​Blessed from the Balcony

Thursday evening, I was happily able to help sing for a “Night of Praise” (Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament accompanied by some music).  I love this combination of music with adoration!
 
It’s a little bit of heaven on earth, as I told a friend afterward. 
 
Earlier in the week, I’d gotten an email from the liturgy coordinator asking us to meet in the bell tower to practice a bit beforehand.  I had to ask him how to get there, as I’m kind of a rookie at this! 
 
After a little practice, we went to the choir loft, where we spent the beautiful hour. 
 
One word struck me through this experience: blessed.  A couple of the songs we sang centered around this theme of “blessing the Lord.”  Furthermore, I felt truly blessed by this opportunity.
 
Later in the evening, during another conversation, I got to musing about the significantly different uses of the word blessed.  To me, it almost seemed a bit strange that the same word had such contrasting uses, though they all share positive connotations. 
 
We pray “Bless us…and these your gifts.”  We say, “I am blessed by so many good things.”  We sing, “Bless the Lord, O my soul.”
 
As I thought about this linguistic enigma a bit more, I was struck with the roots of the word in the romance languages.  Interestingly enough, our beautiful time with Jesus neared its conclusion with “benediction.”  Bene-diction means blessing!
 
As I thought of that word, I broke it down; bene means good and diction means saying/ speaking. 
 
So, blessing is a good statement, a good word, in a sense. 
 
I pondered how this applies to our various uses of the word blessing.  When we “bless the Lord,” in a sense, we are saying a good word about Him. 
 
It struck me that, in creation, all God had to do was say the word, and it was.  When Jesus healed, He just had to say the word (although sometimes He used touch and other means as well). 
 
When God blesses us, all He has to do is say the word!
 
I’m not a linguist, but these were the ponderings that came from my beautiful experience the other night.  

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