In the Catholic Church, a blessing is a rite consisting of a ceremony and prayers performed in the name and with the authority of the Church by a duly qualified minister by which persons or things are sanctified as dedicated to divine service or by which certain marks of divine favour are invoked upon them. In a wider sense blessing has a variety of meanings in the sacred writings:

In the morning of Creation God blessed the living creatures that came from His hands, bidding them increase and multiply and fill the earth. When Noah emerged from the Ark, he received God's benediction, which he transmitted through his sons Shem and Japheth to posterity. The Old Testament shows that, in the patriarchal ages, heads of tribe and family seem privileged to bestow blessings, and priests when directed by God, administered it to the people. "Thus shall you bless the children of Israel... and the Lord will turn His countenance and give them peace". The great value attributed to blessings is seen in Rebecca's effort to secure Jacob's blessing for her son. It was regarded as a sure way to secure God's benevolence, peace and protection.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, "Every baptized person is called to be a 'blessing' and to bless. Hence lay people may preside at certain blessings; the more a blessing concerns ecclesial and sacramental life, the more its administration is reserved to the ordained ministry (bishops, priest, deacons)"

Blessings may be divided into two classes, invocative and constitutive. The former are those in which Divine benignity is invoked to bring some temporal or spiritual good without changing their former condition. Of this kind are the blessings given to adults, to adolescents, and to children, and to articles of food. The latter class permanently depute persons or things to Divine service by imparting to them some sacred character, by which they are held to assume a new and distinct spiritual relationship, conferring a sacredness so that they cannot be divested of their religious character or turned to profane uses. Such are the blessings given churches and chalices by their consecration.

Theologians distinguish blessings of an intermediate sort, by which things are rendered special instruments of salvation without at the same time becoming irrevocably sacred, such as blessed salt, candles, etc.

"Blessing" in the liturgical sense, is a rite consisting of a ceremony and prayers performed in the name and with the authority of the Church by a duly qualified minister by which persons or things are sanctified as dedicated to Divine service or by which certain marks of Divine favour are invoked upon them.

The adoption of this rite by Jesus and his followers ensured its adoption at a very early stage in the Church's history. Blessings, in the sense in which they are being considered, are entirely of ecclesiastical institution: the Church has confined their administration to those in sacerdotal orders. Priests are ordained "that whatsoever they bless may be blessed, and whatsoever they consecrate shall be consecrated". In other words, priests can bless anything. The only case in which one inferior to a priest may bless is when the deacon blesses a candle on Holy Saturday, acting as a deputy and employing incense already blessed by the celebrant.

Some blessings are reserved to the Pope, some to bishops and some to parish priests. The first class includes the right to bless the pallium for archbishops, Agnus Deis, the Golden Rose, the Royal Sword and persons to whose blessing an indulgence is attached. He may depute others to give these. To bishops belongs the privilege of blessing abbots at their installation, priests at their ordination and virgins at their consecration; of blessing churches, cemeteries, oratories and all articles for use in connection with the altar, such as chalices, vestments and cloths, as well as military standards, soldiers, arms, and swords, and of imparting all blessings for which Holy Oils are required. Some of these may, on delegation, be performed by inferiors. Of the blessings which priests are generally empowered to grant, some are restricted to those who have external jurisdiction, like rectors or parish priests, and others are the exclusive prerogative of persons belonging to a religious order. An inferior cannot bless a superior or exercise ordinary powers in his presence. The priest, for instance, who is the principal celebrant of a Mass at which a bishop is present but is not the principal celebrant, is still not to give the final blessing without permission from the bishop.