Simple Catholic

Recently, someone asked us how Catholics make Holy Water. My husband and I thought it might be a good topic upon which to restart this blog that I have overlooked for such a long time.

So let’s get on with the question, “how do you make Holy Water?”

Water and the Bible

Water has been important throughout Bible times. The first book of the Bible, Genesis, speaks of water in the very second verse, “and the earth was without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters. ” Again, water is discussed in the second book of the Bible, the Book of Exodus, this time the Lord turns the very water of the river Nile and all the water in every bucket and pail in all the land of Egypt into blood when Pharoah refuses to release the Israelites from slavery. These are only two references. Over and over, water is important to our faith story.

In the New Testament, water again plays a pivitol role, this time in the baptism of Jesus. The footnotes from the USCCB online Bible state, “the baptism of Jesus is the occasion on which he is equipped for his ministry by the holy Spirit and proclaimed to be the Son of God.”

There are numerous other mention of water throughout the Bible, Old and New Testaments, and we’ve estalished that it is important to our faith story. Now let’s talk about water as used by the Catholic Church in the sacramental called Holy Water.

What is Holy Water?

Essentially, Holy Water is water that has been blessed by a priest for the purpose of making it holy. The water that becomes Holy Water can be from any source of (perferrably clean) water. Our particular Church has purchased gallon bottles of a local spring water just before the priest is going to bless water at the Easter Vigil or before a baptism. Click this link if you would like to read the actual words said by a priest during a baptism and the blessing of the water for baptism.

Holy Water is Made

Once the water has been blessed it becomes Holy Water and is therefore also considered a sacramental. The definition of a sacramental can be found here. Catholic Churches will have a font of Holy Water near entrances that is used by the baptized to bless themselves as they enter the Church. As we enter our particular Church, there is a small metal bowl affixed to the wall that contains Holy Water. We dip the first two fingers of our right hand gently into the surface of the Holy Water, then make the sign of the cross on our body. By doing this, we are reminded of our own baptism into the family of Christ, as well as placing ourselves under the care of God.

What Does Holy Water Do?

By themselves, a sacramental such as Holy Water has no actual power to help us on the way to Heaven, but it does have the power to excite in those that use it rightly, a fear and love of the Lord, hatred of sin, and aligns our hearts toward God.

While picking up the books we’d place on hold at the library, a pretty book with spectacular illustrations peeked out at me and demanded my attention. A Seed Is Sleepy, by Dianna Hutts Aston, illustrated by Sylvia Long, is beautiful.

The author begins by telling us “a seed is sleepy” and where the seed might sleep. She then goes on to tell how seeds are secretive, fruitful, naked and even adventurous.

The children in my nature study homeschool co-op class laughed riotously to learn that the hamburger bean floats. They also wanted to know if hamburger beans made hamburgers…ah, the humor of a 7 year old! The children also loved learned, in the author’s ever so polite way, about how a seed is inventive and can “tumble through a bear’s belly.” This actually opened up a whole conversation about how seeds can be eaten, sent through the digestive system and “deposited” sometimes miles away from the parent plant.

The book ends with the seed awakening, oh! and such an awakening! The children relished this book. Once I’d finished reading it, they all immediately wanted to pour over the pages independently. This book is worthy of a space on a home library’s shelved.

Idea for an Add-on Tie-in: Using a plastic sandwich bag half-filled with damp soil, place corn seeds between the plastic and the soil so it can be viewed from outside. Place three seeds, one upright, one side-ways and one upside down. Tape the bag to a sunny window and watch God’s work at hand over the coming several days!

Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey was originally published in 1948. It won the Caldecott Honor Book award in 1949. This is such a lovely book with a sweet story and beautiful illustrations

When teaching especially preschool-grade 4, this is a great book for many different themes, seasonal studies or unit studies. Children older than 6 might be able to read it on their own, but it is a wonderful read a-loud. Themes include: blueberries, black bears, summer time, Blessed Virgin Mary (blue is Her color, of course!) and you might throw in a small chat about obeying your mother. With older children, talk about where you will find blueberries (wild and cultivated), varieties of blueberries (especially high and low) and methods of consuming blueberries (fresh, in a cold or hot recipe, frozen, preserved, dried). And if you are lucky enough to live in the vicinity of New England, take a drive to Maine in July and buy some fresh blueberries. There is just something special about Maine blueberries!

If you look on Pinterest, there are art projects, crafts and recipes galore. Here’s the link to my Pinterest Blueberries for Sal board.

Read the book aloud!

Make blueberry crisp and serve warm with vanilla ice cream. YUMMY!

We love Betty Crocker’s recipe for apple crisp so I use it as my “go-to fruit crisp recipe”. I exchange the apples for blueberries and sometimes a variety of berries.

Here is my revised Betty Crocker apple crisp based recipe:

Ingredients:

4 cups of fresh (or frozen) blueberries

3/4 brown sugar (packed)

1/2 cup of all-purpose flour

1/2 cup of oats (old-fashioned or quick-cooking)

1/3 cup butter softened

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (you can also use a touch of nutmeg as well, I’m just not a fan)

Heat the oven to 375 degrees, prepare an 8×8 pan with cooking spray or butter. Spread the blueberries in the bottom of the pan. Stir the remaining ingredients together and spread evenly over the blueberries. Bake 30 minutes (or until brown and bubbling). Serve warm with ice cream!

I highly recommend reading this book every July followed by a bowl of warm blueberry crisp and ice cream.

 

 

Good News! We have decided to combine a few of our interests and create a YouTube Channel that will feature videos of Catholic sites that we visit along with descriptions, history and information for visiting the site. We’ve started with a few videos that we had on our existing channel but will be adding new videos shortly. As we travel we will visit more sites and share them as we put them together.

You can visit the channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4gSMQq4T5pygzbxsCUh0kg

Please consider being a subscriber so you’ll get notified of when we post new videos.

Are you familiar with the morning basket?

It is an awesome concept.. for morning people. I am not a morning person. Technically, I think God meant me to be a coffee drinker. Let me clarify further; a coffee drinker as in one of those people that always have a coffee cup in their hand. The only problem is, I really do not like coffee. I can drink it disguised as a mocha, but I’m only just tolerating it. I’ll drink copious qualities of hot tea during fall/winter/spring and I drink iced tea by the gallons year round, but there is so far not enough caffeine in a few cups of hot tea to turn me into a morning person.

Getting myself motivated bright and early in the morning to actually pull off a morning basket is probably not going to happen during this lifetime. I am old enough to know myself and my limitations. However, I really, really want to do a “morning basket” with my son. Here’s were I have been for a very long time, not capable of pulling off a morning basket, but unable to figure out where to fit it into the rest of our day.

Lately, I have also been listening to Pam Barnhill’s Morning Basket podcast. I would highly recommend listening to her podcast series from the very beginning. She and her awesome guests really get you thinking. If morning baskets are new to you or something you have wanted to incorporate into your homeschool day, her podcast is the place to start.

Between kicking myself for being a early morning slacker, having morning basket guilt and a conversation I had with my husband the other evening; I had an epiphany!! Do “morning basket” in the evening when the whole family can participate.

One of Barnhill’s guests spoke about how morning basket can create a family culture. Well, when it’s Mom and a lovely bunch of children, that sounds like the most beautiful thing ever. God graced us with a son; one child. It just did not seem fair to be creating this “family culture” between my son and I only. Our family is so small that if we do not include my husband in creating that “family culture” we are not being fair to our little family.

It occurred to me that including my husband in our “morning basket” would give us a chance to have everyone’s insights, shared experience, shared knowledge, and shared faith. And when we read make emotional connections with a book, it is not going to be just between my son and I. It also really does make education something everyone participates in everyday. Win-Win-Win!

So last evening was our inaugural evening “morning basket”. (Seriously, I will come up with a better name for it!!). For an hour and a half, we read, we prayed, we listened, we saw, and we learned TOGETHER!!!!!!!!!

I mean to encourage you with this post, really! If you do not already do a “morning basket”, can not figure out where to put it into your day or whatever your hang-up is, keep trying to work it in. There is great value in sharing your education with the whole family, to the best of your ability.

As we continue to do our “evening, morning basket”, I’ll let you know how we as doing. In the meantime, God Bless and Keep Learning!

UPDATE: I drafted this post sometime ago (September), and I am happy to report that “morning basket” in the evening with our whole family, is going awesomely! It has turned into such a connection point for the whole family. Now for a better name…read-aloud basket, evening basket, learning basket…I’d take suggestions.