Candles etc. for Home Use

[pensmama87]

A few years ago at Candlemas, everyone at Mass received blessed candles for at home use. We do have a family prayer table, though I use electric candles (though less aesthetically pleasing, also less dangerous with little boys’ curious hands ). What else would/could these candles be used for?

What other items are traditionally kept in the home and what are their intended uses? We keep holy water, and have small fonts by the doors as we go in an out, and then we bless the children (and ourselves) at bedtime and occasionally I even sprinkle some on our food (especially our Easter bread before baking). I have thought about blessed salt and blessed chalk for the home blessing at Epiphany. But some of the other traditions I’m not very familiar with. I have heard about things needed for if a priest comes for anointing of the sick, but I’m not sure what and if it is still expected that laypeople would have these things.

I’m just a convert who’s still learning. Any information would be most welcome!

 

[HelenRose]

The beautiful part of being a convert (which I am) is discovering all the wonderful traditions found throughout the Church.

It is like walking through a wonderful castle with many rooms and doors. When you think you have discovered it all you open another door and find out that you have just barely entered the foyer.

Welcome Home.

 

[pensmama87]

The beautiful part of being a convert (which I am) is discovering all the wonderful traditions found throughout the Church.

It is like walking through a wonderful castle with many rooms and doors. When you think you have discovered it all you open another door and find out that you have just barely entered the foyer.

Welcome Home.

Thank you!

I’ve been Catholic almost ten years and it’s been exactly as you describe.

 

[porthos11]

A few years ago at Candlemas, everyone at Mass received blessed candles for at home use. We do have a family prayer table, though I use electric candles (though less aesthetically pleasing, also less dangerous with little boys’ curious hands ). What else would/could these candles be used for?

What other items are traditionally kept in the home and what are their intended uses? We keep holy water, and have small fonts by the doors as we go in an out, and then we bless the children (and ourselves) at bedtime and occasionally I even sprinkle some on our food (especially our Easter bread before baking). I have thought about blessed salt and blessed chalk for the home blessing at Epiphany. But some of the other traditions I’m not very familiar with. I have heard about things needed for if a priest comes for anointing of the sick, but I’m not sure what and if it is still expected that laypeople would have these things.

I’m just a convert who’s still learning. Any information would be most welcome!

I light the candles and oil lamps every time I recite the Liturgy of the Hours at my prayer corner a home.

Further, I’m a purist. Beeswax candles only, olive oil only.

 

[PaulfromIowa]

A Catholic home should have crucifixes and religious art displayed.

 

[OraLabora]

I light the candles and oil lamps every time I recite the Liturgy of the Hours at my prayer corner a home.

Further, I’m a purist. Beeswax candles only, olive oil only.

I use two candles at Lauds and Vespers on both sides of my prie-Dieu, and a small candle near my small statue of the Blessed Virgin when I chant the Marian antiphon and the Angelus at Compline.

I don’t use candles at Vigils or the minor hours, consistent with the practice of the abbey I’m attached to, and the concept of progressive solemnity.

My oratory also has a crucifix and a reproduction of a painting of Saint Benedict. Otherwise, it is very plain in the monastic tradition.

 

[tawny]

We have a Crucifix in every room & a Holy Water Font on every door lentil. Also have Prayer Corner Shrine with candles that are lighted for all the prayers of my Divine Office.

 

[Rosebud77]

Over the years I have gathered in many Crosses and Crucifixes from charity shops… even the big gates have them

They have been in the houses of people who have passed on and have been precious to them…

 

[Zabdi_Premjit]

Will your priest bless electric lights at Candlemas?

At my parish, my priest points out that when the blessing of candles started, that was a mainstay of home lighting, but now we mostly use electric lights. So, he blesses any kind of lighting equipment - candles, wicks, light bulbs. He has actually encouraged us to get all our light bulbs blessed during the Feast, so all our lights at home will be blessed. Blessed objects need not be used in a strictly “prayer context;” one can incorporate them in daily life.

 

[Zabdi_Premjit]

A few years ago at Candlemas, everyone at Mass received blessed candles for at home use. We do have a family prayer table, though I use electric candles (though less aesthetically pleasing, also less dangerous with little boys’ curious hands ). What else would/could these candles be used for?

What other items are traditionally kept in the home and what are their intended uses? We keep holy water, and have small fonts by the doors as we go in an out, and then we bless the children (and ourselves) at bedtime and occasionally I even sprinkle some on our food (especially our Easter bread before baking). I have thought about blessed salt and blessed chalk for the home blessing at Epiphany. But some of the other traditions I’m not very familiar with. I have heard about things needed for if a priest comes for anointing of the sick, but I’m not sure what and if it is still expected that laypeople would have these things.

I’m just a convert who’s still learning. Any information would be most welcome!

I drink a little holy water daily. I know that is mostly a Byzantine thing, but I have heard of Latin Catholics doing it too. Some people put a few drops of holy water in their tea or in their cooking.

 

[pensmama87]

I drink a little holy water daily. I know that is mostly a Byzantine thing, but I have heard of Latin Catholics doing it too. Some people put a few drops of holy water in their tea or in their cooking.

I’ve blessed bread with holy water before baking. I never heard of drinking it (unless it was fresh, it gets a little green in the bottle if we don’t use it up quickly enough.)

I like your idea for the electric candles! Your priest has a point about that.

 

[Zabdi_Premjit]

I’ve blessed bread with holy water before baking. I never heard of drinking it (unless it was fresh, it gets a little green in the bottle if we don’t use it up quickly enough.)

Do you know if Latin rite and Byzantine rite make Holy Water differently? Because I have heard many Latin Rite Catholics express reluctance about drinking Holy Water, because of it going bad if old…yet I get Holy Water at Theophany (Epiphany) every year, to use throughout the year, and it always looks and tastes the same as the day I got it.

 

[pensmama87]

A whole year?

Ours will start growing stuff in a matter of weeks if it’s not used up (I typically replenish our bottles once a month or so.) Now, I can’t speak to how long it’s been in the font before I fill the bottles, but there’s lots of families who use it, so I imagine it gets filled fairly frequently…

It might have to do with how we store it, too. And yes, even though it’s an OF parish the holy water still has salt in it.

 

[Zabdi_Premjit]

I imagine the traditional Holy Water with salt lasted longer?

I don’t think our Holy Water has anything but water in it, but I am not sure. It tastes like water alone.

 

[Zabdi_Premjit]

A whole year?

Ours will start growing stuff in a matter of weeks if it’s not used up (I typically replenish our bottles once a month or so.) Now, I can’t speak to how long it’s been in the font before I fill the bottles, but there’s lots of families who use it, so I imagine it gets filled fairly frequently…

It might have to do with how we store it, too. And yes, even though it’s an OF parish the holy water still has salt in it.

I store my Holy Water for immediate use in those little plastic Holy Water bottles. I also have extra Holy Water in a recycled wine bottle. When the little plastic Holy Water bottle is running out, I refill it with the Holy Water in the wine bottle.

 

[oldgraymare2]

That’s a good idea–about having the bottled water blessed like that. I would have never thought of that.

Yes, regarding being able to put the salt in food and using it that way.

 

[pensmama87]

I will have to look into blessed salt. Should I store it in any particular kind of container?

I’ve also heard of using blessed chalk for the traditional Epiphany blessing for the home. Can I just buy regular old white chalk for that and ask the priest to bless it?

 

[Peebo]

I use a couple empty bottles from a cranberry six pack…have used them for years…used a black marker to put a cross on each bottle…filled them with Holy water…I keep them in the refrigerator…sometime I will empty one and refill it at church and use the same bottle again…may not use the other for months at a time…still as fresh and clear as when I filled it.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

I will have to look into blessed salt. Should I store it in any particular kind of container?

I’ve also heard of using blessed chalk for the traditional Epiphany blessing for the home. Can I just buy regular old white chalk for that and ask the priest to bless it?

I have blessed boxes of salt. If the person has not noted on the lid or on the box “BLESSED”, I will generally put a cross and my initials and the date on the lid or somewhere on the box, expecting that the person will not transfer an entire box of salt into something else.

Yes, you could bring standard chalk to be blessed. It does not have to be white…indeed if your lintel is white, white chalk on white would be invisible.

As an aside to other comments, I always told my parishioners, if they were actually consuming the Holy Water, to bring containers of water from home for me to bless…whether water already bottled commercially or water they had bottled under their control. When it came to water they would consume, they were not to take it out of the urn and under no circumstance from the Holy Water stoups. The water from the urn and from the stoups should be for external use only.