Abstract

This study investigates the theology of blessings exhibited by the Book of Blessings , a result of Vatican II's liturgical reform. An analysis integrating Jakobsonian communications theory and Greimasian semiotics supplies the textual data for a liturgical theology of blessing. ;An overview of twentieth-century developments in the Roman Catholic theology of blessing highlights the liturgy's sign-value. BB's rites are organized and contextualized to emphasize persons and their activities, and are more universally adaptable than the pre-conciliar blessings. Occasion and liturgical setting contribute more to a blessing rite's overall meaning-effects than does its categorization in BB. ;The "Blessing for Various Circumstances" illustrates the ritual dynamics generically enough to postulate a "shape" of liturgical blessing. The ritual text as semiotic utterance becomes an event structured by "ritual enunciations" during liturgical performance. Narrative analysis reveals the rite's deep structure, with its divine and human-ecclesial actants, and its anabatic-katabatic "theo-logic," initiated by God's word. Discursive analysis uncovers the Gospel value to which the narrative orients liturgical participants. ;Three forms of blessing prayer are identified according to addressee . Analysis of each type reaffirms the entire rite's structural dynamics, literary-liturgical prayer elements corresponding to the rite's key narrative components. The prayer's intentionality focuses the "meaning" of a particular blessing. The prayer's narrative structure communicates a pattern of liminality between what God has done and what God is asked to do . ;The ritual enunciations' dialogical nature symbolizes the divine-human dialogue manifested in Christ's paschal mystery. Liturgical blessings enhance the church's competence to know, praise, and petition God in Christ. In full, conscious and active participation, "liturgical enunciation" occurs, and the primary-theological fact--the lex orandi that theologically subordinates "ritual enunciation"--is established. Analysis of ritual enunciations clarifies how adequately they promote the lex orandi. The recognition of liturgical blessings' sign-value indicates greater convergence between "sacraments" and "sacramentals" than acknowledged in pre-conciliar theology. ;Criticism of BB involves its occasional didacticism, the inadequacy of its "short formularies," its assignation to non-ordained presiders of gestures and formulas different from those assigned to the ordained , and insufficient regional adaptation