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.”This is why the Church imparts blessings by invoking the name of Jesus, usually while making the holy sign of the cross of Christ (CCC 1671).
When her daughter announced she was taking her new car off to her third year of college, Jenny had a premonition that something would happen. She shared her worry with her husband and her daughter but was overruled; her daughter really did need the car for school.
Her husband went to get the license plates for the car. Jenny couldn’t stop thinking about the bad feeling she’d gotten about this car. She sat on her front porch, praying and asking the Blessed Mother to give her a sign that her daughter would be ok with this car.
When her husband got home with the plates, Jenny asked to see them. “Why?” her husband asked. “I just want to see them,” she answered.
The plates had Jenny’s initials, followed by a J, and then the date of her birth: 7/3/54!
What were the chances?? Immediately Jenny knew the ‘J’ was for Jesus and shared her answered prayer with her husband. This was a very good sign! Of course, she thanked the Blessed Mother.
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Protection
A few days before the car was to be driven back to school, Jenny went around it inside and out and blessed it with holy water, praying for her daughter’s protection.
“Somehow I’ve often gotten a nudging that danger is coming and I pray to our Blessed Mother and use the holy water. She knew this would be a bad collision,” Jenny says.
It was on the way back from a concert with college friends a month later that another car was speeding and changed lanes too quickly. The driver cut Jenny’s car off, causing her to lose control It went off the highway, down an embankment, and stopped between two trees.
The car was completely demolished. After the impact, the only way Jenny’s daughter and her friends could get out was through the back right door.
The state trooper said when he first saw the totaled car, he expected to find major injuries or even death, but the three young adults were amazingly all ok.
Her daughter saved the license plates to remind her that prayers are heard and situations can be changed with love, prayer, and strong faith.
Jenny continues to bless herself each time she leaves her house with a little holy water font hanging by her front door. And she always carries a little bottle of it with her in case it’s needed.
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The Characteristics of Sacramentals Such as Holy Water
Sacramentals derive from the baptismal priesthood: every baptized person is called to be a “blessing,” and to bless.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).
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 (CCC 1669, 1670).
3 thoughts on “Another Great Holy Water Story”
I don’t leave home without holy water and bless my car every time I take it on the road.
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