The Exorcist Files - The Power of Holy Water

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

Father Martins Shares Why Exorcists Love Holy Water. Head to http://lumen.me/EXFILES for 15% off your purchase.Check out "The Lion" for all your news needs. Completely free. ReadTheLion.comWant to honor God with every step? Check out WeareUnitus.com and use promo code EXFILES for 10% off your orderCheck out the AfterSessions- hereSubscribe to the VAULT here for early access to new dramatic cases coming soonSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Yeah, so the most obvious thing that comes to mind is it's caustic against the enemy. So during the ritual, when the enemy begins lashing out, if there's a belligerence, an act of violence, you have some of your team ready to go to splash Holy Water on top of the devil. And Holy Water, it absolutely has an effect. Father, any reactions from any demons in particular that stand out in your memory from tossing water on them beyond what we shared in the show. Right. What a demon will do at times, and if you can get close enough to the bottle, is try to knock it away. Welcome back to the Exorcist Files, the show that aims to make a spiritual splash. And with that, today we cover an absolutely fascinating topic, Holy Water,

hated by demons, loved by Exorcists. Holy Water has been aggravating our adversaries since, well, a long, long time ago. On a personal note, I loved this episode, precisely because I've had zero exposure to holy water in my upbringing, and learning about the history of it was, well, just very interesting. Water has a very prominent place in scripture, and I very much enjoyed learning about the theological significance of water, and how many traditions, not just Catholics, have used holy water. Now, in exciting news, we are weeks away from the final case files of season two. You all have been very patient. We appreciate it. Now, it's not an entirely new season, but rather the final few case files to round out an amazing journey. We want to give a special

thank you to our sponsor, The Lion. Now, we try to share some of the stories that they cover, because some of them are just wild. In fact, look up on readthelyon.com. That's readtheleon.com. Look up what happened in Topeka, Kansas last week. Fans of our show may find that story very relevant. Go to readthe lion.com, check it out, or click the link in the show notes. Lastly, we want to give a special thank you to our vault members. You have made this show possible and we're so grateful. And to say thank you, we are letting our vault subscribers have access to the new case files a day early. Each week, a new case file will come out and you will have access to it a day before everyone else. So thank you again for helping

make this show possible. And with that, let's dive into the deep end of the Holy discussion with the one and the only Father Carlos Martins. Welcome back to The Exorcist Files, the show where we will definitely not water down. One of the most important topics we're going to discuss ever on the show, and that is the topic of holy water. And who better to guide us through a journey and shepherd the holy waters other than the one and the only Father Carlos Martins? Father, thanks for being here.

You bet, Ryan, good to be here with everyone. Now, Father, we've talked about doing a Holy Water episode for a long time. mentioned that in the Kickstarter. We're really excited to bring that to the fans. How excited are you to talk about Holy Water? I have to imagine, as a priest, you're a big fan of Holy Water. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Holy Water has just a deep place in the church. It's got a very significant place in exorcism. But it's one of those things that it permeates the entire life of the church. And, you know, we're going to see in some of the questions that have been asked just how deeply ingrained into the life of the church it is. Absolutely. And Father, just so, you know, for anyone who's

tempted to turn that dial and say, oh, this sounds theological and I don't really need to hear this, perhaps you could regal us with an anecdote or two about how it's not just you who is advocating for holy water and spiritual warfare, but there's a long and studied tradition of leveraging holy water as a weapon against the enemy, right? Absolutely. You know, one of my favorite stories is St. John Vianney gets up in the middle of the night. He went to go get a drink in his kitchen, and as he walked out of his bedroom, the bedroom opens up into a kind of living room.

And the devil was sitting there in one of the chairs. And St. John just starts laughing. And this perturbs the devil. And, you know, the devil in his perturbed attitude says to him, aren't you afraid of me? And he says to him, Monsieur, I'm a baptized Christian. You are afraid of me. And so he took holy water and he blessed every window and door in the room. In other words, he sealed the devil inside. So he did that with the intention of preventing him from leaving. And then all he did was just praise God. And it was so painful to the devil that he begged St. John to let him to let him out. So the holy water there presented itself as a barrier. that the devil couldn't cross. So the intention of the saint, the intention of the Christian,

plus the use of the holy water produced a very powerful effect that the devil could not overcome. Wow. All right. May we all have that reaction, sure where we'd ever face the adversary. Well, Father, why don't we get to it then? For those, maybe a lot of us have heard the term holy water, and we, as it is aptly named, involves a special type of water. But could you educate us a little bit on the history of holy water and maybe even just the usage of water in the Christian tradition as a blessing and a sacramental. Yeah, so the use of holy water goes back into the earliest days of the Christian era. So it's mentioned in the apostolic constitutions. The church's very first code of canon law, so it contains rules, prescriptions about things like moral conduct, how to do

the liturgy, church organization, and so forth. And the apostolic constitutions attributes the use of holy water to the apostle St. Matthew. He did the first blessing of water and used it and prescribed it its use for the faithful to bless their objects, bless their homes, and so forth. So the apostolic constitutions, you know, a critic is going to say, look, these were written only in the late 300s. So it's entirely a conjecture that it goes back to St. Matthew. No, it isn't.

The current version that we have, the most complete version, may be dated to the late 300s. But that isn't to say that what appeared in the late 300s wasn't codifying what already was in place. In other words, it codified traditions.

We do know that Pope Alexander I, who reigned in 109 to 119, So keep in mind, it is thought that St. John the Apostle died around the year 110. So if that's correct, then Pope Alexander was the Pope reigning during the death of the last apostle. He's the one that introduced the mixing of salt in with holy water. So you bless salt, you bless water, you mix them together, and distributed that mixture to Christians for specifically the blessing of their homes. The point is that the use of holy water is a very, very old tradition that was present even during apostolic times. And reminder listeners, we did cover this in an episode actually this season, but as a brief refresher, how does one make holy water and what is the elements that are exercised, which I thought was very interesting, and why do we do that?

It actually begins with the exorcism of salt, and the first words are, God's creature salt, I cast out the demon from you. The same thing is going to happen then when he gets to water, when the priest gets to the water. But what you're doing is speaking into the element, into the salt, into the water, the very things that you want them to do. So it's a long ritual. It's visceral. It uses very direct language, language that is very specific. And then you mix the two elements together. And now you've mixed holy salt.

you've mixed holy water. There's a further blessing that you do with them together. And now you've got this weapon that the blessing of everything else that you do after this, like the blessing of a home, blessing of an apartment, the blessing of a car, they're astonishingly short. Why? Because when you sprinkle the holy water, that big, long blessing is now appended onto this very brief ritual. So once you've done that big one, you make a vat of holy water that can last you months or last year the rest of the year and you put it out for people to take it home and so forth when you run out, hey, you just do the ritual again. Once you've done all of that, then there's very little left to say because you've already spoken into the blessing the effects that you won't produce.

We're going to get to, we know there are different types of holy water and we'll get to that a little later. But so you're saying, Father, there's no expiration date on holy water. There's no expiration date. This might be silly, but if I put my holy water in the freezer, does it become holy ice, father? Are there any anecdotes of holy ice being used or anything? Well, it would be water, right? I mean, it's just water, but in a different state. You can use holy water to cook with.

You can use holy salt to cook with. It's more common for blessed salt because salt is easier to keep in that it takes less space, right? I mean, you can bless a two-pound box of salt and it lasts you forever. And so, you know, if I'm in my office here, if I'm eating something and it needs some salt, I just reach into my box of exercise salt and sprinkle a little on top. Interesting. Okay, yeah, I would have thought maybe because of its unique, you know, spiritual or sacred properties, it might be considered disrespectful to consume it or eat it, but you're saying that's not the case at all.

No, heavens, no. Nope. We Catholics, we even have a blessing for beer. That's actually in the Roman ritual. Okay. So, folks, you're going to want to stick around for the blessed beer. Yet another reason to become Catholic. All right, blessed beer. All right, so before we leave this, so just to wrap up, how does the Catholic Church officially define holy water? Well, really simple. It's water that is gone through one of the purifying rituals by which holy water is made. and there's different types, right?

There's ordinary holy water, the formula of which is inside this Roman ritual. It's the formula that I was just talking about. And then there's Easter water. That water is produced at the Easter vigil. So, in other words, Holy Saturday. It's a long ritual itself. It's not quite as long as the one in the Roman ritual. It does not involve the adding of salt, but it does involve the intinking the pascal candle inside it.

So that water is used to baptize those who join the church, those adult converts that are received into the church on Holy Saturday. It's used then in the sprinkling right on Easter Sunday. And priests usually make that water available for people to take home. So that's a different type of holy water. You have baptismal water. You're going to baptize somebody. I have a family in New York that when a newborn comes into the world and they plan the baptism, they often invite me to come out and do the baptism. So something I do myself is when I bless that water, which I do before the baptism itself,

I add in a drop of Lord's water, water from the miraculous font at Lourdes, and I add a drop of water from the River Jordan, both of which I collected years ago. And why do I do that? Well, the well at lords was provided by the Blessed Virgin specifically for healing. And healing absolutely is accomplished within baptism. But that water at lords was specifically given for physical healing. So I add a drop of that. It's a nod also to the Blessed Mother and a way to invoke her as to being present within the right.

but also the water from the Jordan, you know, our Lord made those waters holy by himself being baptized within that water. And so there's the water that I bless, which at one time was tap water from one of the taps inside the church where I'm conducting this, I add a drop of these two other waters, and then afterwards what I do is I collect all that water. I bring bottles and I give it to the family and I make sure to tell them to save a bottle for this child so that this child can always have a water of his or her baptism. And he or she is free to use it whenever throughout his life, her life. And I tell the family to save one of the bottles that I give them for this new Christian so that he or she can always have a reminder, a physical tangible reminder.

Like, hey, what's in this bottle here, this saved me from the clutches of the devil. and it ushered me in to the kingdom of God. All right, Father, let's take a little pivot towards exorcism and keep the fans happy here. And we've talked about Holy Water a ton. It's been mentioned in multiple cases. It seems we have you or deacons or assistants throwing Holy Water all the time, and it's very helpful.

You've mentioned it as a diagnostic. But perhaps you can just, for maybe anyone just tuning in who hasn't heard some of those cases, what role does Holy Water play during exorcisms, both in your experience and your colleagues? Yeah, so the most obvious thing that comes to mind is it's caustic against the enemy. So during the ritual, when the enemy begins lashing out, if there's a belligerence, an act of violence, you have some of your team ready to go to splash Holy Water on top of the devil.

And Holy Water, it absolutely has an effect. Father, any reactions from any demons in particular that stand out in your memory from tossing water on them beyond what we shared in the show. Right. What a demon will do at times, and if you can get close enough to the bottle, is try to knock it away as a kind of sign of his disdain for it. I might try to knock it out of your hand if he can, but certainly there is never a neutral regard towards Holy Water. Amen. Father Martin's here. I want to do a quick plug for one of the most powerful tools I've seen for breaking free and growing closer to Christ. Exodus 90

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So, Father, obviously for those who haven't maybe tuned into season one, We've mentioned this. You do have a famous diagnostic you run with Holy Water just to kind of help you suss out if someone is actually legitimately spiritually oppressed. Could you share a quick recap of your interaction with Jeremy and what a drop of holy water made him do? Yeah, so with Jeremy, I dip my finger into a hidden source of Holy Water. It was a glass of water. I intentionally put Holy Water in a glass, only have filled it, and then put that. glass on a bookcase, on the shelf of a bookcase to make it look like I'd been drinking and just put the glass down. And I approached it in a manner where I knew where it was ensured that Jeremy was not looking at me. And I dipped just the tip of my finger. And as I'm walking past him, I fling that water, just it'd be maybe half a drop that's on the tip of my finger

and I flung it on his sweater. So on a human level, on a natural level, he's not watching me. And there's no way that he could perceive what just happened. Gosh, he shot up out of the chair hissing like a cat. So the demon inside Jeremy, he for sure felt it. And there was instant manifestation. In other words, Jeremy's gone. And who we have is the demon, who was already at the surface, but he was hiding.

He was on his best behavior to do that. see if he could make this whole situation pass away without a learning the exorcist to his presence. But of course, that holy water flushed him out. And so it was on. We've talked briefly on the show about enemies of the church trying to gain a hold of consecrated hosts for occult rituals. But also you mentioned to contaminate holy water. Is that something the church has dealt with, have outside forces try to, you mentioned insert contaminants? Is that a battle the church? Maybe historically you could mention it. And then is that something that they deal with today. The church for sure is dealing with it constantly. Before,

we used to have a much greater sense that we were at war. So holy water tanks were inaccessible. So they were usually kept inside a closet, so therefore locked. And the spigot from the tank, that would come out a hole in the wall. So you could access the spigot. In other words, you could take water out, but you can't put anything in. And so now, you know, what you find is anyone has access to the inside of the tank. You could drop whatever you want in there. And it's unmonitored. So if you find yourself alone, you can replace the holy water with some other type of water. And so in the past, we had a great understanding that we were involved in warfare. And so we eliminated that possibility. I really don't find that being practiced anymore.

Interesting. And so when you say tanks and such, and I'm sure imagine, It varies depending on the parish. If you were to go to an ultra-modern or maybe a cathedral father right in the heart of a downtown metropolis, and is there a special plumbing system that they are installed for any of these rituals, or is it just a private tank that's then brought out so people can gain access to it during mass or throughout the week? It's not connected to any plumbing. Water is placed inside the tank. It's just a stainless steel vat and of varying sizes.

at whatever size you want. It's got a top that you put on it, and it's got a spout, a spigot, that you turn or press a button, whichever mechanism it has, and then water comes out. And so it's always reusable. You put more water in it. You do the ritual in it, and you're off to the races again. But in old cathedrals and old churches, they will still use that old system. It's built into the very structure of the place, and people are used to it. And I think that just encapsulates a lot of wisdom, a lot of battle wisdom that the church has collected over the centuries. It's a shame that we don't do that everywhere. And, you know, slightly adjacent to this father, I was staying with a friend that we both know.

And as my host, he asked, I'd accompany him to Mass that morning with his family, and I wanted to oblige. And I went, and it was interesting. There was a woman at the end when they were taking communion. Each person would go up. And obviously, I did the arms crossed over my chest, but I noticed there was a woman checking to make sure that those who were eligible were actually consumed the Eucharist. And I found it interesting, and someone explained to me that at that church, they had multiple attempts with people trying to actually steal the consecrated host. Is this a minor thing, Father, or is that a widespread on this topic of kind of the church having enemies? Is that a widespread concern? Well, it's a very widespread concern. Churchers are

supposed to do that. There is supposed to be a watching of communicants to ensure that. that the host is consumed, that someone never walks away with the host and made sure that the host was either given up or consumed. I guess apparently at this church, they had multiple attempts by opponents of it to try and steal these consecrated hosts and then take it with them, which I thought was very interesting. So as far as the usage of Holy Water, I'm assuming it's not effective just in the hands of priests because the power, if you will, of it is actually in the fact that it's blessed holy water, and it would have an effect regardless of who's wielding it. Is that accurate? Holy water is made for everyone, right? So we give it out. The faithful take it home to their homes,

to their offices, and their cars. How should a person use it? You can use holy water in your bedroom. Some people bless their beds before going to sleep at night as an invocation for a peaceful sleep. They bless their car with it, especially before a long road trip. But I know some people that every time they use their car, they bless themselves and bless the vehicle with Holy Water before departing. When you purchase something like maybe an antique or something secondhand, there might be spiritual attachments to that object from the previous owners. So some people sprinkle with Holy Water and keep in mind, in the very ritual, it says that let evil not dwell in the place where this water is sprinkled.

The entire prayers of that ritual are being affected on this new chair that you bought or this new old bottle that you bought for it because it's an antique because it looked neat and you liked it and so forth. People bless their family members as well. Some parents use holy water to bless their children at night before going to sleep. And I've already mentioned some people do use it to cook. Great many use holy soul to cook with. Wow. Okay. Father, so we've talked about how lay people can use holy water.

I was looking in my research for this episode. I did uncover a few interesting anecdotes of how some of the saints have used holy water. We talked about, and perhaps you could share, we talked about St. Teresa of Avila that had usage of holy water in their spiritual warfare encounters. Yeah, so St. Teresa of Avila, she wrote extensively on Holy Water. So there's a very dramatic episode within her autobiography. where she saw demons flee when she used Holy Water. And even when they tried to return in those places where Holy Water was sprinkled,

they were reluctant to return. And where in those places where it were used a lot, they would avoid those places entirely and try to come at her or try to be present in places where Holy Water was used the least. Teresa's theology of the use of holy water is, in terms of the saints, is probably the most famous saint account of using Holy Water. But there are others like Sinclair of Assisi one time, one of her earliest biographies, describes how she was bedridden with illness and was one of these illnesses where she couldn't get up and go to Mass. So God miraculously allowed a kind of window in the air to open up and she could see them. mass being conducted remotely. And that led to her being proclaimed to the patroness of television

because God gave her her very own EWTN episode where she was able to watch mass from her sickbed. But while she's on her sickbed, a nun brought her a cloth that was dipped in holy water. She had dipped it in the chapel. And St. Clair pressed it to her forehead and prayed and then had a search of strength. And so the next day, she was well enough to rejoin her sisters in prayer and defied the expectations of her decline. So it underscores the fact that, yeah, holy water is restorative, is healing in addition to being exorcistic. It's both of those things. All right, Father, we mentioned some of the ways that lay people use Holy Water. Are there any things that you should not do with Holy Water? Well, certainly, I mean, you need to treat it with great

respect because it is something that is holy and that means it's set apart. In fact, the word holy means exactly that. It's set apart. It shouldn't be used flippantly. It shouldn't be, it shouldn't be desecrated. One needs to be serious when one uses it. So as with anything of value, there's a responsibility in using it to treat it as something of value. And as far as the different types of holy water father you mentioned easter water majoring the easter vigil what are some of the use cases for the different types of holy water and may throughout history and then do exorcists have a preference for lack of a better term is there a different efficacy expected from this is maybe a weird way of putting it but since there are different types of water i'm curious what are the different

use cases for them so the standard holy water used within exorcism is typically the holy water that comes from the old Roman ritual. You know, that there's nothing to say that it only can be that. There are different holy waters. It's not to say that one is necessarily more efficacious, but each one will have its own efficacy. Look, I would never hesitate to use Easter water. Easter is the victory of victories in world and universe history. The Lord called himself living water and this is water that has been blessed in his victory, the event that proclaimed him the victor. I wouldn't hesitate to use it. I mentioned baptismal water as well. One that I may not have mentioned earlier is epiphany water. So water that is blessed on January 6th, the feast of the

epiphany. All of these are very holy. So people are, they ask priests, well, is one better than the other? And the answer is no. I would be moved to use any one of them. Any one of them has a profound blessing. Every one of them has been touched by God. That's good enough for me. So I guess being outside the Catholic Church Father, this makes me wonder, if all holy water is good and all holy water is efficacious, what is the origins of having different holy waters in the tradition? Why are there different holy waters if they're all similarly functional? Well, I didn't say that they were similarly functional.

I said that they all contain God's grace. they may function in different ways. The holy water produced through the Roman ritual is specifically, so the power of evil is implored to be cut down within that ritual. Easter water exalts the victory of Jesus Christ. Baptismal water does the same and applies it for this particular individual or these individuals that are going to be set free from evil. So they're all

producing a, they're all concocted in a different way, if you will. But it's not to say that the effect of one is less than the other, even if those effects are achieved in different means by God. Yeah, and it's interesting because you've pointed out on this show several times too

about the significance of water throughout all of scripture, that it's proximity near holy events, there's baptizing. You've also mentioned, Father, it might be worth recapping, too, that we see exorcism take place near water in scripture, right? And I think the point of that is that demons have an affinity for water. So water in the ancient world, in the Jewish cosmology, the Jewish understanding of reality, bodies of water were poured holes for the demons. They were the way by which they ascended and descended from the nether world,

into the upper world, into our world. And this is not shoddy thinking by any means. Just look at scripture. You know, that most of the demons come out when Jesus is near the bodies of water. Right? So when he set the garrisoned demoniac free, what happened?

The demons requested, begged to be sent into the pigs. And Christ said, very well, what happened? The pigs immediately went into the water and drowned themselves. So some people would say like, gosh, you know, what a waste? Like you idiots, this is the very thing you asked for. Well, I don't think in looking at that there is a failure there. I think what they did was they requested from Jesus' mercy to have a soft landing.

So they go from the humans into the pigs. So that's going to cause them pain because it's a less hospitable dwelling. And then they go from the pigs into the water because they want a soft, landing into hell. So they're not just cast into the peripheries, into the outer darkness. They arranged to be cast into successive realities that facilitate a soft descent into hell. It reduces the amount of pain they suffered. Okay.

And Father, just for theological clarity, right? This is Holy Water is not just used by the Catholic Church. You obviously said that they make it for everyone, but the Orthodox. and Anglican traditions. And I actually think I read, too, that even Mr. Martin Luther himself, while, of course, distancing himself from many other Catholic doctrines, kept Holy Water as part of his ritual use in blessing things. Yep. He kept it right next to the rosary that he used daily. Absolutely. And for that matter, you know, the Catholic Church will give Holy Water to anybody, in anybody. So certainly a non-Catholic, but even a non-Christian. And Father, is Holy Water of

the same way by the Orthodox Church? I'm sure there maybe are some nuanced differences, but essentially, do they view Holy Water in the same way? Yes. By and large, I've not noticed any major difference to speak of. All right, so listeners who are not Catholic and are Protestant or whatever could just walk into a Catholic Church and request some Holy Water and they have a good shot of getting some. Okay, there you go. Father, another spiritual warfare question, has Holy Water ever failed to provoke a reaction during a deliverance? I can't say that I have ever noticed that to be the case. Again, a lot of it depends upon the personality of the demon.

And that speaks a lot. So for some demons, they're very expressive. You hit them with anything wholly, and there's going to be at least some type of visible reaction. It could be very dramatic, maybe less dramatic, but some type of reaction. Others almost never react. But you see as the session goes on, something has happened because there is a change in his personality. There may not have been a dramatic reaction, but the action took place because now there's a change in the personality overall. The demon who may not have been talkative is now more talkative.

Or he's less talkative if he was very talkative before. There's a drain in the energy and you begin to see it. And Father, when demons interact with Holy Water, is it similar to what we've talked about on the show when they come into contact, when they take on the limitations of indwelling in some sort of or being in, quote, you know, inside of a physical specimen, they expose themselves to the effects of matter? When they interact with the relic, is it the same as with Holy Water that they're basically encountering the physicality of something sacred and that's what's wounding them? or do you think it's something different functionally? No, absolutely. And the same with the use of holy images, the same with the use of a crucifix or with a stool.

All of these things are holy and they're, and that means God is present within them, you know, at some level. And, you know, although God is simple, in other words, God has no parts, the way in which he's present in all of these objects can be very different. Ultimately, only he knows the way that he is. but each one has its own particular edge

to which a demon is subjected because incarnating himself within physical reality he is now subject to the conditions of physical reality and being subjected to the use of holy objects is one of those. And so, Father, for folks who are saying and maybe listening and say, okay, this sounds superstitious, like I appreciate it, it's a nice gesture, but for me this falls in the same category as relics

and some of the stuff you mentioned and icons and etc. It seems superstitious. I didn't see Jesus flinging holy water on people. What would you say to them to encourage them to say, hey, open your mind to the integration of holy water into your spiritual journey? Then I would ask that person, well, did Jesus have any superstition at all in him? And they're going to answer what?

What do you think they're going to say? Superstition? No. No, of course not. And I agree. Jesus had no superstition. But then before I answer your question, then you answer me one. In John chapter 9, beginning at verse 1, Jesus took spittle and made mud. He took his spit, made mud, and he used that to cure a blind man.

Was that an act of superstition? And if so, why not? And why would Holy Water be superstitious then? Aha! So what we have is a great example that Jesus uses. a tool to accomplish his purpose. And I'll tell you this, you know, and I've read about that account many Protestant takes on that. And I have yet to read one that provides an adequate explanation for what is going on. Usually, the Protestant explanation of that passage is Jesus is trying

to provoke the Jewish authorities for whom making mud was forbidden on the Sabbath. Well, hang on in a second. So that appeared in the official rules of Judaism, but that appeared after the time of Jesus. Now, and furthermore, even if it wasn't an explicit rule, the very act of healing was already forbidden on the Sabbath. So that explanation just can't work. It just can't. Right. And so what do you have there?

Well, Jesus used matter. He used matter to achieve his will. And that should not surprise us. God loves matter. He created it after all. So it makes sense that he would use it in the building up of his kingdom. And that itself is a piece of evidence. It's the touchstone of the power that he possesses.

Because all of matter belonged to the enemy. This is why the church calls him the priest. of this world, because he caused Adam to surrender his birthright, his lordship over all of creation to him. So the devil became the Lord of Creation and everything within it. He's the Lord of it. Now, along comes Jesus and just starts clawing it away from him. So here he is, you know, he's using water to baptize. Christ actually baptized within the scriptures. We read about it. It's in the Gospels. He, in this case, uses mud that he made with his own spit as a vehicle for healing. Elsewhere, he puts his fingers in the eyes or in the ears. At other times, he doesn't do anything at

all. People come him, like, think of the centurion who comes on behalf of his slave asking for a healing. Jesus doesn't even go. Like, he offers to go. He says, okay, I'll follow you. Let's go to your out, no, no, no, no, no, no. You give the word, and I know it will happen. Poof. And not only does the healing happen, but Jesus himself is astounded at the very faith of this non-Jew. Right. So, there's many ways that Jesus heals. He's not limited by anything. But he likes to use matter. Look, in Luke 8, the touching of Jesus' garment cured a woman of her longstanding hemorrharmes, right when we that also appears in matthew when you get to mark mark includes a detail about that healing that is really significant and he says and as many as touched that hem they were all healed

you know at x 19 you have handkerchiefs and aprons that that were touched to paul they were placed on the sick they were exercised and their afflictions left them so there's nothing superstitious about doing what Jesus did and using matter to convey God's grace because he did it. This is absolutely not superstitious. And this, it encapsulates one of the principles of Catholic theology that has been there since, well, gosh, since the great theologians of the late Middle Ages, grace builds upon nature. it does not destroy it God redeems what he has made he does not destroy it and make new

things he doesn't erase what he has done he renews it and this is a fine example of it yeah and I think many Protestants might say oh well I don't need holy water to do this or I don't need those things and you would say of course not you don't

as you just mentioned you don't need these things but Father would it be an accurate way to summarize that you don't need holy water, but you get it, and it's a gift. Right. I mean, if God gives you a gift, how dare you not open it? And I want anything and everything that God gives. Give it to me, give it all.

Because if God gives it, it has a purpose, and it is necessary in terms of God's plan. So sign me up. I want it. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, that's, I think, something we can all agree on is we should all want what God has for us.

And if there's another page of the menu with items you didn't know. know we're available, you'd want to know, right? Father, anything else on Holy Water before we wrap us up? Use it, folks. Use it. It's a gift. It's efficacious. It's wonderful. It'll help you. Use it often. Okay. There you go. All right, Father, I know we didn't get into it too much, but are you willing to share about the blessing of beer? We did promise anyone who stuck with us this long deserves to learn about the secret right of brewing, right? Well, gosh, it's not secret. Look, we even have a blessing for lard. You know, things that were used by people, common everyday things, they had a blessing. You have a blessing against vermin, for example. If your home is being attacked by mice or by bugs,

well, there was a special blessing that you could have a priest come and say against that. So common everyday needs are important to God, and therefore they are important to the church. and the church uses its God-given grace to concoct blessings that will be helpful for people. So we bless beer as a way to give thanks, but also make the beer holy as we drink it. So there's yet another reason to go have a blessed beer. Blessed beer, there you go. And Father, this is for another episode, right? But can we thank beer and monks for a lot of the transmission of Scripture?

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Gosh, we wouldn't have Western civilization without the monks because they kept the light going. They preserved it. Western civilization is a great measure of its existence to the monks that in the monasteries kept the ancient wisdom alive. So thank God for beer and the uptown monks, right? Well, folks, we hope you enjoyed this deep dive into Holy Water. Yes, that was a bit of a pun. And we hope that you were blessed by it. just like you'd be blessed if you had some holy water right now. So we are excited. We have case files coming very soon. So stay tuned for those. And until then, stay demon free.

Thank you, Father, for doing this. You bet. Pleasure to be here.