By Michael H. Brown

You see this is many parishes:

Bafflingly, Holy Water is removed during Lent -- the time of year when there is the greatest and most direct battle with evil, during which Holy Water is so important.

Should such be done?

"No," says the Diocese of Steubenville, Ohio. "The practice of removing Holy Water from the fonts during the entire season of Lent is an innovation not present in the Roman Rite. Some see Lent as a 'desert journey' in which we thirst for the baptismal water of Easter. Thus, some well-meaning clergy and lay faithful, encouraged by experimental liturgical publications, have removed the Holy Water, covered the fonts in purple, or placed sand, rocks, and cacti in the fonts during the Lenten season. However meaningful some see this practice, it is not in accord with the theology of Lent itself and not permitted by the Church."

Indeed, as has been pointed out, on March 14, 2000, the Congregation of Divine Worship responded to this question with the following answer: "This Dicastery is able to respond that the removing of Holy Water from the fonts during the season of Lent is not permitted, in particular, for two reasons:

"1. The liturgical legislation in force does not foresee this innovation, which in addition to being praeter legem is contrary to a balanced understanding of the season of Lent, which though truly being a season of penance, is also a season rich in the symbolism of water and baptism, constantly evoked in liturgical texts.

"2. The encouragement of the Church that the faithful avail themselves frequently of her sacraments and sacramentals is to be understood to apply also to the season of Lent. The 'fast' and 'abstinence' which the faithful embrace in this season does not extend to abstaining from the sacraments or sacramentals of the Church. The practice of the Church has been to empty the Holy Water fonts on the days of the Sacred Triduum in preparation of the blessing of the water at the Easter Vigil, and it corresponds to those days on which the Eucharist is not celebrated (Good Friday and Holy Saturday)."

Simply put, too many clerics view Holy Water as a symbol when it is such a potent force against the devil who rages at this time of year.

At no time is Holy Water more pertinent.

Meanwhile, our Church has all but forgotten about the use of a companion sacramental, blessed salt.

The origins?

Quickly: the Prophet Eliseus employed salt to make palatable the waters of a well (2 Kings 2:19) while Orientals used salt to cleanse and harden the skin of a newborn child (Ezekiel 16:4).

In the Jewish Law it was prescribed for the sacrifices and the loaves of proposition (Leviticus 2:13).

In Matthew 5:13, salt symbolizes wisdom, though originally it is thought to have had an exorcistic signification.

Here we get the point.

Let's cut to the chase: like Holy Water, blessed salt is powerful too against the enemy.

"The salt is exorcized and blessed in the preparation of Holy Water for the Asperges before high Mass on Sunday and for the use of the faithful in their homes," the Catholic encyclopedia informs us.

The present formula of blessing is taken from the Gregorian Sacramentary (P.L., LXXVIII, 231). Both baptismal salt and blessed salt may be used again without a new benediction.

In whichever form, it is intended to be an instrument of grace to preserve one from the corruption of evil occurring as sin, sickness, demonic influence, and so forth.

Get a container of it, have it blessed, and circle your homes with it.

Put some in your car.

Carry some in your purse.

Sprinkle it at work, and around your church. Hit the schools with it. Toss it near abortion clinics. Do it as you fast. You can do it. Fast as best you can.

It is a time to purge our surroundings, as we will discuss at the retreats, but it is also the season to purge ourselves.

God-willing, when we have the retreat in southern California in a couple of weeks, I'll be urging the spread of blessed salt.

If folks live in Hollywood, we'll ask it be spread there. If they live along the Pacific Coast Highway -- past Malibu, by all those mega-rich movie producers -- we'll ask that it be spread there.

We'll ask that it be spread near the San Andreas fault. We'll ask that it be sprinkled around the Valley -- in Northridge, which is the nation's x-rated video capital (and was epicenter for the famous quake in 1993).

We'll ask that it be sprinkled in Beverly Hills, in all that glitz, near the record companies, near the large center of Scientology that caters to all the celebrities. (Do we not see strange behavior with so many the the "rich and famous"? Do they not end up with strange looks to their eyes? Or confinement in psychiatric wards when what they need is deliverance)?

South of L.A., we'll urge that blessed salt be spread all around San Diego. We'll urge it along Witch Creek, where there were the incredible fires. We'll urge it near a labs there that are trying to synthesize life and where they clone human embryos.

Along with San Francisco, the L.A. area is notorious for its New Agers, its witches, its trade in drugs. There is the wanton sex. There is the pollution.

But there are also the strong Catholics who are always placed in such areas -- the pockets of devout, the "prayer-warriors" -- and we hope they join us in a massive effort to spread salt over the entire region as it may also be suggested -- urged -- that blessed salt, which is a sacramental every bit as much as Holy Water, and equally effective against the enemy, be spread in all parts of the United States this Lent especially this being a volatile election year when much of the country's fate will be determined.

It is Lent and it is a time when the Holy Spirit -- through His Blood -- is especially close to us.

Let us make the Forty Days a time during which we sanctify this country, days in which we make a last concerted effort to cast out evil, days in which we spread sacramentals on the highways and byways, in the concrete jungles, in the gasping rural parts, along the shores from sea to shining troubled sea: praying a protection and purging of our troubled land as it heads into a season of election.

Use this Lent to also sanctify your own neighborhoods and homes.

Like Holy Water, anointed salt, which can be blessed by any priest, is just as effective at repulsing evil, and because it does not evaporate last longer. Any amount of salt may be presented to a priest for his blessing, using the following official prayer from the Roman Ritual:

"Almighty God, we ask you to bless this salt, as once you blessed the salt scattered over the water by the prophet Elisha. Wherever this salt (and water) is sprinkled, drive away the power of evil, and protect us always by the presence of your Holy Spirit. Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen." 

As a Catholic sacramental, says an expert, Father John H. Hampsch -- of California -- salt blessed by the liturgical prayer of a priest may be used by itself, unmixed, as in exorcisms, and formerly in the exorcistic prayer at baptism, or it may be mixed with water to make Holy Water, as the Ritual prescribes (reminiscent of Elisha’s miracle).

"I can personally attest to the power of this sacramental to keep away evil," says a blog based on his information. "When we were building our new home a few years ago, vandals kept coming in and destroying things. This was when it was in the stage when the doors and windows were not yet on. I came out and sprinkled blessed salt on all the entryways and windows which were near the ground. We never had another vandalism after that! Who needs a personal home security system!"

[If you are interested in getting salt blessed, print this out and present it to a priest, along with this article]

[Should Holy Water be removed during Lent? No, says the Vatican -- see here]

[see also: prayer for liberation of home]