Section 1. On Blessings

52. Notion and division. 1. A blessing is a prayer moving another to confer some good on someone.

One blessing is called lay, which is made by a secular person, especially if he has some title over the thing or person to be blessed, as a father and mother have over their children; another is called ecclesiastical, which is made by an ecclesiastical person in the name of the Church. Blessings which are performed by lay persons are not sacramentals, since they have not been instituted by the Church and are not made by the authority of the Church.

2. Ecclesiastical blessings, which are very many, are divided:

a. By reason of effect, into constitutive blessings (Weihesegen), by which things or persons, their state being changed, become truly sacred; and invocative blessings (Bittsegen), by which, without a change of the state of things or persons, some special good is implored. To the former belong first tonsure, minor orders, consecration of virgins, consecration of a chalice or church, the blessing of an Agnus Dei or of holy water, etc.; to the latter belong simple blessings conferred on persons or things, such as the blessing of the sick, of a new house, of vineyards, of medicine, etc.

Constitutive blessings are of two kinds: alpha. some, by which blessed or consecrated persons or things are only deputed to divine worship and become sacred, some of which are ordered to confecting other sacramentals, as chrism, sacred oil; beta. others, by which blessed things become permanent sacramentals, namely when things are blessed for this end, that from their application or pious use some good may redound to man or some evil may be driven away from him, as holy water, an Agnus Dei, etc.

b. By reason of form, into real and verbal blessings, or into consecrations and simple blessings: in the former an anointing is employed, as in the consecration of a chalice; the latter are completed by words and signs alone, as the blessing of a ciborium or of holy water.