Is any other parish doing this?

[Aurelia]

Just this year, from the start of Lent, there’s been no holy water in the font at our church.(Something which used to be done only in Holy Week.) And today I saw that the holy water font has been removed altogether. Also, at Mass, they’ve recently started having the congregation stand up shortly after Communion and sing a hymn. They’re calling it the"Song of Praise." (Frankly, I’d prefer more quiet time with the Lord.) Anybody else doing this?

 

[mommy]

I’ll check this weekend. I know in our RCIA class, the Deacon mentioned that some parishes do this, as well I think on Good Friday they fill them with sand.

 

[fix]

Sand in the Holy Water Font?
Our parish has adopted again the desert theme to decorate the church during Lent. The controversy revolves around the holy water bowl. In some parishes it is taken out, in ours it was one year filled with sand and last year half filled with pebbles. They plan to do the same this year.

Many find this unacceptable, and so do I. Please help in providing arguments to present to the decorating team. Our parish priest does not intervene.

Anne Ridler
via e-mail

Response
There is no authorization whatever in the approved liturgical books for removing holy water or draining fonts during the entire length of Lent – and especially silly is replacing it with sand or pebbles.

The fonts containing holy water are not mere decorations to be changed when we get bored with them, but are sacramentals, potent symbols of the water of baptism. When we make the sign of the cross with holy water upon entering a church, this is a sign of our baptism.

The holy water fonts are not to be empty until Good Friday (after Mass Holy Thursday evening), and they are replenished at the Easter Vigil with the newly blessed baptismal water.

Trying to make church decorations symbolize a “desert experience” during Lent was a fad among some liturgists a few years ago. As with such fads, however, it is now out of style, even among trendy liturgists.

For more clarification on this, see the letter from the Congregation for Divine Worship on page 5 of this issue.

adoremus.org/0403ReadersForum.html#anchor434107

 

[Deacon_Tony560]

Just received instructions from bishop, that the pastor could decide what he wanted to do. We have had it both ways in the past: keeping the holy water and draining it. I have a feeling we will keep it as it was there at morning Mass today.

Deacon Tony

 

[mc1]

One more sign of disobedience and blatant disregard to Rome’s authority.

 

[Samaritan_Woman]

RE:

adoremus.org/0403ReadersForum.html#anchor434107

Thank you SO VERY much for this info!!
I’m printing it and setting under my pastor’s door for his reading pleasure. And another print for to post at the water font! (Yeah, I have ‘dumb courage’)

Fr. Corapi has mentioned this in the Catechism that (essentially) the Sacramentals serve a purpose and to deprive the people of a Sacramental is wrong. During Lent, especially, we need the strengthening!!
Thanks again for the info!

 

[SHJ-BVM]

Aurelia,

This is from the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments about this very question.

Prot. N. 569/00/L

March 14, 2000

Dear Father:

This Congregation for Divine Worship has received your letter sent by fax in which you ask whether it is in accord with liturgical law to remove the Holy Water from the fonts for the duration of the season of Lent.

This Dicastery is able to respond that the removing of Holy Water from the fonts during the season of Lent **is not permitted, **in particular, for two reasons:

1. The liturgical legislation in force does not foresee this innovation, which in addition to being praeter legem is contrary to a balanced understanding of the season of Lent, which though truly being a season of penance, is also a season rich in the symbolism of water and baptism, constantly evoked in liturgical texts.

**2. The encouragement of the Church that the faithful avail themselves frequently of the [sic] of her sacraments and sacramentals is to be understood to apply also to the season of Lent. **The “fast” and “abstinence” which the faithful embrace in this season does not extend to abstaining from the sacraments or sacramentals of the Church. The practice of the Church has been to empty the Holy Water fonts on the days of the Sacred Triduum in preparation of the blessing of the water at the Easter Vigil, and it corresponds to those days on which the Eucharist is not celebrated (i.e., Good Friday and Holy Saturday).

Hoping that this resolves the question and with every good wish and kind regard, I am,

Sincerely yours in Christ,
[signed]
Mons. Mario Marini
Undersecretary