Rev. Henry Theiler - Holy Water and Its Significance for Catholics

Rev. Henry Theiler, S.O.Cist.

HOLY WATER

and ITS SIGNIFICANCE for CATHOLICS

SOPHIA INSTITUTE PRESS

Manchester, New Hampshire

Copyright 2016 by John L. Barger

Holy Water and Its Significance for Catholics was originally published by Fr. Pustet and Company, New York, in 1909. This 2016 edition by Sophia Institute Press includes minor editorial revisions.

Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

Cover and interior design by Perceptions Design Studio.

Cover art by John Folley.

Scripture passages are taken from the Douay-Rheims edition of the Old and New Testaments. Where applicable, Scripture passages have been cross-referenced with the differing names and enumeration in the Revised Standard Version, using the following symbol: RSV =.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Nihil obstat : Remigius LaFort, S.T.L., Censor
Imprimatur : John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
New York, April 5, 1909

Sophia Institute Press
Box 5284, Manchester, NH 03108
1-800-888-9344

www.SophiaInstitute.com

Sophia Institute Press is a registered trademark of Sophia Institute.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Theiler, Heinrich, 1875- author.

Title: Holy water and its significance for Catholics / Rev. Henry Theiler,

S.O.Cist.

Other titles: Weihwasser und seine Bedeutung fr den katholischen Christen.

English

Description: Manchester, New Hampshire : Sophia Institute Press, 2016. |

Originally published: New York : Fr. Pustet and Company, 1909.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016011985 | ISBN 9781622823390 (pbk. : alk. paper) ePub ISBN 978-1-622823-406

Subjects: LCSH: Holy water.

Classification: LCC BX2307 .T5 2016 | DDC 247 dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016011985

C ONTENTS

A.

B.

C.

The first thing, O man, that you have to venerate, is the age of the waters in that their substance is ancient; the second, their dignity, in that they were the seat of the Divine Spirit, more pleasing to Him, no doubt, than all the other then existing elements. For the darkness was total thus far, shapeless, without the ornament of stars; and the abyss gloomy; and the earth unfurnished; and the heaven unwrought: water alone always a perfect, gladsome, simple material substance, pure in itself supplied a worthy vehicle to God. TERTULLIAN
(B. 160)

With water all things are washed and nourished, and cleansed and bedewed. Water bears the earth, water produces the dew, water exhilarates the vine; water matures the corn in the ear, water ripens the grape cluster, water softens the olive, water sweetens the palm-date, water reddens the rose and decks the violet, water makes the lily bloom with its brilliant cups. And why should I speak at length? Without the element of water, none of the present order of things can subsist. So necessary is the element of water; for the other elements took their places beneath the highest vault of the heavens, but the nature of water obtained a seat also above the heavens. And to this the prophet himself is a witness, when he exclaims, Praise the Lord, ye heavens of heavens, and the water that is above the heavens.

ST. HIPPOLYTUS
(D. 236)

Chapter 1

W ATERS S IGNIFICANCE IN N ATURE AND G RACE

O n the first page of Holy Writ we read that the Spirit of God moved over the waters (Gen. 1:2). Why did the spirit of God move over the waters? The writings of the Holy Doctors make reply: to bless them, that they might become adaptable to their task in the work of Creation. The holy apostle Peter thus briefly attests these tasks of the waters:

For this they [deceitful scoffers] are willfully ignorant of, that the heavens were before, and the earth out of water, and through water, consisting by the word of God (2 Pet. 3:5).

And, too, after Creation, water has an important function to perform in the realm of nature, and be it said, likewise in the realm of grace. Reflect for a moment how in nature every living creature requires water and how our springs and streams, carrying their blessings, spread over the land. They are to the soil what the circulation of the blood is to the human body. As the blood circulates from the heart throughout the body and returns, so rise the waters from the lakes, fructify the thirsty soil by refreshing rains, and return to the lakes and oceans.

And as water plays its important part in natures kingdom, so too it does in the province of grace as the blessed and holy water.

The old Romans made use of a water that they held sacred. We are told by Ovid, Virgil, and Cicero of a sacred water with which the people, the homes, and the fields were sprinkled, that by this sprinkling plagues might be warded off and the stains of sin wiped away. The Christian writer Tertullian, who lived in the second century, tells us that the heathens made use of a holy water and ascribed to it the power not only of washing away bodily uncleanliness but also of wiping out sin.

Among the Jews, blessed water had a particular signification. They had special laws for the use of the so-called water of aspersion. For instance, he that toucheth the corpse of a man, and is therefore unclean seven days, shall be sprinkled with this water on the third day, and on the seventh, and so shall be cleansed (Num. 19:1112).

And not only were such persons to be sprinkled with this water, but also their dwellings and their furniture. And a man that is clean shall dip hyssop in it, and shall sprinkle therewith all the tent, and all the furniture, and the men that are defiled (Num. 19:18). So important was this sprinkling that anyone who was defiled and not sprinkled with this mixture, shall profane the tabernacle of the Lord, and shall perish out of Israel, because he was not sprinkled with the water of expiation (Num. 19:13).

It is evident that this expiation was not a cleansing from sin, for it can certainly not be held a sin to confer upon the dead a corporal work of mercy. Holy Writ praises the good Tobias because he buried the dead (Tob. 12:12). But because death is a consequence of sin, and in a measure bears with it the stain of sin, and because God would make plain to the Israelites the malice of sin, He ordained that all who came in contact with a corpse, and thus likewise with death, thus in a certain measure too became contaminated with the stain of sin, should be held corporally unclean. And from this uncleanliness should the Jews become cleansed by holy water.

The sacred water of heathen use, of which mention has been made, is the foreshadowing of the waters of expiation used by the Jews and likewise a foreshadowing of the sacred waters that we Catholics know as holy water.

The use of holy water comes to us, in the Catholic Church, with all that is in its favor, even from the Old Testament. It signifies now, as then, cleansing, as did the ablutions commanded in the old law, by Almighty God, down to the baptism by John in Jordans waters. Who would gainsay that our Lord used water for this same purpose when washing the disciples feet on the eve of His sufferings? And again, He made water a condition necessary for salvation: Unless a man be born again of water he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven (John 3:5).

Next page