What does it mean to bless and to be blessed? 

The Greek verb meaning “bless” is εὐλογέω (eulogeo), from the words eu, meaning “well” or “good” and λογώ (logo) meaning “a word”; so a literal meaning of εὐλογέω would be “to say a good word upon” something or someone.   

But εὐλογέω takes on additional meanings within Christian worship: To bless is to reveal, as Jesus says “a good word” upon the bread and wine at the Last Supper, revealing them to be His Body and Blood (Mk. 14:22, Mt: 26:26).  To bless is “to hallow and to show”, as St. Basil puts it in the Epiclesis of the Divine Liturgy. This is to say that a blessing reveals what something IS–that it is sacred and holy, that it comes from God and that there is a deep-down goodness about it.  A blessing does not change the nature of that which is blessed.  Rather, a blessing reveals it to be what God made it to be—or, as in the Eucharist, what God says it is. And the blessing “works” when it makes us see what that which is blessed really is.

When the priest blesses the bread and wine and makes the Sign of the Cross above them, He is asking the Holy Spirit to reveal the bread and wine to be Christ’s very Body and Blood. Of course, it is Christ God who makes the bread and wine into His Body and Blood by His Eternal Word. But it is the Holy Spirit who makes this blessing manifest, who reveals Christ’s Body and Blood to us. 

And yet God has blessed all of creation. God made everything good and beautiful. Nothing made by God is by nature evil, false, or stained. We know this. It is in the creation account of Genesis. But in this fallen world of ours we are prone to forget, and so it is necessary to remember, to ask God to renew us, to renew His blessings upon us—not that He ever stops blessing us; it’s just that we so often lack the eyes to see. 

Why do we say grace before meals?  It is to bless our food, to participate with God in the blessing. It is to open our hearts and our eyes to God. For when we say grace, we remind ourselves that only God is good, that in creating everything, He desires everything and everyone to have a share in His goodness, to reflect His goodness. We should be aware of this every time we say grace and every time we bless ourselves or others. For every blessing is a grace called down from God. 

And when we say our prayers and ask God to bless our days and our very lives, we are asking Him to remove the scales from our eyes, so that we can see the blessing that life really is, so that we can see in ourselves and in others His very image, so that we can progress further along the road of becoming like Him, so that we can begin to make a habit of perceiving God’s presence in all things.

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We say that God blesses us, but we also say that our God is blessed–eternally blessed: 

Blessed is our God, always, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages! (Kairos, Proskomide of the Divine Liturgy, Vespers, Compline, Orthros)

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ (Ephesians 1:3-14).

 But who blesses God?  The answer is to be found in Psalm 103:

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me: bless His holy name.

We bless God.  We bless Him. We bless His holy name. God made us this way, to be blessed eternally and to bless Him.

What does it mean to bless God?  It is to reveal ourselves as belonging to Him, to affirm the fact of our belonging to Him, to praise Him and to give Him thanks. It is to respond. This is key, because blessings go both ways. Blessings are reciprocal. And think of this: One of the meanings of the Greek word “to bless” (evlogeo) is “to make happy.”  As God’s rational creature, His image, He has made us capable of making Him happy, capable of blessing Him!  Of course, God doesn’t need us to make Him happy, but God desires this. He wants to share His joy and happiness with us—and what’s more, we need this. We need to be constantly aware of the fact that our very life is a blessing from God and that we were made to bless Him. This is what it means to lead a blessed life, to be in vital touch with God who alone is good, the source of life, joy, and happiness—but who looks for us to bless Him as He blesses us, so that He can bless us eternally.

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So be blessed and bless God!Live in God. Live in knowledge of God’s goodness, of His love for you.  The more deeply we become aware of our many blessings from God, the less likely we’ll be to forget Him, the closer we’ll come to being like Him, and the greater blessing we’ll be to our loving God who blesses us so abundantly—this God who desires for us to be with Him eternally, to be eternally blessed as He is blessed.

Fr. Paul Martin
Annunciation & St. Paraskevi Greek Orthodox Church
New Buffalo, MI