Something odd on back of rosary medal

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Thom18

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Going through my grandmother’s things after she passed, I came across a broken rosary. On the back of the medal is some sort of “bubble”, which seems like it should contain something, and I’m not sure what it is. Any thoughts?

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Possibly holy water—did the rosary come from Lourdes? It appears to be St. Bernadette and Our Lady of Lourdes on the front of the medal.
 
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I’m not sure. I just found it in her things. I wish I could ask her about it.
 
Thom18 said:
Going through my grandmother’s things after she passed, I came across a broken rosary. On the back of the medal is some sort of “bubble”, which seems like it should contain something, and I’m not sure what it is. Any thoughts?

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I think that’s some kind of relic from a saint.
 
That looks like the types of rosaries you can get that have water from Lourdes in the back bubble. The image on the front is definitely a depiction of Lourdes I’ve seen before. In my experience the bubbles aren’t air tight so the water eventually evaporates.
 
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Without question that is a Lourdes medal on that rosary, and without a doubt it once contained water from the grotto. I’ve had several of them and eventually the water evaporates or crystalizes.
 
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Now, a curiosity question: I know blessed items lose their blessing when sold. What about things like this that contain water, dirt, or sand from a particular holy place?
 
Not in a sealed plastic or glass bubble I don’t think. There should be at least a small air bubble visible actually, it wouldn’t have been possible to fill it completely in the days when it was made, and if there isn’t then it probably has evaporated.
Definately Lourdes, I have a similar one but with no bubble.
 
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Salmonslayer said:
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mrsdizzyd:
I know blessed items lose their blessing when sold.
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They do? I’d never heard that.
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What I was told by my priest was that blessings can’t be sold (that’s simony), but objects can. However, if the price of the object increased simply because it had been blessed by someone (ie the rosary was $10 but now the exact same rosary is $30 because it was blessed by the pope) then we should not assume the blessing is intact and should have it blessed again.

Don’t know enough about it to be able to say whether he was right or wrong.
 
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I’ve got one. Like others said, it originally came with Lourdes water in it, but it evaporated within the first two or three years-- I was surprised it wasn’t as well-sealed as I expected it to be.

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Thank you for the link, but it doesn’t get at my question which was about sale of items with water, dirt, or sand from holy places. As an example: Does water from Lourdes retain it’s miraculous quality once repackaged and sold for profit? Etc.
 
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