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Not any old plastic half litre bottle of water. Oh no. This is a bottle of Holy Water. Or what's left after everything and everyone inside and outside our house has been blessed.
This brand of mineral water is called 'AYPA' as you can see. Pronounced 'avra' and meaning 'aura' in English. A coincidence?
My sister-in-law filled up a bottle of Holy water for greek husband on January 6th, the day of the Blessing of the Waters.
This Holy water comes from the Lesser blessing on the eve of Epiphany/Theophany and also from the Greater blessing on the day itself.
K has sprinkled holy water around the outside of the house, inside in the corners, over car and bike and now we have 3 sips every morning before we drink our coffee.
When we lived in town the local priest would walk through his parish after Theophany and house wives would come out and wait on the street to invite him in to bless the household. My m-in-law would have laid her best white cloth on a small table along with an icon of the Virgin Mary , a candle and incense. Everyone gathered around the table and after a short blessing the priest sprinkled holy water around the room and on all of us, even me, pocketed his reward and went off to the neighbour's house.
Nowadays you ask to have the priest come and bless your house, though in smaller communities he still does probably go from door to door. He will come and bless you and your house at any time and it is a common request when you have been through a period of trouble and strife and want the evil washed away.
How do you make Holy Water?
You boil the Hell out of it
My parents bring me some every year. We don’t have the priest come so my dad does the incense and holy water blessings.
ReplyDeleteI don’t mind either way. It can’t hurt and it smells nice
Yeh, it can't hurt, that's my philosophy. K is very serious about it so I suppose and say nothing
DeleteI love that all this 'magic' still exists. My mother used to keep Ascension Day rain (if any fell), and pretend it had magical properties. Of course it didn't, but we all liked the idea.
ReplyDeleteMagic, yes! Well, f you believe in it that's all that's necessary!
DeleteWe've never had any holy water around but I was advised by a previous church pastor to anoint mirrors and doors with olive oil.
ReplyDeleteThat would be a bit sticky! You reminded me that k occasionally gets holy oil in a very small phial from a monastery and goes around putting cross signs on the grandkids foreheads. So far it has kept them safe, except for a broken arm and a few bouts of flu
DeleteAn old aunt of my husband told my husband recently that a few weeks ago she put a few drops of saint water from Lourdes (the water that is in a plastic Mother Mary-shaped bottle with blue cap) in my soup; she thinks it will cure me. I'm happy I didn't know about it then because that bottle has been in her show case ever since she went to Lourdes years ago!...I dont even want to think about it.
ReplyDeleteGreetings Maria x
Meant holy water and not saint water; I was thinking of it in Italian as Acqua Santa.
Deletex
Ahhh,..but the church says that you can keep holy water for years and it never goes off. I hope you don't feel worse!!
DeleteI love that all this 'magic' still exists.http://grsshoes.com
ReplyDelete