BLESSING OF
AT PRADO NUEVO OF EL ESCORIAL (MADRID)
OUR
LADY:
Raise all your objects; all will be blessed
for the conversion of poor sinners…
I bless you, my children, as
the Father blesses you, through the Son and with the Holy
Spirit.
COMMENTARY UPON MESSAGES
On
"There will not be more messages, but there
will be very special blessings and marks that will seal your
foreheads". This happens every first Saturday.
Undoubtedly, Prado Nuevo is blessed with the presence of The Blessed Virgin who
gives us graces on and on:
- " Today is also a very especial day to give
you a holy blessing, a especial blessing, my children, and those blessings
will be good for consecrated souls" (Our Lady, February 2nd 1985)
- " All those who come to this place will be
blessed with especial blessings" ( Our Lord, May 2nd 1992)
- " Come to this place of blessings and graces;
here you'll receive graces to go to the sacraments, my
children" ( Our
Lady,
- " Come to this place, you'll receive corporal
and spiritual graces, my children" (Our Lady,
After this introduction, a commentary would be useful to understand the
importance of blessings in Our Lord's and Our Lady's manifestations at Prado
Nuevo.
First of all, there are three types:
- When our blessing is directed towards God, we can praise,
worship God; it can also be an action of thanks, an invocation to God, etc…The
psalm says, "Bless the Lord my soul; all my being, bless his holy name! Bless
the Lord, my soul, and do not forget all his kindness"
(vv.1-2)
- When God blesses men, He gives them his
divine favour, his gifts: "but each one will offer in proportion to what he
has, according to the blessing that Yahweh has bestowed upon you" (Dt 16, 17).
" Soil that drinks the rain falling continually on it and produces profitable
grass for those who till it, receives the blessing of God" ( Hb 6,
7)
- When we wish a favour from Him and we express it, when we wish something
for somebody and we ask for it, it
is also called blessing. Liturgy normally uses this kind of blessing;
liturgical blessing is a rite through which the minister of the Church, by
means of the authority he was given, asks God for a favour or grace for the
people he is praying.
To be more accurate, only God can bless; that is to say, only He can give
the gifts and graces of blessings; in the Old Testament, God blesses the
Creation ( Gn 1,2), Adam and Eve ( Gn 5, 2), Noe and his children ( Gn 9, 1),
Abraham ( Gn 12, 1-3), Isaac ( Gn 5, 11), Jacob ( Gn 32, 30; 35, 9),
etc…
However, the Lord gives men this power of blessing, especially to the
Church ministers, as well as to angels when they are his messengers; for
example, Jacob asked the angel who fought against him his blessing, as the Book
of Genesis says (Gn 32, 27-30). Besides, the biblical patriarchs mentioned above
blessed their children: Isaac blessed Jacob ( Gn28, 1; Hb 11, 20), Jacob blessed Joseph (" Jacob, before he
died, blessed both children of Joseph" Hb 11, 21), Moses blessed the people of
Israel (" this is the blessing Moses gave to the children of Israel before he
died" Dt 33, 1) etc…Consequently, if they did it, why not the Blessed Virgin, as
She does at Prado Nuevo, whose dignity is higher than any other human being?
Indeed, She is the canal through which God's blessings come to
us.
The Gospels frequently show Jesus Christ blessing people and things; the
Apostles, His immediate successors, also did it. Likewise, from the origins of
the Church, priests have the power of blessing, of imposing their hands, of
annointing with blessed oil…As time goes by, the Church has established who can
give certain blessings.
Types of blessings:
- Constitutive: they impress an especial character upon
things that become sacred and are used for the divine cult or religious events
(chalices, altars, sacred glasses, etc…)
- Invocative: priests ask the Lord to give people and
blessed things his favour, or spiritual or temporal gifts; they bless
children, houses, lands, water, candles, etc…
Effects of blessings: they do
not produce the sanctifying grace because it belongs to the Sacraments but there
are three types of graces:
- Current graces of inspirations or impulses to do good
things
- Graces that give us help and protection against evil, the
Demon, temptations, venial sins (they are forgiven through them). Besides,
they help us to get to contrition after committing mortal
sins.
- Graces that get temporal gifts for us and turn
dangers aside; when sick people are blessed, prayers against natural
disasters, plagues, etc…For this reason it is good to use blessed objects and
even take one with you ( a scapular, a rosary, a cross…)
Among liturgical books used by the Church, the introduction of the Book
of Blessings, approved by Pope John Paul II in 1986, says, "glorifying God in
everything and trying to show his glory to men- not only those reborn but also
those who will be reborn through the grace, the Church, by means of blessings,
continuously praises the Lord for them and with them invoking the divine grace
upon each one. The Church sometimes blesses things and places related to human
or liturgical life, piety and devotion; it always has in its mind those who use
these things and places. Indeed, because God wished it so and He did everything
well, men are the receptacle of His wisdom; for this reason, by means of
blessings, men try to show they use created things to look for God, love God,
serve Him loyally as the Supreme Being "
Here there are two simple prayers included in the Book of Blessings: they
are said before and after meals. We want to contribute to the returning of this
tradition, forgotten in lots of Christian homes.
"BEFORE
THE PRINCIPAL MEAL
The
one presiding then signs himself or herself with the sign of the cross (a priest
or a deacon also makes the sign of the cross over the food) and
says:
918.
Bless + us, 0h Lord, and these your gifts
which we are about to receive from
your goodness.
Through Christ our Lord.
R. Amen."
"AFTER
THE PRINCIPAL MEAL
923.
The one presiding says:
We
give you thanks for all your gifts, almighty God,
living and reigning now
and for ever.
R. Amen."