Tag Archives: Sacramentals

Symbolic Superstition

Over on X, there is a video circulating of a woman who, while struggling during a particularly hard season of life, decided to pour grape juice around her yard in order to protect her and her family with the Blood of Christ. While claiming that it is just a symbol, nevertheless she is willing to roll the dice that it might work saying, “at worst, I wasted $6 on grape juice, and at best my house is protected by the blood of Jesus and we finally hop off this wild, chaotic, awful rollercoaster that we’ve been stuck on.” 

Not surprisingly she was met with accusations of superstition which seems to be fair given she has no faith that it will actually work.  She seems particularly prone to this given that she claims to have recently thrown out her crystals.  She, like many others in our day and age, fell victim to the what is best described as “Self-help Witchcraft”.  In both cases it is not so much the superstition that is noteworthy but the fact there is an expectation that symbols when combined with faith ought to have some power to effect a situation.  In other words, what is worth examining is that there seems to be an innate desire among Christians for Sacramentals.

Sacramentals and Scripture

This desire is more than just an intuition, it has a biblical basis.  St. Paul, in writing to the Romans speaks of creation waiting “with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:19-22).  Every element in Creation was meant to serve man in worshipping and revealing God.  With the Fall, that purpose “was subjected to futility,” but with the dawn of the New Creation in Christ, it is eager to have the power to do this restored.  This capacity it made more explicit when St. Paul tells St. Timothy “Everything created by God is good…for it is made holy by the invocation of God in prayer” (1Tim 4:4-5). 

The battle over creation is ongoing and Christians have the power to take it back.  In fact it becomes a key element of spiritual warfare to take individual things in creation and make or constitute them as holy so that they can be put to service of God and are no longer under the dominion of the devil.  Jesus, when he made mud and put it in the eyes of the blind man was taking the cursed dust of the earth and restoring it to a holy use (John 6:6-7).  Likewise, to make holy water is to render the water no longer under the control of the devil who is prince of this world.  This is why the best way to fight the use of crystals and amulets is by using Sacramentals.

Many Catholics would not immediately pick up on the fact that the woman is looking for a Sacramental.  This is because, for the most part, they have fallen into disuse in the last fifty years.  Sacramentals, in order to be effective, require that those who use them be educated in their use.  This is because, unlike Sacraments, they depend on the faith and moral condition of the recipient in order to be effective (referred to theologically as ex opere operantis—”from the work of the doer”).  They are causes of actual grace that disposes person to receive Sanctifying grace.  The effectiveness of sacramentals depends upon three things—(1) disposition of minister (2) disposition of recipient (3) intercessory power of the Church.

The Prayer of the Church

This third element, in a certain sense, is the most integral part.  The Sacraments are instituted by Christ and of a fixed number.  Sacramentals are instituted by the Church and there is no fixed number of them.  It belongs to the Church’s binding and loosing power and it gives to the Church the power to affect a blessing.  It is also an essential element of the Church’s holiness—“The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects” (James 5:16).  The power comes from the prayer of the Church which is efficacious.  For example, when a candle is blessed and the priest asks that the light from it drive away the powers of darkness, it really does drive demons away when it is lit.

Since it depends upon the prayer of the Church, it is the actual formula of blessing that matters.  One of the changes that was made shortly after the Second Vatican Council was to the Book of Blessings.  Many of the specific blessings of objects were dropped in favor of a generic blessing and an emphasis on blessing persons rather than things.  What has emerged from that is a set of Sacramentals that is less powerful and consequently used less frequently.

As a comparison, look at the older blessing of the St. Benedict medal versus the one recommended in the Book of Blessings:

In the name of God the Father + almighty, who made heaven and earth, the seas and all that is in them, I exorcise these medals against the power and attacks of the evil one. May all who use these medals devoutly be blessed with health of soul and body. In the name of the Father + almighty, of the Son + Jesus Christ our Lord, and of the Holy + Spirit the Paraclete, and in the love of the same Lord Jesus Christ who will come on the last day to judge the living and the dead, and the world by fire. Amen.

Let us pray.  Almighty God, the boundless source of all good things, we humbly ask that, through the intercession of Saint Benedict, you pour out your blessings + upon these medals. May those who use them devoutly and earnestly strive to perform good works be blessed by you with health of soul and body, the grace of a holy life, and remission of the temporal punishment due to sin. May they also with the help of your merciful love, resist the temptation of the evil one and strive to exercise true charity and justice toward all, so that one day they may appear sinless and holy in your sight. This we ask through Christ our Lord. Amen.  

And the Book of Blessings:

May this (name of article) and the one who uses it be blessed, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, + and of the Holy Spirit. 

The medal under the Old Blessing has the power to protect the person who devoutly and intentionally uses it from attacks of the evil one.  Under the New Blessing, its power is essentially unknown (other than to “bless” the person) making it practically impossible to use it devoutly and intentionally.  Thankfully, the Old Blessing is still an option, but you usually have to ask for it.

Returning to the video above, it seems that the woman intuitively grasps that Sacramentals are a thing and that they are effective in protecting us.  Perhaps what she was really looking for was the Four Corners’ Blessing with St. Benedict’s medal.

Make Lent Hard Again

In an age afflicted by ecclesial bar lowering, there is always a great danger that the inherent rhythm in the liturgical year will lose its meaning.  This is perhaps most true when it comes to the season of Lent.  Lent “officially” begins on Sunday, but Pope St. Gregory the Great added the four days between Ash Wednesday and the First Sunday in order to add four extra days so that the Faithful would fast for a total of forty days between Ash Wednesday and Holy Thursday (Sundays and the two Solemnities of St. Joseph and the Annunciation being days to relax the fasting).  In other words, unlike in our own times where we are required to fast two days during Lent, the great Pope wanted to raise the bar and make it harder!  It is in this spirit that we should all resolve to make this our hardest Lent ever.

A Harder Lent?

Now admittedly, Gregory the Great was not simply trying to make it harder, even if that was one of the side effects.  Instead, he was adjusting it so that Lent would retain its meaning.  He wanted us, day by day, to join Our Lord in the desert during His great fast.  Our Lord, true God and true Man, merited specific graces for each one of us individually each day that He fasted and fought in the desert.  Lent is meant to be the time when we receive those graces, but our Lord asks us to meet Him in order for Him to give them to us. 

It was no accident that Our Lord chose 40 days.  Whether it is the forty days and nights of rain during the Flood, the Forty Years spent wandering in the desert, or the 40 days by which Ezekiel had to lay on his side, forty is the number of punishment and affliction.  It is also the number of reparation with both Moses and Elijah joining Our Lord in reparatory fasting for 40 days.  It turns out, although not surprisingly, that forty is also the magic number for developing a new habit.  It is as if forty days of affliction and reparation is written into our fallen nature. 

Because Christ first instituted Lent in the desert, it has all the qualities of a Christian mystery.  And like all Christian mysteries it was instituted in order to bestow grace upon us.  It is like a sacrament, or better yet, a sacramental.  A sacred sign that is given to us that disposes us to receive grace.  Living out a true Lenten spirit disposes us to receive those graces Our Lord wants to give us.  Prayer, fasting and almsgiving take on a sacramental meaning, but especially fasting.  The emphasis of Lent is on fasting for good reason—Our Lord sanctified and weaponized it in the desert.  Lent is meant to be 40 days of hard fasting in reparation for our sins and growth in virtue. 

Lent Began Well, Ends Well

Another key component of Lent is the reception of ashes on Ash Wednesday.  This is not, as many think, because it is only a symbol of our sinfulness and need for Penance, but because it is a Sacramental that, when received in faith, disposes us to the necessary graces to live a hard Lent.  This disposal happens through the prayer of the Blessing of the Ashes.  One of the prayers of blessing in the Novus Ordo Mass says:

O God, who desire not the death of sinners, but their conversion, mercifully hear our prayers and in your kindness be pleased to bless + these ashes which we intend to receive upon our heads, that we, who acknowledge we are but ashes and shall return to dust, may, through a steadfast observance of Lent, gain pardon for sins and newness of life after the likeness of your Risen Son. Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.

As I have spoken of previously, the power of Sacramentals come through their actual blessing and so we must, in order to properly take advantage of them, pay attention to what they have been empowered to do.  The ashes in particular then are true Sacramentals that, through the power of the Church, dispose us to receive all the graces necessary to have a “steadfast observance of Lent” and “gain the pardon of sins.”  By receiving the ashes, we are each individually guaranteed to receive the prayers of the Mystical Body that we can live a hard Lent.

As an aside, Ashes are a prime example of why the blessings from the Tridentine Rite are far superior to those of the Novus OrdoAs a side-by-side comparison, take a look at the prayers.  The former clearly gives a more abundant blessing upon the ashes, rendering them far more powerful to aid us during Lent.   This is not a shot across the post-Vatican II bow, but a comment that, objectively speaking, the Church was far more generous in bestowing blessings upon the Faithful in the pre-Vatican II era.

Either way, armed by Our Lord in the desert and further disposed by the Ashes, we have everything we need to live a hard Lent.  What if each one of us, rather than measuring out “what we will give up”, went “old school” and fasted for these 40 days.  I have found that Dr. Jay Richard’s method detailed in his book is particularly effective for growing in the virtue of fasting and implementing as a daily practice in Lent.  Recalling that one of the reasons why the Church had so many fast days previously was so that we could develop the virtue of fasting, we may have to start at a level that is proportional to our current level of virtue.  But by the end of Lent we should all have developed the virtue and that only comes about through making it hard.

The “Great Bar Lowering” then must be met by a voluntary raising of our own bars.  Genuine contrition of soul can never be achieved without mortification of the body.  We are both body and soul and any attempt to separate the two in practice leads to great harm to our persons.  A hard Lent, fasting especially, will create in us a disposition of sorrow for our sins and a generosity of spirit in making reparation to Our Lord.  It is as if the diminishing of our physical energy brings about a supernatural energy.  Make Lent Hard Again!