A Spirituality of Blessing: A 21-Day Self-Study Retreat

This self-study retreat cultivates a spirituality of blessing and nurtures gratitude, joy, hope, and delight in the beauty of our lives in the midst of a hurting world. We won’t be denying or bypassing that woundedness but resourcing ourselves with a sense of abundance at the heart of things. We will resist a culture that strives to wear us down and leave us feeling hopeless.

Blessings bring us present to the grace of each moment. The word comes from the Latin, benedicere, which means to speak well of. Blessings help to remind us of the love and beauty of the Holy One in our lives and assist us to take nothing for granted. They act as maps to navigate our human experience, orienting us back to gratefulness and praise.

They sustain us in bringing reverence to all of life from the most ordinary of tasks to the great thresholds of our lives. They immerse us in the holy rhythms of the sacred which are not of our making. In a world obsessed with the scarcity of time, blessings help us to expand each moment like a flower opening her petals on a sunny day. They invite us to breathe more deeply, enlarge our vision, and give honor to our experiences. Blessings help us to touch eternity here and now.

A blessing is an acknowledgment of the gifts and graces already present. All of the mundane activities of the day became opportunities to witness grace at work. They become meditations and remembrances.

When my calendar and to do lists become misplaced holy grails in my life, speaking a blessing is a way to put things back into perspective. When my heart aches and grieves over loss, a blessing is a sanctuary space within which I am held and met by the divine.

St. Benedict wrote in the Prologue to his Rule, “Let us then at last arouse ourselves, even as Scripture incites us in the words, ‘Now is the hour for us to rise from sleep.’ Let us then, open our eyes to the divine light, and hear with our ears the divine voice as it cries out to us daily. ‘Today if you hear God’s voice, do not harden your hearts,’ and again, ‘He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the Churches.’”(RB Pro:8-11).

The image of awakening calls us to shake off the slumber which creates a veil between reality and our perception. The act of blessing helps us to awaken and see more clearly. When we remember to bless, we consecrate life whether we are in the kitchen, the office, in church, or standing in a forest.

In both Jewish and Celtic traditions, a central practice is to bless the unfolding of the day, each activity, each turning point. Everything becomes worthy of blessing. The Talmud calls for 100 blessings each day and through this practice we can shape ourselves into beings who pay close attention and who remember from whom all of life flows.

When we remember to bless, we consecrate life whether we are in the kitchen, the office, in church, or standing in a forest.

This is a 21-day self-study online retreat which includes scripture reflections on the biblical story of blessing, guided meditations from Christine Valters Paintner drawn from her book, and several blessing practices from guest teachers.

This retreat was originally offered during the season of Advent, but can be prayed through at any time.

This retreat is inspired by Christine Valters Paintner’s book A Book of Everyday Blessings: 100 Prayers for Dancing Monks, Artists, and Pilgrims