph. D.
Censor librorum
Imprimatur: +Paul C. Schulte, D. D.
Archbishop of Indianapolis
June 25, 1947
Drawings by Gedge Harmon
Fifth Printing, 1954
Copyright by St. Meinrad™s Abbey, Inc.
1947
Bless Your Children
Is the average home as good as it used to be? To even a superficial observer the waning unity in modern family life is a source of sad regret. The scattered members of many families seem never to have experienced how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity (Ps. 132, 1).
Autos, movies, public recreation grounds, multiplied societies and clubs, are often pointed out as disruptive factors that gradually annihilate the sweet charm of home life. Home, in many instances, is rather a place to be shunned than a haven to be sought. However, cars, movies, public recreation grounds, societies, and clubs, are not the causes of family disunion. Nor is even an abuse of these things the cause of such disunion. Their abuse is merely the manifestation of a want of family union and home attraction. The sorest need in family life today is a unifying principle, a bond that will cement the members of a family together so tightly that disruptive agencies will lose their power. Natural ties are not strong enough; they can be overcome by natural forces. The truly unifying principle in the family must be supernatural.
There exists such a supernatural, unifying principle, but it is sadly neglected. In fact, it is wholly unknown to many of those even whose privilege it is to apply it. How few persons there are that know anything about parental blessing. Perhaps you are the parent of children. Did you ever bless your children?
Our Lord used to gather little children around Himself and bless them. Suffer the little children to come unto Me, He said. And embracing them, and laying His hands upon them, He blessed them. Parents of today love their children. They embrace them. Why do they not lay their hands upon them and bless them? Jesus wants children to be blessed.
Certainly the blessing bestowed on children by Jesus was more efficacious than that which is bestowed on them by their parents. So also is the blessing imparted by a priest more efficacious than the parental blessing. Even so, the parental blessing is something so holy, so efficacious, that it deserves to be called the Sacramental of the Domestic Hearth. How beautiful is the picture of a young mother, imposing hands of benediction on a child of tender years and spotless innocence. No less beautiful is the picture of an aged parent, bestowing with trembling hands, a blessing on a full-grown son and daughter.
O yes, dear fathers and mothers, this is a privilege that is yours. Often you are urged to do your duty. Here is one time that you are urged to use a privilege that is yours by divine grant a privilege that goes with the sweet dignity of parenthood.
Parental blessing is as old as the human race. It began with the oldest patriarchs. Throughout the Old Testament it was the usual method of transmitting divine favors. The blessing conferred on their children by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, are known to all that read the Sacred Scriptures. These same Scriptures give us an authoritative statement on parental blessing. Honor thy father, in word and work, and in all patience, that a blessing may remain in the latter end. The father™s blessing established the houses of the children; but the mother™s curse rooteth up the foundation (Ecclus. 3:9,11).
Many are the Scriptural instances whereby the efficacy of a parent™s blessing, and also a parent™s curse, is proved. We know the interesting story of Tobias, how he made a long journey with the Angel Raphael, who in disguise acted as a traveling companion. That was a most successful and profitable journey. Besides a safe return it included: the collection of money, the deliverance of the young Tobias from the dangerous fish, the winning of an excellent wife for the son, and the curing of the father™s blindness. Before setting out, the young Tobias received his father™s blessing in the following grand words: “May you have a good journey, and God be with you in your way, and His angel accompany you.
Nowadays a person so rarely sees parents bless their children, that he is inclined to think the privilege no longer exists. Has the parental blessing lost its efficacy in the New Testament? Has Christ™s coming changed the essential relations between parent and child? Has matrimony, elevated by the Savior to the dignity of a Sacrament, been lowered in spiritual values? Most certainly not! Jesus, in the New Testament, has increased the number and capacity of the channels of grace, of which the parental blessing is one.
Parental blessing is parental blessing still. The scattered family and the empty hearth are but the concomitant of parental blessing neglected. If this Sacramental of the Domestic Hearth were more frequently administered, there would be more happy and contented families. The two indispensable factors of happiness in a home, are amiable authority on the part of parents, and loving obedience on the part of children.
Parents that bless are more keenly conscious of their responsible dignity. In their power to bless they recognize the channel of grace that they do not want to obstruct by disedifying example.
It is easy for a child to see God™s representative in a parent before whom it frequently kneels for blessing. With this recognition come the love, reverence and obedience that children owe to their parents.
If your home is not all that you would like it to be, try adding the following ingredients: edification, love, reverence and obedience. You get them all, and much more, too, out of the parental blessing. These are the things that make the homes out of which saints come forth.
In the lives of the saints and the saintly, we find many beautiful examples that help to spur us on in fostering this worthy custom. The last words of the mother of St. Gregory of Nyssa were her words of benediction pronounced over her ten children, some of them absent, some present. The dying mother of St. Edmund called her boy from Paris to England to bestow on him her blessing. The Blessed Thomas More, even when a married man, advanced in years and official dignity”he was Lord Chancellor of England—never left his father™s house without that aged parent™s blessing.
The Little Flower of Jesus, whose charming child-like sanctity has made her so popular, undoubtedly owes some of her exalted holiness to her parents™ blessing. The custom of blessing the children prevailed in the home of the Little Flower. In her autobiography she expressly mentions the blessing received from her father on one momentous occasion. It was the day she entered the convent. Hear her speak for herself: The next morning, after a last look at the happy home of my childhood, I set out for the Carmel, where we all heard Mass (April 9, 1888). I embraced all my dear ones, and knelt for my father™s blessing. He, too, knelt down and blessed me through his tears.
A little more than two years ago our Catholic papers attracted the attention of readers with the headline: Bishop Kneels for Mother™s Blessing. It was the Right Reverend F. T. Roch, D. D., Bishop of Tuticurin, India. He met his mother at the railway station. There, in presence of a multitude of people, he knelt before his mother to receive her blessing, and the grand old lady, placing her wrinkled hands on the head of her illustrious son, moved many a spectator to tears.â€
Dear fathers and mothers, open up to your children this choice channel of grace. Make a diligent and frequent use of this greatest privilege of parents.
You may wonder when parents ought to bless their children. They ought to bless them often. At night after evening prayers is a very good time to bestow a daily blessing. Before going on a journey or undertaking an important or a dangerous occupation; also during sickness, sons and daughters ought to get their parents™ blessing. At the more important turning points in life, fathers and mothers ought solemnly to bless their children, thus, upon their entering school, on their First Communion day, on their wedding day, or when they leave to enter the convent or monastery, or the holy priesthood. Send a blessing even to your absent children. Before you go to bed at night, think of the absent son or daughter. They may be in sore need of your help. Your blessing is the most powerful help that you can give them. Protect them with the Sacred Cross that you make over them. Include a God bless you, my child, in the letters to your children. Your last blessing should be given to all your children, when you are at the point of death.
How is the parental blessing given? In the most simple, yet impressive manner. Place your hands on the head of the kneeling child. Say: I bless you, my child, in the name of the Father, etc., make the sign of the Cross upon the forehead with the thumb of the right hand. If you bless all your children at once, simply extend your right hand over all, and trace a cross over them, while you pronounce the above words. Any other appropriate words of your own choice may be used. Vary them to suit the occasion. The words of Tobias quoted above, are beautiful words of blessing for one about to make a long journey. Simply let the words of blessing indicate what you wish for your children.
After reading this, what will be the attitude of parents, sons, and daughters, towards the practice of parental blessing? Young parents will welcome this happy privilege of which they perhaps knew absolutely nothing. With joy will the proud young father and the jubilant young mother lay hands of blessing upon their precious baby. The practice once begun will be easily kept up.
But what about older families, where through ignorance of this beautiful custom, the parental blessing was never given? Rather reluctantly will aged parents make this start in the evening of their married life. Yet they surely will not refuse their blessing if their grown up sons and daughters ask for it. Nor ought these to hesitate in asking for a gift that surpasses all natural gifts that parents can give them.
Good fathers and mothers, you have endured much labor, fatigue, and pain, to give your children natural gifts, life and life™s accessories. Generously add to your bounteous bestowals the crowning complement”your blessing. This one treasure will supernaturalize the rest.
St. Ambrose says: You may not be rich; you may be unable to bequeath any great possessions to your children; but one thing you can give them; the heritage of your blessing. And it is better to be blessed than to be rich. May God doubly bless the parents that bless their children.
