Holy Water from Seven Places?

[Pug]

Does anyone know why some people collect holy water from different churches (I think 7) so that they can help someone who is sick? Anyone have a clue about this? I suspect it may be a tradition from Mexico, but that is a guess.

 

[Dr.Colossus]

The number 7 is traditionally associated with fullness or completion. It is likely that the tradition started as an attempt to have the “full” effect of the blessing. However, the blessing of holy water is not magic, and its effects are not compounded mathematically. It sounds more superstitious than pious.

 

[Pug]

Thanks Dr.C

I didn’t stop to think about the significance of the seven. I just wondered because some guy showed up at our parish a few weeks ago with a jug and he mentioned it.

I figured I’d ask, because you never know about sacramentals. The rosary has the private revelations about it and some promises, so I wondered if there was some sort of thing like that with the holy water.

 

[Pug]

Anyone else have a point of view?

 

[maryprayforme]

Is it being used to blessed 7 brides for 7 brothers?

 

[Irish_Melkite]

Pug,

It has some significance in some of the voodoo cults. See:

Papa Jim’s Botanica Holy Water & Herb Baths

It’s also possible that someone is interpreting a line from Isiah, which underlies some of the voodoo usage:

And God will…stretch out his hand over the River, and divide it into seven streams, for men to cross dry-shod, to make a pathway for the remnant of his people… (Is.11:15).

Many years,

Neil