Leaving aside here the question of the minister of blessings, which has already been discussed at some length, I intend to highlight two major points where the theology of blessings that provides the background and foundation for De benedictionibus differs from the one presented by Righetti and Daragon.
First, blessings are conceived primarily as acts of thanksgiving and praise of God for the good gifts of his creation. The act of blessing consists above all in the recognition and proclamation of the goodness of created things and of the loving care of their Creator.
The apotropaic aspect of blessing, that is, toprotect against the influences of evil – and of the Evil One, is largely absent. Lessi-Ariosto considers this aspect of blessings a remainder of a pessimistic worldview that does not take into account the goodness of God’s creation, but it could be asked whether such a position does not underestimate the consequences of original sin.
The theological rationale for this claims to be biblical, but would appear to be oblivious of the fact that Christ himself, in the Gospel of John, speaks of“the prince of this world” (Jn 12:31, 14:30, 16:11). A deleterious consequence of the Fall, which is perhaps better understood in our time marked by concerns about an ecological crisis, is humanity’s corrupted relationship with creation. In a well-known passage, St Paul says that “creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility” and “will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rm 8:19-21).
Daniel Van Slyke has noted that “any view that discounts the influence of evil in favor of an insistence on the goodness of creation can be accused of an optimism that verges on naïveté.”
It would seem to be – and I suggest this
here for the purpose of further exploration – that the relegation of apotropaic blessings has less to do with biblical ressourcement than with modern theologians such as Edward Schillebeeckx OP (1914-2009) and Karl Rahner SJ (1904-1984), who considered the whole created world already endowed with or permeated by divine grace. Their notion of “sacramentality” is extended to the whole of creation, and so the specific nature of the sacraments is lost: the sacraments and, by consequence, the sacramentals are mere manifestations that make explicit what already takes place.
Prior to this excerpt Fr Jungmann responded to objections of letting the laity make some blessings by citing the now provenly false Apostolic Tradition of St Hippolytus that was the "source" of so many radial changes in Tradition
https://www.ccwatershed.org/2014/08/17/hippolytus-rome-eucharistic-prayer-ii/
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