Blessing Yourself


This is a manual recalling of your baptism. You were baptized “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Then the priest or deacon immersed you or poured water over you. Now you bring the water to your body and once again claim that you are Christ’s by making His sign over your body with the waters of baptism.


It is an act that can become habitual and at times thoughtless. If this  happened to you, make an effort to once again do this with meaning, recalling the sacred act of your baptism, which forever has marked you as belonging to Christ. Do it with great reverence, thoughtfulness and gratitude.


Genuflecting VS. Bowing


It is necessary in all prayer to be mindful of the Presence of God. In prayer we are talking to someone, not something. Walking into a Catholic Church, we are about to pray the greatest prayer any Christian can pray—the Mass.


What we do before we enter a pew or choose a seat depends on the layout of the church. If the tabernacle, which contains the Blessed Sacrament—the Real Presence of Jesus Christ—is at the front of the church, we genuflect toward our King, honoring Him, before entering the row where we will sit.


This is an act of adoration. It should immediately help us to be mindful that we are in the Presence of God. How would we act if someone important were in the room? Well, there is no one more important than the living God!


What should you do if the tabernacle is not in the main body of the church, or if the tabernacle is empty? In such an instance, one should make a profound bow toward the altar, which is another sacred object within the church that symbolizes Christ.


The bow is an act of reverence toward an object that has deep symbolic meaning, while a genuflection is an act of adoration not toward a symbolic object, but toward the actual Presence of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.