Missing Something at Church?

An area Liturgeist (thankfully no longer in the Western Suburbs) was in the habit of removing the Holy Water from the fonts at the entrances to church during Lent.

The Liturgeists had convened, were boiling their pot and chanting 'Bubble, Bubble, HOW Can We Trouble (our parishioners)' when one of them crowed and screeched that removing Holy Water was perfectly consonant with the Lenten fast.

Liturgeists are not able to recognize the difference between sacramentals and choice-beef...

Rome's opinion?

This Dicastery [Divine Worship] 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 the [sic] 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 (i.e., Good Friday and Holy Saturday).

(March 14, 2000)

Orthometer has a list of "alternative fillings" for the holy-water fonts, and none of them surprise me.

Of course, when I encountered one of those 'alternative fillers', I simply dumped the contents on the floor. It was penance for the Liturgeist, who had to sweep it up, I suppose.