Holy Water
holy water
A sacramental blessed by a priest to invoke God’s blessing on those who use it. There are four kinds: ordinary holy water, blessed by the priest for the sprinkling of the people before Mass (see ASPERGEs), for use at the door of the church, and for the blessing of persons and things in the church and at horne, sometimes used with salt, as a symbol of wisdom and of preservation from corruption; Baptismal water, in which the oil of catechumens and the holy chrism are mingled, used only in the administration of Baptism; water of consecration, or Gregorian water, and Easter water. As used in nearly all the blessings of the Church’s ritual, it is usually contained in a bowl-shaped vessel having a swinging handle and provided with a sprinkler. At the church door it is kept in a fixed vessel called a font, so that the people may use it conveniently when entering or leaving. There is an indulgence of 100 days for using it. Water is the natural element for cleansing; and symbolically it denotes interior purification. It has been used in many religions. The laws of Moses enjoined the sprinkling of the people, the sacrifices, etc. In the Christian Church its use goes back probably to the 2nd century. Holy water is usually blessed just before the principal Mass on Sunday, but may be blessed at any other time. The priest reads several prayers, including an exorcism of the salt and the water, and puts the salt into the water in the form of a threefold cross, in the name of the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity. He then asks God’s blessing on it.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Holy Water
The use of holy water in the earliest days of the Christian Era is attested by documents of only comparatively late date. The “Apostolic Constitutions”, the redaction of which goes back to about the year 400, attribute to the Apostle St. Matthew the precept of using holy water. The letter written under the name of Pope Alexander I, who lived in the second century, is apocryphal and of more recent times; hence the first historical testimony does not go back beyond the fifth century. However, it is permissible to suppose for the sake of argument that, in the earliest Christian times, water was used for expiatory and purificatory purposes, to a way analogous to its employment under the Jewish Law. As, in many cases, the water used for the Sacrament of Baptism was flowing water, sea or river water, it could not receive the same blessing as that contained in the baptisteries. On this particular point the early liturgy is obscure, but two recent discoveries are of very decided interest. The Pontifical of Scrapion of Thumis, a fourth-century bishop, and likewise the “testamentum Domini”, a Syriac composition dating from the fifth to the sixth century, contain a blessing of oil and water during Mass. The formula in Scrapion’s Pontifical is as follows: “We bless these creatures in the Name of Jesus Christ, Thy only Son; we invoke upon this water and this oil the Name of Him Who suffered, Who was crucified, Who arose from the dead, and Who sits at the right of the Uncreated. Grant unto these creatures the power to heal; may all fevers, every evil spirit, and all maladies be put to flight by him who either drinks these beverages or is anointed with them, and may they be a remedy in the Name of Jesus Christ, Thy only Son.” As early as the fourth century various writings, the authenticity of which is free from suspicion, mention the use of water sanctified either by the liturgical blessing just referred to, or by the individual blessing of some holy person. St. Epiphanius (Contra haeres., lib. I, haer. xxx) records that at Tiberias a man named Joseph poured water on a madman, having first made the sign of the cross and pronounced these words over the water: “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, crucified, depart from this unhappy one, thou infernal spirit, and let him be healed!” Joseph was converted an subsequently used the same proceeding to overcome witchcraft; yet, he was neither a bishop nor a cleric. Theodoret (Hist. eccl., V, xxi) relates that Marcellus, Bishop of Apamea, sanctified water by the sign of the cross and that Aphraates cured one of the emperor’s horses by making it drink water blessed by the sign of the cross (“Hist. relig.”, c. viii, in P.G., LXXXII, col. 1244, 1375). In the West similar attestations are made. Gregory of Tours (De gloria confess., c. 82) tells of a recluse named Eusitius who lived in the sixth century and possessed the power of curing quartan fever by giving its victims to drink of water that he had blessed; we might mention many other instances treasured up by this same Gregory (“De Miraculis S. Martini”, II, xxxix; “Mirac. S. Juliani”, II, iii, xxv, xxvi; “Liber de Passione S. Juliani”; “Vitae Patrum”, c. iv, n. 3). It is known that some of the faithful believed that holy water possessed curative properties for certain diseases, and that this was true in a special manner of baptismal water. In some places it was carefully preserved throughout the year and, by reason of its having been used in baptism, was considered free from all corruption. This belief spread from East to West; and scarcely had baptism been administered, when the people would crown around with all sorts of vessels and take away the water, some keeping it carefully in their homes whilst others watered their fields, vineyards, and gardens with it (“Ordo rom. I”, 42, in “Mus. ital.”, II, 26).
However, baptismal water was not the only holy water. Some was permanently retained at the entrance to Christian churches where a clerk sprinkled the faithful as they came in and, for this reason, was called hydrokometes or “introducer by water”, an appellation that appears in the superscription of a letter of Synesius in which allusion is made to “lustral water placed in the vestibule of the temple”. This water was perhaps blessed in proportion as it was needed, and the custom of the Church may have varied on this point. Balsamon tells us that, in the Greek Church, they “made” holy water at the beginning of each lunar month. It is quite possible that, according to canon 65 of the Council of Constantinople held in 691, this rite was established for the purpose of definitively supplanting the pagan feast of the new moon and causing it to pass into oblivion. In the West Dom Martène declares that nothing was found prior to the ninth century concerning the blessing and aspersion of water that takes place every Sunday at Mass. At that time Pope Leo IV ordered that each priest bless water every Sunday in his own church and sprinkle the people with it: “Omni die Dominico, ante missam, aquam benedictam facite, unde populus et loca fidelium aspergantur” (P.L., CXV, col. 679). Hincmar of Reims gave directions as follows: “Every Sunday, before the celebration of Mass, the priest shall bless water in his church, and, for this holy purpose, he shall use a clean and suitable vessel. The people, when entering the church, are to be sprinkled with this water, and those who so desire may carry some away in clean vessels so as to sprinkle their houses, fields, vineyards, and cattle, and the provender with which these last are fed, as also to throw over their own food” (“Capitula synodalia”, cap. v, in P.L., CXXV, col, 774). The rule of having water blessed for the aspersion at Mass on Sunday was thenceforth generally followed, but the exact time set by Leo IV and Hincmar was not everywhere observed. At Tours, the blessing took place on Saturday before Vespers; at Cambrai and at Aras, it was to be given without ceremony in the sacristy before the recitation of the hour of Prime; at Albi, in the fifteenth century, the ceremony was conducted in the sacristy before Terce; and at Soissons, on the highest of the sanctuary steps, before Terce; whereas at Laon and Senlis, in the fourteenth century, it took place in the choir before the hour of Terce. There are two Sundays on which water is not and seems never to be blessed: these are Easter Sunday and Pentecost. The reason is because on the eve of these two feasts water for the baptismal fonts is blessed and consecrated and, before its mixture with the holy chrism, the faithful are allowed to take some of it to their homes, and keep it for use in time of need.
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BARRAUD, De l’eau benite et des vases destines a la contenir in the Bulletin monumental, 4th series, vol. VI (1870), p. 393-467; PFANNENSCHMIDT, Weihwasser im heidnischen und christlichen Cultus (Hanover, 1869).
H. LECLERCQ Transcribed by Michael T. Barrett Dedicated to Fr. Hugh Marshall
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIICopyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Holy Water
In the Romish, as also in the Greek, Russian, and Oriental churches, denotes water blessed by a priest or bishop for certain religious uses. The theory of its first introduction seems to have been that water is a fitting symbol of purity, and accordingly, in most of the ancient religions, the use of lustral or purifying water not only formed part of the public worship, but also entered largely into the personal acts of sanctification prescribed to individuals. The Jewish law also prescribed this, and it was a practice held in common by many Pagan nations (compare Riddle, Christ. Ant. p. 725). The sprinkling of the hands and face with water before entering the sanctuary, still generally observed by the adherents to that law, was retained, or, no doubt, may have given rise to its adoption by the early Christian Church. But its use was certainly for a very different purpose. Thus bishop Marcellus ordered Equitius, his deacon, to sprinkle holy water, hallowed by him, in houses and churches, to exorcise devils, which is said to have been done also by pope Alexander I. Joseph, the converted Jew, Epiphanius says, used consecrated water in exorcism. Holy water was used in all benedictions of palm and olive branches, vestments, corporals, candles, houses, herds, fields, and in private houses. By the canon law it is mingled with salt. The Council of Nantes ordered the priest before mass to sprinkle the church court and close, offering prayers for the departed, and to give water to all who asked it for their houses, food, cattle, fodder, fields, and vineyards. By the Capitulars of Charlemagne, Louis, and Lothaire, on Easter and Whitsun eves all the faithful might take, for purposes of aspersion in their houses, consecrated water before its admixture with chrism (q.v.). In monasteries, a novice carried the holy water before the cross in procession (Walcott, Sac. Archaeol. p. 314).
In the Romish Church of today holy water is directed to be made of pure spring water, with the admixture of a little consecrated salt. This water (generally placed at the entrance of places of worship, and sanctified by a solemn benediction, prescribed in the diocesan ritual) the Romanist has come to look upon with the most superstitious regard, and it is used not merely for the sprinkling of persons on entering and leaving the church, but also in sprinkling books, bells, etc., and it is frequently taken to their homes, as having some peculiar virtue. Its use has thus become nothing more than a charm. In the Greek Church, holy water is usually consecrated by the bishop or his vicar-general on the eve of the Epiphany. No salt is employed, and they regard the use of it by the Latins as a grievous and unauthorized corruption. The Greeks perform the ceremony on January 6, the day on which they believe that Christ was baptized by John, and twice a year it is usual to drink a portion, viz. at the end of the midnight mass of Christmas and on the feast of Epiphany. In the Armenian Church, holy water is consecrated by plunging a cross into it on the day of the Epiphany, after which it is distributed among the congregation, who take it to their homes. The offerings made on this occasion form a considerable portion of the emoluments of the Armenian priesthood. On the practice of using water for baptism, SEE BAPTISM, Bingham, Orig. Ecclesiastes bk. 8, ch. 3 67; Eadie, Eccl. Cyclop. p. 313, 658, 659; Coleman, Anc. Christianity, p. 369, 395; Chambers, Cyclop. 5, 394. For monographs, see Volbeding, Index Program. p. 142.