At a recent conference workshop I invited the participants to experience a blessing ritual. After an opening prayer and a reading from Scripture, each participant was invited to come forward to receive a sign of blessing from myself or one of several colleagues of mine. We placed our hands on the participants’ heads, one by one, and offered a silent prayer, asking for God’s blessing.
As soft music played in the background, the participants continued to come, each with a different reaction. Some displayed slight hesitation, some smiled warmly and gratefully, and some were moved to tears. When all the participants had been blessed, my colleagues and I offered the same blessing to each other. The ritual then ended with everyone praying the Our Father.
As we surveyed the group for their reactions, the response was overwhelming. This was a very powerful experience indeed. Although simple, the ritual spoke volumes. People were struck by the sense of community created by the simple action of processing, the connection and care felt between themselves and those praying for them, and the general calm and peacefulness that enveloped the room and the people there.
Others connected the ritual action to blessings they had received in their childhood or blessings they now offer in their own families. Yet others began to speak about the ritual action of laying on of hands and how they were reminded that this action is used in many contexts in the celebration of the liturgy and other sacraments.
What this group experienced was the formative power of ritual and the very reason the Church calls liturgical or ritual catechesis the “eminent kind of catechesis” (CT 23, GDC 71). In ritual catechesis, the participant learns through the rite, rather than merely about the rite. It is the experience of a ritual action and its associated symbols that empowers the learner as a participant rather than just an observer. Ritual actions provide the learner with the experiential basis for further learning.
The blessing ritual experienced at that conference was just a starting point. We could have spent the workshop talking about the scriptural and doctrinal ties to blessing and the laying on of hands. We could have explored where this action appears in the rite of Confirmation. We could have even talked about how this ritual action reflects and empowers the mission of the Church and our own mission as disciples. But one thing is sure. The conversation would have been deeply enriched by the participants’ experience of the ritual action first.
This is the beauty and power of ritual catechesis.
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