The hand sanitizer dispenser below is similar to what we have in my parish at the entrances to the church.
We have removed Holy Water from our fonts, would these machines filled with Holy Water be a solution for Holy Water’s return?
Have any parishes experimented with this kind of “Holy Water Machine”?
OR:
Could I bless the hand sanitizer in these machines as an alternative to Holy Water? Has anyone experienced blessed hand sanitizer? Certainly there would be no problem with blessing hand sanitizer would there? We bless all kinds of other things.
We have removed Holy Water from our fonts, would these machines filled with Holy Water be a solution for Holy Water’s return?
Have any parishes experimented with this kind of “Holy Water Machine”?
OR:
Could I bless the hand sanitizer in these machines as an alternative to Holy Water? Has anyone experienced blessed hand sanitizer? Certainly there would be no problem with blessing hand sanitizer would there? We bless all kinds of other things.
24 comments:
I actually asked the question about blessing the hand sanitizer as I began mass this morning!
GMTA
Good morning!
I think it's a great idea for a couple of reasons. I think the people who miss the Holy Water can still be reassured that they can bless at least their hands and it might offer them a degree of comfort, and perhaps even psychologically reduce the stigma of " we have to do this now because we carry germs. I think it can be incorporated as a positive alternative to the Holy Water.
When we bless ourselves with Holy Water, we call to mind our Baptism, our rebirth in Christ. Hand sanitizer will not accomplish this.
Blessing the hand sanitizer is a good idea, but it cannot replace Holy water. Why not place a basket of small bottles containing Holy Water below the fonts. Make them available for free, and let people know that donations to cover the cost of the bottle is appreciated but not required. Encourage folks to keep and refill them as often as necessary. Might be a good time to remind everyone that they can keep Holy Water fonts in their homes, and bless themselves often in these troubling times.
What passes for Holy Water in most churches isn't properly blessed anyway; neither the water nor the salt that is mixed with it is exorcised. For the formula see the Rituale Romanum, Titulus VIII Caput 2. You could bless hand sanitizer using the Benedictio ad omnia but it would still need to be aspersed with (real) Holy Water.
Yes, water blessed without salt or exorcisms is properly blessed.
Castles built without moats are castles, cars built without gasoline engines are cars, Masses celebrated without Latin are Masses.
Anyway...
It all depends on how you define 'properly'.
More Kavanaugh-esque inappropriate analogies in the last paragraph. Does Fr MJK even possess a copy of the Rituale Romanum? Perhaps Anonymous, with whom he has a lot in common, could ask him for us.
Exorcisms of anything used in the church Nave, Narthex, and especially Sanctuary, wouldn’t be out of place right now!
My take FWIW...
Can you add properly blessed holy water to the hand sanitizer and then distribute as you suggest?
Anonymous @ 11:20
Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini.
Qui fecit caelum et terram.
Dominus vobiscum.
Et cum spiritu tuo.
Deus, cujus verbo sanctificantur omnia, bene+dictionem tuam effunde super creaturam istam: et praesta, ut, quisquis ea secundum legem et voluntatem tuam cum gratiarum actione usus fuerit, per invocationem sanctissimi nominis tui, corporis sanitatem et animae tutelam, te auctore, percipiat. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.
Et aspergatur aqua benedicta.
So you don't even need to put 'hand sanitizer' into Latin. What's not to like?
"Properly" means according to approved Catholic practice.
As much as you want to believe that what is approved Catholic practice is determined by your personal preferences, you are wrong.
The hand sanitizer is blessed for our use. The contents of the same don't come into it. I know that the Holy Water I bless myself with has been properly consecrated as a sacramental, since the priests at the churches I frequent would always use the Rituale Romanum rather than the bastardized ritual which followed Vatican II.
The analogies are entirely apt.
A castle without a moat is a proper castle as water blessed properly according to approved Catholic practice is holy water.
A car without a gasoline engine is a proper car as water blessed properly according to approved Catholic practice is holy water.
A Mass celebrated without Latin is a proper Mass as water blessed properly according to approved Catholic practice is holy water.
All perfectly proper analogies.
🍸Make mine a double please.
Anonymous
A castle without a moat is more easily attacked. A car without an engine can't move. A Mass without Latin is not something I would wish to attend. A lot of dubious practices are tolerated and even approved. And since you accept the Derrida-esque post-modern linguistic theory, your definition of what is proper has no more validity than anyone else's.
Anyone with half a brain can compare the Rituale Romanum with the modern(ist) version and draw his own conclusions which are not simply a matter of personal preference.
But since neither you nor your alter ego Fr K are familiar with the RR you are in no position to make comparisons.
OK...a triple..🍸🍸🍸
"A castle without a moat is more easily attacked."
BUT it is still a proper castle.
"A car without an engine can't move."
Ah, but you have conveniently left out a word - gasoline.
A Tesla, which is a proper car, with an electric motor, not a gasoline engine, can move. I've driven one.
"A Mass without Latin is not something I would wish to attend."
Who cares?
Your "conclusions" are nothing more - nothing more - that your personal preferences.
Comparisons, as you know, are odious. Cervantes, Christopher Marlowe, and John Donne all agree. You're the one making comparisons, suggesting that your conclusions are somehow normative.
⚡ The Great and powerful OZ has spoken.
O God, Who canst not change nor fail,
Guiding the hours as they roll by,
Brightening with beams the morning pale
And burning in the mid-day sky;
Quench Thou the fires of hate and strife,
The wasting fever of the heart,
From perils guard our feeble life,
And to our souls Thy peace impart.
Grant this, O Father, only Son,
And Holy Spirit, God of grace,
To whom all glory, three in one,
Be given in every time and place. Amen
--Cardinal Newman
Morning Carol and all,
Beautiful! God Bless you!
Anon@6.59,
I agree!
A South Sudanese drum and dance performance at my daughter's school is a more culturally significant event than a performance of Hamlet.
It is only personal preferences and nothing to do with objective standards to hold that the music of Bach and Mozart is most times better, more sublime, than 1970s Punk music.
And finally, I can't understand how anyone could disagree with me when I claim that the short film made by my son while studying for a BA in Visual Arts is not as great a film as Citizen Kane. It would just be personal preference for anyone to regard Citizen Kane as a better film.
Yours,
Jack Derrydo.
Anonymous (Jack Derrydo)
To a relativist there are no objective standards in music or the arts in general and no such thing as informed criticism. It's all down to individual preference. But then the relativist has to concede that his own values (or lack of them), and his own judgements and conclusions are nothing more than his own personal preferences. He has backed himself into a logical cul-de-sac.
Pontius Pilate, face to face with the Incarnate Truth, opted for relativism - 'Quid est veritas?'
All the same, someone who trots out a string of analogies and then opines that 'comparisons are odious' (which obviously won't do as a general principle) is hardly being consistent, unless he means to say 'Your comparisons are odious whereas mine are right and proper.'
John Nolan, are you still driving a model T to work and mass? After all, it was the first mass produced automobile and it still does what newer cars do. Do you own a television and a radio? If so why, they weren't around prior to WWI. Do you have heat in your house? Why, it wasn't in early homes. Have you ever flown in an airplane? If so why, trains were around first and before that the horse and buggy. I believe you can see the point I am making. All serve the same purpose, yet things do change and that doesn't make them worse than the original.
WOW. As a theology professor, I am stunned that a Catholic priest would not only ask such a question, but that he would do so openly, on the internet.
Why don't you talk to a liturgy professor at your diocese's seminary? Once he picks his jaw up off the ground, he should be able to explain the theological significance of holy water and the Church's blessing of it, which goes back centuries. There is a reason why during exorcisms, demons have been forced to acknowledge how much they hate/fear holy water. St. Teresa of Avila wrote about this at some length as well.
If you aren't perrmitted to fill the holy water stoups with actual holy water, then urge the faithful to bring little bottles of water and bless them yourself outside of Mass. Alternately, you can purchase little bottles of water, marked "holy water," by the boatload and distribute them to your parishioners to take home after you've blessed them. Not complicated.
My jaw drops over two things in your post. First, my post includes the suggestion of putting holy water in dispensers similar to the hand sanitizer ones that automatically disposit the hand cleanser on the person's hand. Fill it with Holy Water instead.
Secondly, your suggestions omit in a jaw dropping way, the one alternative that I used every Sunday during and after the pandemic shut-down, the Asperges which takes place in the new rite as a part of the Introductory rite and in the EF Rite as a prelude. Why didn't you mention this as I lift my jaw off the ground?
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