Blessings from others

Sometimes* it’s cool to be part of a religion that holds that even though we’re the One True Church,** God listens to the sincere prayers of all who pray in good faith, no matter their religion.†

With that in mind, the cardinals of the Roman Catholic church elected their new pope today (Pope Francis). I listened (with near-simultaneous translation—i don’t speak Latin) to his first address as pope to the world,†† and such addresses involve a traditional blessing,‡ which he delivered not just to the Roman Catholics who were in the audience, but to “to the whole world, to all men and women of good will”.

And i wish to say that i feel honored to have been the recipient of such a beautiful and (i believe) sincere, and thus very very real, blessing.

* Read: very often.

** A terribly underdefined term, by the way.

† I tend to think that this goes so far as to include atheists who, say, wish good for people even though they’re not acknowledging any sort of deity at all. I do realize that some Mormons think that goes too far, though (but i think they're wrong, of course☺).

†† Technically, urbi et orbi—that is, to the city [of Rome] and the world.

‡ I’m guessing there are some Mormons out there who might be bothered by the fact that the blessing is word-for-word the same every time it’s given, but these are presumably the same people who don’t understand why our prayers for the sacramental emblems‡‡ make that, quite simply, a non-issue.

‡‡ Among other things.