The old rite for blessing Holy Water speaks about the sacerdos, which means bishop or priest. It does not mean deacon. This is probably because the blessings include the exorcism of salt and of water, before they are blessed. When you tangle with the Enemy, you want the ontological character of sacramental priesthood. If a rare deacon would baptize in the older rite, he would use water that had been blessed already.I have not paid close attention to the priest's words when they have blessed rosaries and other religious articles for me, but I would now want to raise similar questions about such blessings. I know that our acquaintances over at Call to Action would consider this all so much "hocus pocus" and "mumbo jumbo" (one even suggested that laity should bless their own water and religious articles), but I still adhere to the old school view that a priestly blessing can and should confer something actual. The demons surely recognize this during exorcisms when they recoil from Holy Water and the invocation of the Holy Name of Jesus. Your thoughts?
I surmise that deacons cannot bless Holy Water with the older form, even though the newer books may let them do so (De benedictionibus 1087). The reason why deacons can “bless” the water in the new book is because, so far as I can tell from a close reading of the Latin text, at no point does the celebrant actually bless the water. He talks about the blessings God could give people who use it, but the rite does not actually specify that the water be blessed. If someone can show me that I am wrong, can point to the word or gesture I am missing, I will happily be corrected.
... The new, dreadful, De benedictionibus – let it be swept away and forgotten – changes the theology of blessings in a way hitherto unimagined. In a nutshell, the new, post-Conciliar book eliminates – horribile scriptu – the distinction between invocative and constitutive blessings. The “blessings” in the new book don’t really bless things in the same way that the older ritual intended to bless things. They talk in a vague way about God’s favor on those who might walk nearby or use the thing.
Friday, April 08, 2011
Is Holy Water really Holy under the new rite of blessings?
Fr. John Zuhlsdorf raises this question indirectly when he points out that the new book of blessings eliminates the distiction between invocative and constitutive blessings:
For several years, even before we joined an EF parish, I've asked priests I know to bless things for using the excerpts from the old Ritual that are in the back of the 1962 Breviary if they don't have their own copy of the Ritual.
ReplyDeleteIt's worked very well for us.
I have friends who have driven the two hours from Los Angeles down to San Diego just in order to go to a traditional Latin Mass on the feast of the Epiphany and get water blessed in the old rite. I don't think they knew all the stuff you just posted, but any layman can tell that the older blessings seem more serious...
ReplyDeleteThere is an argument out there somewhere that the new rite of ordination suffers from the same kind of problems, which raises some pretty serious questions, not only about whether we have real holy water, but whether we have real priests. But I would rather stick my head in the sand than think about it.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone else wonder why it was considered desirable to replace genuine blessed water with faux holy water?
ReplyDeleteWho benefitted from this decision, and in what way? What were the perpetrators of these "reforms" trying to accomplish? What explanation was offered?
The "old" sacrament of extreme unction has been compromised in a similar way, part of the bounteous legacy of Paul VI.
Why?
"Conservative" Catholics who are more concerned with submitting to whatever and getting on with their lives should take the time to wonder.
Do we have real priests?
ReplyDeleteGod help us!
Has there ever been a seminarian who has failed on an exam? It certainly sounds like there is some serious failing going on. If the seminary is passing students because we need priests, that's a problem we don't need.
Anonymous 'b', quoting Anonymous 'a,' writes: "Do we have real priests?" and adds: "God help us!" and then conjectures whether Seminarians are passing muster academically.
ReplyDeleteMy impression is that Anonymous 'a' was concerned that the new rite of ordination could have defects of the kind noted by Fr. Z in the new rite of blessings, which is a different question from Anonymous 'b's' question about academic performance.
Sheldon,
ReplyDeleteDoes a formalized prayer used in the rite of ordination or any other rite come from thin air or from learned men most likely trained at the seminary who become theologians and then formalize prayer?