We always pray that each new year will be a time of great blessings, better than the last. Holy Church understands our need for hope and blessings. She festoons our year’s feasts with special constitutive blessings and sacramentals to help us along.
Constitutive blessings establish things or persons as a blessed or consecrated (eg, sacred objects such as holy water, rosaries, chalices, priests, some Religious, consecrated virgins, etc). Invocative blessings call God’s favour upon things or persons for spiritual or temporal wellbeing without changing the nature of the person or thing (eg, foods, creatures, children, climbing equipment, etc). Some blessings tear the thing or person from the grip of the Prince of this World, the Devil, and make them sacred in an abiding way. They do not lose their sacred character unless they are desecrated. Other blessings do not change the character, but ask God to increase their wellbeing or usefulness.
