Blessing

The Lord bless you and keep you;

The Lord make His face shine upon you,

And be gracious to you;

The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,

And give you peace.

The above blessing found in Num 6:24-26 is a very powerful blessing, because it has been given by Yahweh Himself to Moses, and to Aaron and his sons. Any negative thinking is itself a curse.

Therefore, we can say that there are at least five different types of curses:

1. Self-cursing: Whenever I say I am not pretty, I am not capable, I am not lucky, etc., we are cursing ourselves.

2. Cursing God: I can even curse God when I say God did not bless me, or God did not give me enough money, or God did not give me good parents/children, or any other similar similar statement.

3. Cursing nature, weather, animals, birds: Oh what kind of rain or what kind of weather is this! This cockroach is disturbing me, it is a nuisance! These are examples of curses over nature.

4. Cursing situations: Examples - What kind of traffic! So much crowd, so much mess in this world. Nothing is alright with this world. Etc. God does not make mistakes.

5. Cursing other people: And the major thing is cursing other people, or not blessing other people. Either we bless people, or we curse them. There is nothing inbetween these two. Even indifference is a curse on others. Every negative thought, grudge, unhappiness about others is a curse by itself. And when we curse others, we curse ourselves. Every curse and ill wish recoils on ourselves.

Not only are we asked to bless others always, but also we are called to be a blessing like Abraham, our father in faith. The Lord says thus to Abram in Gen 12:2, "I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing." Have we been a blessing to others or have we cursed them? Let us bless this universe, and all that lives within it.

If only we dare to be humble, and even humiliate ourselves, to forgive others and to ask for forgiveness from others, we will realise that God has always been blessing us. Perhaps we were resisting His blessings, and we didn't want His blessings consciously or unconsciously. Like Mary we can become humble, and receive God's mighty blessings. Then we can heartily sing along with Mary, "He has looked upon his servant, in her lowliness, and from now on people will call me blessed" (Lk 1:48).

So, by blessing others we can remove curses. Even when others are negative towards us we need to bless them. As St Peter says, "Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing" (1 Pet 3:9). The lot of those who think negatively is given in Psalm 109:17-19, "He loved to curse—may it come back on him. He found no pleasure in blessing—may it be far from him. He wore cursing as his garment; it entered into his body like water, into his bones like oil. May it be like a cloak wrapped about him, like a belt tied forever around him."

Jesus climaxes this discussion with his radical words. "Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you" (Lk 6:28). He asks us to even love our enemies: to bless and love those who hate and insult us, to bless and love those who curse us. (Mt 5:43-48; Lk 6:27).