Water blessed by a priest or bishop, kept in stoups at church doors, sprinkled over people and things, and taken home. Catholics dip a hand and cross themselves on entering a church, a gesture that recalls baptism. It is used in blessings, in exorcism, at funerals and in the consecration of buildings.
It is a sacramental rather than a sacrament: the church's position is that it disposes a person toward grace rather than conferring it, and that the effect depends on the disposition of the one using it. Holy water is not poured down a drain when finished with; it is returned to the earth.
Facts
Meaning
Symbolic MeaningHoly water kept at church doors and dipped on entering recalls baptism, and the gesture of returning it to the earth rather than a drain reflects its status as a sacramental that disposes toward grace rather than confers it. 1 Use
Who May Handle ItAdherents of the tradition 1 Taken and used by anyone in the church ConsecrationConsecrated in a rite before use 1 Physical Form
MaterialWater blessed by a priest, often mixed with blessed salt in the traditional Roman rite. 1 Status
Status TodayIn active religious use 2 Learn More
Blessed Water, and What It Is For
Holy water is water blessed by a priest or bishop, and its everyday use marks the boundaries and passages of Christian life more than any dramatic power.
Sign of baptism
Kept in stoups at the doors of a church, holy water is taken on the fingers and used to make the sign of the cross on entering, a gesture that recalls baptism each time the threshold is crossed. It is sprinkled over people, buildings, objects and graves in blessing, and carried home for use by the family. The church treats it as a sacramental, an instituted sign that disposes the person to grace and expresses the prayer of the church, rather than as a substance working automatically, and that distinction is doctrinally important against the charge of magic.
Making and use
The blessing of the water, in the older form accompanied by the addition of blessed salt, sets it apart for these uses, and a larger blessing of water belongs to the Easter Vigil, from which the font is filled for baptism. The Eastern churches keep a great blessing of water at Epiphany, when rivers and seas are blessed and the water is drunk and kept through the year. The common thread is that the water recalls and extends baptism, so that the ordinary act of blessing oneself at a church door is a daily return to the sacrament by which a Christian enters the church.
The Blessing That Makes It, and Where It Is Poured Away
Holy water is water, plus a specific prayer, and the prayer is what does the work, nothing about the water itself changes physically, but its treatment afterward changes considerably.
The blessing
Only an ordained priest, or a bishop, has the faculty to bless water for this use, historically through an elaborate rite of exorcism over both salt and water before combining them, a form still used in the Extraordinary Form and simplified in most modern rituals to a shorter blessing. Many parishes bless a large quantity at once, typically at the Easter Vigil, and use it to refill fonts and stoups throughout the year rather than blessing water fresh for each refill, so what sits in the entrance stoup may be considerably older than a visitor assumes.
Containers, and how it is disposed of
Holy water is kept in stone or metal fonts at church entrances for the congregation to bless themselves on entering, and sold or given away in small bottles at pilgrimage sites, the plastic bottles shaped like the Virgin Mary sold at Lourdes being a well known modern example of that trade. Because it remains blessed rather than becoming ordinary water again, holy water that has gone stagnant or is being replaced is not poured down an ordinary drain, it is returned to the earth directly or through a sacrarium, a special sink in some sacristies that drains straight into the ground rather than into the sewer system.
Connections
Belongs to Tradition
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Element Of
Blessed water is a working instrument of healing in the prophet healing churches, prescribed by a prophet for a named affliction rather than used for a blessing at the door.
Source Zion and Pentecost: The Spirituality and Experience of Pentecostal and Zionist/Apostolic Churches in South AfricaAllan H. Anderson
Blessed water at the doors of a church recalls baptism, and its use at entering is a renewal of that sacrament rather than an act of its own.
Source Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd editionHoly Seethe holders' own account
Rejected Here
Blessed water was removed with the other ceremonies the Reformed churches could not find warranted, and baptism was held to need nothing added to it.
Source The Heidelberg CatechismZacharias Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus (traditional attribution)
Implement Of
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Related To
A contrast rather than a parallel: Zamzam is held blessed by origin and is consecrated by no rite, where holy water is ordinary water made holy by a blessing.
Source The Hajj: The Muslim Pilgrimage to Mecca and the Holy PlacesF. E. Peters
Rite Substance Of
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Sources
1. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition
F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005on holy water and sacramentalsView the Source 2. Holy water (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia 'Holy water': 'The use for cleansing prior to a baptism and spiritual cleansing is common in several religions'; checked 2026-09-27.View the Source Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd edition
Holy See, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997on blessings and baptismthe holders' own accountView the Source Reader Challenges (0)
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