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Summary
- A family can bless its own home by making the sign of the cross, sprinkling a few drops of holy water in each room and praying; a priest or deacon can also be asked to bless the house.
- Short prayers cover the front door, living room, kitchen, bedrooms, a child’s room, a sickroom, a work room, a room with hard memories and thanks for the home.
- Traditional texts are quoted from the Catholic blessing of water and the Sunday Asperges in the 1888 Manual of Prayers, and the Orthodox prayer for moving into a new house in Hapgood’s 1906 translation.
- In the ninth century Archbishop Hincmar of Reims let people carry Sunday holy water home to sprinkle their houses; Orthodox priests bless homes with water after Theophany.
- The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls holy water a sacramental that “recalls Baptism” and warns against treating such signs as working by “mere external performance.”
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (1611), text of Project Gutenberg eBook no. 10 (Numbers 5:17; 19:18; Psalm 4:8; 121:8; 127:1; Ezekiel 36:25; Luke 10:5; 19:9; Colossians 3:13, 23). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10
- A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Catholic Laity, prepared and published by order of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore. New York: Catholic Publication Society, 1888. The Order of Blessing Water, pp. 109–111; The Asperges, pp. 112–113. https://archive.org/details/AManualOfPrayers1888
- Hapgood, Isabel Florence, trans. Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic (Greco-Russian) Church. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1906. “When One Is About to Take Up His Abode in a New House,” p. 557. https://www.ponomar.net/data/hapgood.pdf
- Leclercq, Henri. “Holy Water.” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 7. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07432a.htm
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997. Paragraphs 1667–1670 and 2111. https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P58.HTM ; https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P7E.HTM
- Orthodox Church in America. “Epiphany.” The Orthodox Faith, vol. 2, Worship. https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/worship/the-church-year/epiphany
- Belonick, Steven. “Blessing Water, Homes, Fire Engines, and Beehives.” Orthodox Church in America, Wonder blog, 15 January 2011. https://www.oca.org/wonder/blessing-water
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