Blessing in the Catholic Church

[5] When Noah emerged from the Ark, he received God's benediction,[6] which he transmitted through his sons Shem and Japheth to posterity.

The Old Testament shows that, in the patriarchal ages, heads of tribe and family seem privileged to bestow blessings, and priests when directed by God, administered it to the people.

Blessings, in the sense in which they are being considered, are entirely of ecclesiastical institution: the Church has confined their administration to those in sacerdotal orders.

Blessings are not sacraments; they are not of Divine institution; they do not confer sanctifying grace; and they do not produce their effects in virtue of the rite itself.

It depends altogether on the Church's suffrages that persons using the things blessed derive supernatural advantages.

Instances are alleged in the lives of the saints where miracles have been wrought by the blessings of holy men and women.

There is a blessing for the departure and return of pilgrims to the Holy Land, containing prayers and allusions to the Magi's journey, to Abraham setting his face towards the distant land of Canaan and to the Angel companion of the younger Tobias before an appeal to God to send solace on the journey, shade from heat, shelter in storms and a haven of safety.

There follow blessings of persons with Holy Water before Mass, an adult who is sick, a number of sick people, a woman on the approach of confinement and another after childbirth, infants, children, teenagers, and adults come to the use of reason or arrived at years of discretion, children and adults on their presentation in Church, that they may lead good Christian lives and for boys and girls on the Feast of the Holy Infancy that they may grow up to imitate the virtues of the Saviour and reach salvation under His guidance.

The Catholic Church holds that things used in daily life, particularly in the service of religion, should be rescued from evil influences and endowed with a potency for good.