Why blessed salt

Blessed salt is a very powerful Sacramental of the catholic Church. It is an instrument of grace to preserve one from the corruption of evil occurring as sin, sickness, demonic influence, or other manifestation.

Since Vatican II, Catholics are being urged to participate "intelligently and actively" in the use of Sacramentals. The usage of Blessed Salt answers this call. As a Catholic sacramental, 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. Nor is it necessary as the rite is still found in the ordinary-form missal.

An attentive reader made the following observation to our Oct. In the rite of exorcism which I was recently reading in the ICEL Green Book stage of translation, I again saw the beautiful prayers for exorcism and blessing of salt and water which I have used for many years in preparing blessed water for people who ask for it. But I have never thought of that as belonging to the extraordinary form.

But when I came to the diocese I did find priests who were using the asperges as in the old form, as part of the entrance procession on Sundays. With a bit of time they were weaned off it. In short, is the blessing of water and salt, as found in the Missal of Paul VI, now in its third edition, considered the ordinary form of blessing?

I referred above all to not mixing the two rites, as mentioned by our reader, regarding the use of the asperges at the entrance procession. That said, I would say that the rite as found in the third edition of the missal is the ordinary form for the situations described in the missal.

That is at the beginning of Mass. Other approved rites for blessing water outside of Mass, such as that of the Book of Exorcisms, are also the ordinary form in their proper contexts.

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