Holy Water is Not Your Ordinary Water!

Emily Jaminet offers encouragement to frequently use a sacramental to bless ourselves and gain spiritual protection.

Don’t forget: one sacramental that is a particularly powerful way to fight evil and is easily accessible is holy water. We can bring blessed water into our home to bless us and use it as spiritual protection. St. Josemaría Escrivá once said,

“You ask me why I always recommend, with such insistence, the daily use of holy water. I could give you many reasons. But there could be none better than that of Saint of Avila: ‘For nothing do evil spirits flee more precipitately, never to return, than from holy water.’”

Holy water is one of the most underutilized sacramentals, and it can easily be obtained for free. Almost any Catholic is familiar with the use of holy water to bless oneself when entering or exiting a church but many may not know that it used to be a much more common practice to have a holy water font in homes. Given the power of it, why not use it more widely, and what place is more important to protect than one’s home?

girl dipping her fingers into holy water font next to a door

Nearly every church has a designated font reserved for parishioners to fill up their bottles to take home. I even keep one in my car to bless us as we begin a road trip or for use in the event of a life-threatening emergency. We are called to seek spiritual protection and know that all of the sacramentals are there to help strengthen us and protect us from evil.