Benedic, Domine, nobis

Benedic, Domine, nobis, et donis tuis. These are the first words of a Latin grace, grace being a Christian prayer said before meals. They translate as ‘Bless us, O Lord, and your gifts’.

We rarely pause long enough to understand what the word ‘bless’ means, or what we are doing when we, often casually, invoke a blessing on others. When a person sneezes, we bless them, a custom which derives from the once held belief that a sneeze separates the soul from the body, so making it a prey to the devil. The words “Bless you” were spoken to snatch the soul back, so to speak.

It is not the only prayer to have been rendered commonplace. The exclamation “Oh God!” is a cry born of a visceral need for God in the moment of its uttering, even if that need is unacknowledged. Given the state of global politics, and the future of the planet itself, would that such an exclamation could be uttered in the desire for it to be heard.

This is why I have, once again, used Bellini’s Christ Blessing as an image for this post. All of last week, and in the wake of the recent plane crash over the Sinai peninsula, the painting has been at the forefront of my ‘envisioning’ mind. One does not simply look at such a painting. One envisions it by carrying it about in one’s inner consciousness, because it is iconic in the original sense.

Icon means image, or ‘imprint’, of a real person. An icon has, quite literally, a life of its own. So it has to be allowed to do its work which, in the case of the Bellini painting, is the work of blessing. Christ is blessing all that we have seen in the last week by way of tragedy and human suffering, on whatever scale. At the same time, he is blessing the private tragedies and agonies which many people live with on a day to day basis. All are blessed and embraced as part of  human suffering.

The Bellini painting engages the imagination on a number of levels, because this is how iconic paintings work. They invite us to engage with, and to allow ourselves to be engaged by, the image. The image engages us where we are bound, or captive, to the suffering of the rest of humanity and to the causes of that suffering.

So it engages us in the visceral nature of our own, sometimes denied, feelings and responses to suffering. We become the child separated from a parent in a crush at the last remaining border gate opening to a new life. We are in the tragic hopelessness of a disgraced Church leader, or of the young man who, accidentally or not, has murdered his step sister. It engages us at every level of conflict and in all its causes. Whether or not we bear some personal responsibility for suffering, the Christ of the painting continues to bless and to speak peace into it.

But the blessing, and the peace which comes with it, are neither superficial or easily bestowed, because together they constitute judgment. It is impossible to receive a blessing if one is out of favour with the one who gives it, and out of kilter with what it represents. So we are also under the critical regard of the giver. His blessing holds us to account, both personally and as members of a free and democratic society, for all that is going wrong in our world. We are held to account in the blessing because it bestows an even greater freedom.

The freedom given to us in the blessing of the risen Jesus is a freedom to be known by God as his own children, the brothers and sisters of his Christ. But it is not lightly given. If we look closely at the painting we see faint traces of suffering on what remains, nevertheless, a vulnerable body. Neither is the blessing easy to receive. We look at the painting and receive the blessing as we acknowledge in ourselves the suffering of millions whom we have never met, as well as some who we may know well and whose suffering we may have contributed to. We look, hold all the suffering and allow the blessing to fall on victims and perpetrators alike.

This program of blessing is the only program available to us for world peace, and for the future of the planet itself, because it derives from ultimate justice. The blessing bestowed by God in the risen Christ changes the way things are because it changes the way we see other people. It challenges us to a radical re-think of how we view other human beings, often as they appear to us from within highly charged contexts.

It obliges us to accept the blessing of the risen Christ on all. This includes all governments and leaders, all policy makers, all members of Isis and Al Khaida, all Palestinians and all Israelis, all Kurds, as well as the newly re-elected Turkish government, and all who have lost land or livelihood to greed and the short-termism of industrial exploitation. The blessing falls on Russia and its allies (including Bashar al-Assad), all refugees and victims of torture, all perpetrators of torture, all who we love, all who we find it hard to love, and any we may hate.

Only when we have allowed it to include all these categories and individuals can it fall on ourselves. So the blessing is a judgment of profound understanding. It changes the way we see things.