Sacramentals

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EmRoAmRo

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I want to be sure that I am not being superstitious about medals. I wear a blessed medal regularly. I also am enrolled in the brown scapular. A blessed item does not become magical, but how does it work? What is the pious way to use them to enrich your spiritual life. If the items themselves offer no protection by being blessed why do people bother putting medals on small children who cannot understand then or have a devotion? Also, if I am enrolled in the brown scapular but do not ALWAYS wear it, then is it not a grace I can receive? It seems such a technicality to me whether you have it on or not. Please weigh in 😃
 
I have never heard of putting a medal or scapular on a small child. To me, that doesn’t seem like an appropriate use of a sacramental, just for the reason that you gave. It would not correspond to an intention of the person wearing it.

As far as always wearing the scapular, you certainly would not wear it while swimming, or in the shower. Nor do I think it is a good idea to wear it to bed. So, the point is to wear it as often as is reasonable. There is no requirement that you be wearing it constantly, I think that would verge on superstition.

I will leave the other questions to others who are more knowledgeable.
 
EmRoAmRo said:
I want to be sure that I am not being superstitious about medals. I wear a blessed medal regularly. I also am enrolled in the brown scapular. A blessed item does not become magical, but how does it work? What is the pious way to use them to enrich your spiritual life. If the items themselves offer no protection by being blessed why do people bother putting medals on small children who cannot understand then or have a devotion? Also, if I am enrolled in the brown scapular but do not ALWAYS wear it, then is it not a grace I can receive? It seems such a technicality to me whether you have it on or not. Please weigh in 😃
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The blessed item does not do anything. However, the prayer used in blessing it is the key. The prayer is heard by God, and wearing the blessed scapular or medal is itself a physical act of prayer.

You are placing your faith in God, rather than in the item itself. You pray that your prayers be answered according to God’s will. Superstition would be attempting to use the medal to fulfill your own will without deference to God, as though the medal had some intrinsic power itself. It doesn’t - all blessings and miracles come directly from God!
 
EmRoAmRo said:
Also, if I am enrolled in the brown scapular but do not ALWAYS wear it, then is it not a grace I can receive? It seems such a technicality to me whether you have it on or not. Please weigh in 😃
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As others and yourself suggested, it is not an object of magic, working of its own accord without your cooperation with God’s grace. However, there is a sense in which the prayer used to bless it remains attached and extends unto the wearer, as was the petition of the priest who blessed it. It also serves as a reminder to yourself, a sign reflecting a reality, that you have embraced the love of Christ and seek to follow him in accord with the Father’s will. Don’t worry about “technicalities.” God doesn’t play “gotcha” with such things. He won’t say, “Aha! You didn’t wear it 24/7!! The blessing is revoked!!” He loves that you wear it, and in a certain sense, because you follow Christ, even when you remove it, your disposition is to wear it, thus in a spiritual sense, you never do really take it off–meaning you never turn away from Christ.
 
As others have said, prayers said concerning the blessed object and the action of God are the important part of sacramentals, rather than any kind of magical virtue inherent in the material object. Also some sacramentals have indulgences attached to them, giving them further value.

The exact way it works depends on the wording of the prayer, which differs between blessings. Old-fashioned blessings tend to involve both an exorcism and a blessing of the actual object (water, salt, a medal, etc.). The object itself thus constituted as something sacred, something ransomed from this fallen world and made a terror to the devils who previously had dominion over it. By using such a sacramental a person is aided indirectly by that blessing it received.

Around the 1980s there was a sort of Copernican revolution (or reverse-Copernican revolution, one might say) in which the center moved from the object itself to the person using it. Thus in newer blessings the exorcism of the object is left out, and for the most part there is no prayer actually constituting the object as a blessed one. Instead prayers are said for the people who will use it or who are present at the blessing. The object can certainly still be spoken of as blessed, since the Church uses that language, but it is a qualitatively different kind of blessing. Instead of applying directly to the object and therefore indirectly to people, the new style of blessing applies directly to people and therefore indirectly to the object.
 
I guess I am still confused. Can someone simply describe what a blessing does to an item?:confused:
 
EmRoAmRo said:
I guess I am still confused. Can someone simply describe what a blessing does to an item?:confused:
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Here is how I’ve always thought of it. A medal is nothing but a physical object existing only in the physical world, but when it is blessed it is given existence in the invisible spiritual world as well. For instance, if a demon is in the presence of an unblessed st Benedict medal, of course it wouldn’t effect it because it exists only in the physical world, but once its blessed, that medal takes on meaning in the spiritual world, as a sign of Gods power and love directed in whatever type of medal it is, which gives the devil something to worry about. I hope this somewhat makes sense to you, this is just how I think of it.
 
scborromeo.org/ccc/p2s2c4a1.htm

SACRAMENTALS

1667 "Holy Mother Church has, moreover, instituted sacramentals. These are sacred signs which bear a resemblance to the sacraments. They signify effects, particularly of a spiritual nature, which are obtained through the intercession of the Church. By them men are disposed to receive the chief effect of the sacraments, and various occasions in life are rendered holy."173

The characteristics of sacramentals

1668 Sacramentals are instituted for the sanctification of certain ministries of the Church, certain states of life, a great variety of circumstances in Christian life, and the use of many things helpful to man. In accordance with bishops’ pastoral decisions, they can also respond to the needs, culture, and special history of the Christian people of a particular region or time. They always include a prayer, often accompanied by a specific sign, such as the laying on of hands, the sign of the cross, or the sprinkling of holy water (which recalls Baptism).

1669 Sacramentals derive from the baptismal priesthood: every baptized person is called to be a “blessing,” and to bless.174 Hence lay people may preside at certain blessings; the more a blessing concerns ecclesial and sacramental life, the more is its administration reserved to the ordained ministry (bishops, priests, or deacons).175

1670 Sacramentals do not confer the grace of the Holy Spirit in the way that the sacraments do, but by the Church’s prayer, they prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it. "For well-disposed members of the faithful, the liturgy of the sacraments and sacramentals sanctifies almost every event of their lives with the divine grace which flows from the Paschal mystery of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ. From this source all sacraments and sacramentals draw their power. There is scarcely any proper use of material things which cannot be thus directed toward the sanctification of men and the praise of God."176

Various forms of sacramentals

1671 Among sacramentals blessings (of persons, meals, objects, and places) come first. Every blessing praises God and prays for his gifts. In Christ, Christians are blessed by God the Father "with every spiritual blessing."177 This is why the Church imparts blessings by invoking the name of Jesus, usually while making the holy sign of the cross of Christ.

1672 Certain blessings have a lasting importance because they consecrate persons to God, or reserve objects and places for liturgical use. Among those blessings which are intended for persons - not to be confused with sacramental ordination - are the blessing of the abbot or abbess of a monastery, the consecration of virgins and widows, the rite of religious profession and the blessing of certain ministries of the Church (readers, acolytes, catechists, etc.). The dedication or blessing of a church or an altar, the blessing of holy oils, vessels, and vestments, bells, etc., can be mentioned as examples of blessings that concern objects.

1673 When the Church asks publicly and authoritatively in the name of Jesus Christ that a person or object be protected against the power of the Evil One and withdrawn from his dominion, it is called exorcism. Jesus performed exorcisms and from him the Church has received the power and office of exorcizing.178 In a simple form, exorcism is performed at the celebration of Baptism. The solemn exorcism, called “a major exorcism,” can be performed only by a priest and with the permission of the bishop. The priest must proceed with prudence, strictly observing the rules established by the Church. Exorcism is directed at the expulsion of demons or to the liberation from demonic possession through the spiritual authority which Jesus entrusted to his Church. Illness, especially psychological illness, is a very different matter; treating this is the concern of medical science. Therefore, before an exorcism is performed, it is important to ascertain that one is dealing with the presence of the Evil One, and not an illness.179
 
davy050995 said:
A medal is nothing but a physical object existing only in the physical world, but when it is blessed it is given existence in the invisible spiritual world as well.
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👍
For instance, if a demon is in the presence of an unblessed st Benedict medal, of course it wouldn’t effect it because it exists only in the physical world, but once its blessed, that medal takes on meaning in the spiritual world, as a sign of Gods power and love directed in whatever type of medal it is, which gives the devil something to worry about. I hope this somewhat makes sense to you, this is just how I think of it.
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I like this description.

To the OP: Want to understand sacramentals better? Read, “The Rite” by Baglio - a nonfiction book. Also, I had a friend tell me that he listened to a person who was a “satanist” who converted to Catholicism. If you run into information like this, it will help you to understand the unseen spiritual world that we live in - that we interact with.

I view the sacramentals as a gift to us by God. They give us a point where the physical world and the spiritual world come together.
 
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