Holy water in your home

[hudson]

My Church has a dispenser for Holy Water. What is appropriate to use to take this water from Church to your home? What should the water be kept in at your home? Is there a length of time to keep it, or keep it till it dries up? Please give me any info on this practice.

 

[luckysealy]

i have a Holy water font near the front door.

 

[ConstantineTG]

I have almost 2 year old water at home in a glass jar. It was blessed by the priest who blessed my home. I’ve hardly opened the jar since, and the water has hardly evaporated a bit. Must be a very good seal on the jar.

 

[karow]

My Church has a dispenser for Holy Water. What is appropriate to use to take this water from Church to your home? What should the water be kept in at your home? Is there a length of time to keep it, or keep it till it dries up? Please give me any info on this practice.

Google “Holy Water bottles” and you can take your pick of containers completely appropriate to transport Holy Water from your church to your home. Once at your house you can keep it in the bottle, or you can put it in a font, which you can also get online.

Our family has Holy Water fonts by our front door, so we can bless ourselves going to and coming in from our days, in each of our bedrooms, at our home altar, and in the living room. When the fonts get a little funky, or if we’ve all just gotten over a cold or the flu, we pour any remaining Holy Water into the ground, give the fonts a thorough cleaning with soap and warm water, and refill with Holy Water. Otherwise, we replenish the fonts when we do our weekly cleaning.

 

[TeenageConvert]

My church has the bottles next to the dispenser, but yes you can fill up a bottle and take it home. I had one but I rescently just used it up, because I would make the sign of the cross with it before I went to bed and when I woke up and I would sprinkle it on my bed occasionally.

As far as I know there’s no “limit”

 

[blanc10]

I have a small bottle with holy water in it. I don’t use it as much as I should. I got the bottle from my church when they sold the bottles for about a buck a piece… not all that expensive.

 

[marlap2]

I have a holy water font near the front door, and go to the nearest monastery and get the holy water from there, although you can also get it from your local parish. I put a sprig of lavender into the water and the water smelled like heaven. A few days later I removed the lavender and put it in my garden.

 

[Brendan]

My Church has a dispenser for Holy Water. What is appropriate to use to take this water from Church to your home? What should the water be kept in at your home? Is there a length of time to keep it, or keep it till it dries up? Please give me any info on this practice.

We have a small plastic bottle (purchased at a Catholic supply store) that has “Holy Water” written over it.

We use it to refill the holy water font by our front door.

In addition, we also have small bottles of Holy Water. These vials are the holy water that was used to Baptize our children. My wife and I would fill these vials after the Baptism. We are holding on to it so that we can add a drop of that water into the water that is used to Baptized THEIR children.

 

[ajpirc]

We have a small plastic bottle (purchased at a Catholic supply store) that has “Holy Water” written over it.

We use it to refill the holy water font by our front door.

In addition, we also have small bottles of Holy Water. These vials are the holy water that was used to Baptize our children. My wife and I would fill these vials after the Baptism. We are holding on to it so that we can add a drop of that water into the water that is used to Baptized THEIR children.

That’s beautiful! I love how we Catholics treat the Sacraments, in this case Baptism, like they are very dear to us and our families.

 

[graceandglory]

I have almost 2 year old water at home in a glass jar. It was blessed by the priest who blessed my home. I’ve hardly opened the jar since, and the water has hardly evaporated a bit. Must be a very good seal on the jar.

Holy Water is to be used!!! Unseal that jar and start using it! Bless yourself, sprinkle it around the house, drink some when you are sick. Don’t keep it locked up. Holy water is a sacramental meant to be used! A sacramental is only useful when it’s used.

Consider yourself scolded.

 

[ajpirc]

…drink some when you are sick.

I thought drinking holy water was a sin?

 

[eli1118]

I have fonts too but mine evaporates really fast! why? Is there a way to prevent that?
Thanks,
Eli

 

[karow]

I have fonts too but mine evaporates really fast! why? Is there a way to prevent that?
Thanks,
Eli

Are you fonts located in direct sunlight? Those things will make water evaporate in no time. I know the font by our front door runs dry before the others in our house because it’s exposed to more sunlight.

 

[roofers]

I have almost 2 year old water at home in a glass jar.

 

[Aleksa]

There’s a holy water dispenser (I’m sure it has a proper name, but I don’t know it) in the narthex of my parish. I haven’t seen anyone else using it though so I haven’t got up the nerve to try. I haven’t got anything pretty enough to keep it in anyway. There are some pretty fonts at the local shop here though. Someday I’ll get one!

 

[ConstantineTG]

Holy Water is to be used!!! Unseal that jar and start using it! Bless yourself, sprinkle it around the house, drink some when you are sick. Don’t keep it locked up. Holy water is a sacramental meant to be used! A sacramental is only useful when it’s used.

Consider yourself scolded.

I’m not going to drink it, the priest had his hand in that bowl all the time he was blessing the house

I did use it to bless the Christmas Tree once.

 

[ConstantineTG]

I thought drinking holy water was a sin?

Why?

Eastern Christians drink Holy Water all the time. Can’t be a sin in the West if its not a sin in the East.

 

[graceandglory]

I thought drinking holy water was a sin?

Nope, you’re good! Fr. Serpa says so!

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=202716

Holy water is a sacramental. Different strokes for different folks. We have so many sacramentals to choose from, that not everyone is going to pick the same ones.

Blessed salt and blessed olive oil are other sacramentals that can be used.
I have a big … wait a second, it’s gone! … I had a big water bottle filled with holy water from Mission Carmel in California where Fr. Junipero Serra is buried. I will have to talk to my sons, my holy water has disappeared!

 

[marlap2]

I was at a Benedictine monastery recently when I went to the amazing Holy water Font, (which is a an interior big pond-like affair with rocks, so beautiful) and was filling a water bottle, when a young Benedictine Father came up to me and said, “You aren’t planning on drinking that are you? Because I have put anti-fungal chemicals in it)” (I told him about my household water font)

Good to know for all you potential Holy Water Drinkers!