Blessing of Objects
Setting apart bread, water, and home with a holy blessing
The blessing of objects is the setting apart of things such as food, homes, fields, water, or articles by a clerical blessing for sacred or protective use. Early church orders preserve blessings over items such as oil and olives. The practice is extensive in Catholic, Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox life. Many Reformed and Free Protestant traditions, however, minimized or rejected it, wary of attaching holiness to material things.
How it traveled
- Treatise on the Sacraments (qq[60]-90)Paris · c. 1274 CEexplains
Key passages(17)
Each passage is tagged by what it does with the idea: explains it, applies it in practice, redefines it with a new meaning, or challenges it. Relevance shows how directly the passage is about this idea.
The Canons of the Council in Trullo; Often Called The Quinisext Council · The Ecumenical Councils
Canon XXVIII. Since we understand that in several churches grapes are brought to the altar, according to a custom which has long prevailed, and the ministers joined this with the unbloody sacrifice o
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Treatise on the Sacraments (qq[60]-90) · Thomas Aquinas
Reply to Objection 1: This sacrament ought as a rule to be celebrated in a house, whereby the Church is signified, according to 1 Tim. 3:15: "That thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself
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30. Some may wonder at the miracles he worked, or his incredible fasting, knowledge, and humility. Nothing so astonishes me as his power to tread under foot honour and glory. Bishops, presbyters, crow
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Treatise on the Sacraments (qq[60]-90) · Thomas Aquinas
Exception is made on the night of Christmas eve, when mass is celebrated, because our Lord was born in the night (De Consecr., dist. 1). And in like manner it is celebrated on Holy Saturday towards th
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Treatise on the Sacraments (qq[60]-90) · Thomas Aquinas
And since they acquire special spiritual virtue from their consecration, we find it laid down in the same distinction that "the beams of a dedicated church ought not to be used for any other purpose,
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Book Fourth. of the Holy Catholic Church · John Calvin
21. Even were it granted that this precept of unction, which has nothing to do with the present age, were perfectly adapted to it, they in extremis. If they have a present cure in their sacrament, wit
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The Book of Pastoral Rule, and Selected Epistles, of Gregory the Great · Pope Gregory the Great
Although there may have been cause to provoke the spirit of your Fraternity not unreasonably to anger, so that you would neither receive the offerings of the Lord Venantius nor allow the sacred solemn
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The Fourth Ecumenical Council. The Council of Chalcedon · The Ecumenical Councils
Canon XXIV. Monasteries, which have once been consecrated with the consent of the bishop, shall remain monasteries for ever, and the property belonging to them shall be preserved, and they shall neve
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Letters of St. Augustin · Augustine of Hippo
35. I cannot, however, sanction with my approbation those ceremonies which are departures from the custom of the Church, and are instituted on the pretext of being symbolical of some holy mystery; alt
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The Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen · Sozomen
Book IX. Chapter I.—Death of Arcadius, and Government of Theodosius the Younger. His Sisters. Piety, Virtue, and Virginity, of the Princess Pulcheria; her Divinely Loved Works; she educated the Emper
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Treatise on the Sacraments (qq[60]-90) · Thomas Aquinas
We have now to consider the preparations that accompany Baptism: concerning which there are four points of inquiry: (1) Whether catechism should precede Baptism? (2) Whether exorcism should precede
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(Pædagogue, book II. chap. 3, p. 247.) This fine paragraph is in many ways interesting. The tourist who has visited the catacombs, is familiar, among tokens of the first rude art of Christians, with
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The Life of Constantine with Orations of Constantine and Eusebius · Eusebius of Caesarea
13. Accordingly these signal proofs of our emperor’s magnificence forthwith appeared in the provinces and cities of the empire, and soon shone conspicuously in every country; convincing memorials of t
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Book Fourth. of the Holy Catholic Church · John Calvin
17. But here they use a very fair gloss, for they say that the dignity of the Church is not unbecomingly maintained by this magnificence. And certain of their sect are so impudent as to dare openly to
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On Idolatry. · Apologetic
Chapter III.—Idolatry: Origin and Meaning of the Name. Idol in ancient times there was none. Before the artificers of this monstrosity had bubbled into being,the idol; because neither is it a questio
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On the Life of St. Martin · Sulpicius Severus
Martin demolishes an Altar consecrated to a Robber. But let me proceed to a description of other excellences which Martin displayed as a bishop. There was, not far from the town, a place very close t
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Expositions on the Book of Psalms · Augustine of Hippo
Psalm CXV. Lat. CXIII. 1. “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy Name give the praise” (ver. 1). For that grace of the water that gushed from the rock (“now that rock was Christ” 1 Cor. x.
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