Media mediated Blessing
Joee Blogs asked whether he could get the Apostolic Blessing via my YouTube clip. Unfortunately not. There is a special provision for the Urbi et Orbi blessing on Easter Sunday. You can receive that blessing and indeed the plenary indulgence by watching it on television or listening to it on the radio - live, not recorded. (If I'm wrong on any of this, canonists please feel free to correct me.)
I remember as a child that my father got us all together to kneel down for the Urbi et Orbi Blessing on Easter Sunday. Just thinking of this now chokes me up a bit (he died in 1997). As a young man, he had crossed the channel on 8 June 1944, fought in the tanks in the battle of the Falaise pocket, through the bocage, and, village by village, through Belgium; now he was kneeling with unabashed faith and devotion to receive the Pope's blessing via the television, reverently making the sign of the cross, and teaching us children by his good example. (The picture shows him and my mother when they were engaged.)
I remember as a child that my father got us all together to kneel down for the Urbi et Orbi Blessing on Easter Sunday. Just thinking of this now chokes me up a bit (he died in 1997). As a young man, he had crossed the channel on 8 June 1944, fought in the tanks in the battle of the Falaise pocket, through the bocage, and, village by village, through Belgium; now he was kneeling with unabashed faith and devotion to receive the Pope's blessing via the television, reverently making the sign of the cross, and teaching us children by his good example. (The picture shows him and my mother when they were engaged.)
