The Vatican Declaration Fiducia Supplicans is a response to a number of questions submitted by several cardinals, concerning specific pastoral questions and situations, particularly regarding blessings. The Declaration should therefore be understood as a document to “broaden and enrich” the understanding of the pastoral meaning of blessings, in the light of God’s faithful and merciful love for every person. The declaration does not change the teaching of the Catholic Church on the nature of marriage which, as stated very clearly in the Declaration, “is the ‘exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to the generation of children.’” Additionally, the Declaration is not establishing a new liturgical rite or ceremony, nor should simple blessings be confused with the blessings and graces in the reception of a sacrament. Rather, as noted, it “invites us to broaden and enrich the meaning of blessings,” including blessings of couples in irregular situations and couples of the same sex.
As the Catechism (n. 1078) states, a blessing is a divine and life-giving action, A blessing is, in a way, a response to our request for sanctification and is an amazing and unmerited gift from God. As the Vatican Declaration states, “the blessing possesses a special power, which accompanies those who receive it throughout their lives, and disposes man’s heart to be changed by God.” Essentially then, this request and disposition assumes a genuine desire to be changed by God; that is as “an act of adoration and surrender to our Creator in thanksgiving” (CCC 1078). As the Declaration goes on to say, “when one asks for a blessing, one is expressing a petition for God’s assistance, a plea to live better, and confidence in a Father who can help us live better.”
Also in the document, “People who come spontaneously to ask for a blessing show by this request their sincere openness to transcendence, the confidence of their hearts that they do not trust in their own strength alone, their need for God, and their desire to break out of the narrow confines of this world, enclosed in its limitations.”
We are all called to follow God’s commandments, and this is a life-long journey of conversion and growth by God’s grace and love. This is why the Pope also “urges us not to ‘lose pastoral charity, which should permeate all our decisions and attitudes’ and to avoid being ‘judges who only deny, reject, and exclude.’”
God’s goodness and will is always to make us holy. Our disposition must be to realize our absolute need for God’s love and grace, joyfully receiving God’s blessing, so we can become holy. As the Declaration also states beautifully, “we are more important to God than all the sins we can commit because he is father, he is mother, he is pure love, he has blessed us forever. And he will never stop blessing us.”
###