QUAERITUR: blessed salt | Fr. Z's Blog – What Does The Prayer Really Say?

QUAERITUR: blessed salt | Fr. Z's Blog – What Does The Prayer Really Say?

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In the Church we bless salt and use it for various things. It is a sacramental. You can cook with it, of course. You can also sprinkle it in places as a protection from the attacks of the Enemy. The Enemy does not like blessed salt!

As in all sacramentals blessing salt is serious business. Salt is especially serious, however.

You might know that exorcised and blessed salt was used in the rite for blessing water. The exorcism and blessing for salt is a fearsome thing.

Salt is of those few things actually personally addressed as a creature of God and then exorcised.

Exorcizo te, creatura salis, per Deum + vivum, per Deum + verum, per Deum + sanctum, per Deum, qui te per Eliseum Prophetam in aquam mitti jussit, ut sanaretur sterilitas aquae; ut efficiaris sal exorcizatum in salutem credentium; et sis omnibus sumentibus te sanitas animae et corporis; et effugiat, atque discedat a loco, in quo aspersum fueris, omnis phantasia et nequitia vel versutia diabolicae fraudis, omnisque spiritus immundus, adjuratus per eum qui venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos, et saeculum per ignem. R. Amen.

O you creature of salt, I purge you of all evil by the living + God, by the true + God, by the holy + God, who commanded by the Prophet Elisha that you be put into water in order that the sterility of the water would be healed: so that you might be rendered a purified salt for the salvation of believers, and so that you might be a healthiness of soul and body to all who consume you, and so that you may put to flight and drive out from a place in which you will have been scattered every phantom and wickedness, and cunning trap of diabolical deceit, and every unclean spirit be solemnly banished by command through Him Who shall come to judge the living and the dead, and the world by fire. R. Amen.

Holy Church does not kid around in these exorcisms and blessings …. in the older, traditional Rituale Romanum at least.

I will not speak of the newer "Book of Blessings" which is nearly useless and should be entirely scrapped.