Do any Catholics still bless their bedrooms with Holy water before retiring to bed

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OP: I never heard of this tradition and, therefore, don’t do it. It is, however, a really nice idea!
TrueLight said:
Ah!

What else?

Can I use it to bless someone who is sick? Do you use it before you pray?
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As for other uses, I have a prayer corner in the house with a small bottle of holy water. When setting up the prayer corner initially I blessed each item with a sign of the cross using the holy water. I also use it by blessing myself when beginning prayers and ending prayers at the prayer corner. Likewise, I have a small holy water font at the front door and try to bless myself when leaving the house. I also make a sign of the cross with the holy water on the house when I leave with the prayer, “Please, Lord, bless everyone and everything in this house. Amen.”
 
I do sometimes. I always remember to give my dorm room a good blessing with holy water and blessed salt before I start the semester.
 
Kielbasi said:
I’m sorry but I’ve never heard of that tradition, and my antecedents were pretty devout Catholics of Slovak ethnicity.

What they did have was a crucifix with a little door in the back that held a couple of small candles and a small bottle of holy water, which I guess were there in the event that there was a need for last rites, but were never used to my knowledge.
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Yes - we had these two. One over my parent’s bed on the first floor and one in my sister’s bedroom on the second floor. They are called “sick crosses” and indeed are intended for use with gravely ill people to receive last rites.

Peace
James
 
TrueLight said:
Ah!

What else?

Can I use it to bless someone who is sick? Do you use it before you pray?
Click to expand...
I don’t have any at the moment, but yes, you can use it for both of those purposes.

You can bless yourself after a nightmare. I would do it before I slept, not the whole bedroom but I would cross myself and then pray the Guardian Angel prayer.
 
I have a bottle of holy water in the bathroom…

on rising and after washing my face I say a little private prayer using the the holy water to touch to eyes,ears,nose and tongue…to keep me from sin with those senses throughout the day…and of course my hands.
 
TrueLight said:
Ah!

What else?

Can I use it to bless someone who is sick? Do you use it before you pray?
Click to expand...
Absolutely! on both questions. I use it daily all three times right before I pray the Angelus asking Mary to use the drops for different souls in pergatory.
For the sick, yes, I have even heard of occasions where a small amount has been given to the sick to drink.
 
TrueLight said:
Thanks.

That holy water font hanging on the wall is quite lovely. I had images of the type of font you see in Church and I was wondering if most Catholics actually had that in their houses. 😛
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I know, they can be really ornate and beautiful! Yeah, many catholics do. It’s a good and pious practice.
 
I do sometimes before I go to bed. I always keep a bottle of Holy Water by my bed.
 
We have a font by the front door and bless ourselves when we go out into the scary world! 😛

The idea of blessing the bedrooms before bed is a lovely idea. I do know one mom who blessed a child’s bed every night when he was suffering from a series of bad dreams. It worked!
 
I do, occasionally. When I feel uneasy before bed, I always remember to sprinkle the bed and room.
 
St. Joseph Studio makes some beautiful fonts for the home. They are in the $20.00-$25.00 range.

I have one by the front door, below a painting of the Sacred Heart & Immaculate Heart in my room, and a cheaper plastic one by a chair in the corner of my home office that I use for prayer.
 
My father does this at night and in the morning I may have to start mopping up!😉
 
TrueLight said:
Ah!

What else?

Can I use it to bless someone who is sick? Do you use it before you pray?
Click to expand...
Another thing, too, it removes venial sins from our soul, that’s why they have holy water fonts at Church. That’s why its a good idea to bless ourselves at night. I also have holy water in my car and I used to have it in my purse, but changing purses, I don’t know where it ended up.

Holy Blessed Salt can be used in cooking and salting your food, too and also sprinkled around the perimeter of your home. Satan hates Blessed Salt and Holy Water. It’s a great protection for us.
 
I don’t as a matter of course, but I do have a holy water font next to my entrance door (inside the house, of course.) I routinely bless myself when I leave for work in the morning.

My sainted grandmother, a very devout Seneca Indian, blessed her bedroom and the kitchen and dining room tables every single day. She followed the formula of blessing her bed after making it up in the morning. She, too, had fonts near each entrance door to the house, inside each bedroom next to the door, and in the kitchen for good measure. Her bedroom had a large (approximately two feet high) crucifix with a full color corpus, as well as a wall rosary and a large (I’d guess about sixteen inches tall) Infant of Prague statue. One of my biggest regrets is that the smaller Infant of Prague statue she gave me as a first communion gift was broken in my move to the west end of the state a few years ago.

I digress, though. St. Teresa of Avila said that holy water was one of her favorite weapons against fiends.

You don’t need an “official” holy water bottle to get some from your church: Any clean and decent vessel will do–I usually use a clean pint sized fruit jar to bring some home. Be nice, and just take several ounces at a time, in other words, don’t go showing up with a clean gallon milk jug–LOL! What I do with my font is this: I use a new makeup sponge, saturate it with holy water, and place it in the bowl of the font, and then add a little more. The font stays wet for a few days that way. Also, holy water isn’t sterile water, and if a large font is filled, it can get moldy. If that happens, take the bowl outside, pour it onto the ground (away from where you are likely to walk on it,) and then bring it back inside and just wash as you would any glassware.
 
odile53 said:
Also, holy water isn’t sterile water, and if a large font is filled, it can get moldy. If that happens, take the bowl outside, pour it onto the ground (away from where you are likely to walk on it,) and then bring it back inside and just wash as you would any glassware.
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I have seen some cloudy waters in the Church fonts, which is why I’m not always too keen on dipping my fingers in there.
 
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