As far as I understand it, 祝福{しゅくふく}
means "bless". I came across it in this sentence, and it struck me as weird:
だれもが彼の成功をうらやむと同時に、心から祝福した。
My rough translation is, "At the same time that everyone was envious of his succes, they blessed him from their hearts."
I think I get the grammar and syntax, and I also get that people can be envious and grateful at the same time, or something like that.
It's just that to me (perhaps only to me), the word "blessed" has a lot of weight to it in terms of religious origins and conveys implications of ritual. I don't want to get too much into the English meaning of the word "bless", though.
My main point is that I wonder if "bless" is really the most accurate translation?
Perhaps it means more like "grateful"?