What Does “Blessed (beatified)” Mean in the Bible?
A person the Church declares “Blessed”: he or she lived as Jesus asks, and people may now pray to him or her in that region.
It can mean
- Careful: it is the step before being declared a saint.
- Their feast: it is celebrated above all in their diocese or in their religious family.
- In the Bible: Elizabeth called Mary “blessed” because she believed.
Where it appears in the Bible
Luke 1:45; Hebrews 12:1
What the Bible says
Luke 1:45
And blessed art thou that hast believed, because those things shall be accomplished that were spoken to thee by the Lord.
Hebrews 12:1
And therefore we also having so great a cloud of witnesses over our head, laying aside every weight and sin which surrounds us, let us run by patience to the fight proposed to us:
Douay-Rheims Bible (Challoner revision), public domain.
Source: Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), “Beatification and Canonization”; RAE, “beatificar”