Holy oil

“ It is the receptacle of the holy oil, which is a mixture of the sacred oil blessed by St. Gregory, sparingly used and carefully preserved in the treasury of the Cathedral, and of the specially prepared oil consecrated in Sis in Cilicia. While one bishop is pouring the holy oil from the neck of the golden dove over the head of the patriarch, the other bishops gather around to spread the oil about with their thumbs, making at the same time the sign of the cross. A piece of cloth is now placed over his head, his face being covered at the same time by a veil which is attached to the cloth. ”

“ Now, the outward unction with oil is an emblem of the inward grace of the Holy Ghost, which sanctifies the soul; for, as oil gives light and heat, heals wounds, and strengthens weak parts, so the grace of the Holy Ghost enlightens the understanding, inflames the heart, heals the wounds of the soul, and strengthens its weakness. ”

“ A. Three holy oils are used in the Church, namely, the oil of the sick, the oil of catechumens, and holy chrism.
Q. 682. What constitutes the difference between these oils? A. The form of prayer or blessing alone constitutes the difference between these oils; for they are all olive oil, but in the Holy Chrism, balm is mixed with the oil.
Q. 683. When and by whom are the holy oils blessed? A. The holy oils are blessed at the Mass on Holy Thursday by the bishop, who alone has the right to bless them. ”

“ And you think you're as good as the Lord himself because you're carrying the holy oil!"
"If I were you," advised one open-minded youth, "I should make off with that box and perform all kinds of sorceries with the holy oil." ”

“ And the anointing is with holy oil, because they ought to work with their hands the works of mercy with all their might towards all men: for the works are denoted by the hands; mercy by the oil. Whence the good Samaritan coming near to the wounded man poured wine and oil into his wounds. The hands are anointed with oil also that they may be supple for offering the host unto God for the sins of men, and that they may be open to all acts of piety and not be kept dry and clenched. For both these things, namely the grace of healing and the charity of loving, are denoted by the oil. ”

“ To impress upon it this highest grade of holiness, it was sprinkled even times with anointing oil; and in the number seven, the covenant number, the seal of the holiness of the covenant of reconciliation, to which it was to be subservient, was impressed upon it. To sanctify is not merely to separate to holy purposes, but to endow or fill with the powers of the sanctifying Spirit of God. Oil was a fitting symbol of the Spirit, or spiritual principle of life, by virtue of its power to sustain and fortify the vital energy ”

“ Every little Catholic maid, who can count her beads, knows that if she cannot secure the affections of [Pg 413] the young man on whom she has set her affections, she should unsparingly besmear him with the holy oil of her Church. We are assured that, before Protestantism weakened the hands of priests and rent the Church asunder, consecrated oil was regarded as an infallible charm and love-philter. ”

“ The virgins, my child, are the whole Christian world, now expecting the coming of their Lord. The oil is God's grace in the soul, shining forth in a holy life. What would a lamp be without oil? What would a soul be without grace?—a dark and a worthless thing! ”

“ The anointing with the holy oil was a symbol of the communication of the Holy Ghost, by which the high priest was empowered to act as mediator and representative of the nation before God, so that he alone could carry out the yearly and general expiation for the whole nation, on the great day of atonement. ”

“ The holy oil is also blessed by bishops in the Roman Catholic Church; in the Greek Church, on the other hand, the oil for the chrism at baptism is blessed by the priest. To the pope alone is reserved the blessing of the pallium, the golden rose, the “Agnus-Dei” and royal swords; he alone, too, can issue blessings that involve some days’ indulgence. The ceremonies prescribed for the various benedictions are set forth in the Rituale Romanum (tit. viii.) ”

“ In the Christian religion, especially where animal sacrifices, together with the cult of totem or holy animals, have been given up, it is usual to hallow the oil used in ritual anointings with special prayers and exorcisms; oil from the lamps lit before the altar has a peculiar virtue of its own, perhaps because it can be burned to give light, and disappears to heaven in doing so. In any case oil has ever been regarded as the aptest symbol and vehicle of the holy and illuminating spirit. ”

“ The oil is to come from the people in general, so that the illuminating of the Holy Place, although specially tended by the high priest, is yet constituted a service in which all the children of Israel have some part. The oil was to be used to supply the seven lamps upon the golden candlestick which was placed on the south side of the Holy Place, without the veil of the testimony, in the tent of meeting. ”

“ Why does pouring oil on the sea make it clear and calm? Is it for that the winds, slipping the smooth oil, have no force, nor cause any waves?—Plutarch: Natural Questions, ix.
The venerable Bede relates that Bishop Adain (a. d. 651) gave to a company about to take a journey by sea "some holy oil, saying, 'I know that when you go abroad you will meet with a storm and contrary wind; but do you remember to cast this oil I give you into the sea, and the wind shall cease immediately.'"—Ecclesiastical History, book iii. chap. ”

“ For as between the body’s surface and the liquid of the oil nothing intervening can be detected, either in reason or in perception, so inseparable is the union of the Spirit with the Son; and the result is that whosoever is to touch the Son by faith must needs first encounter the oil in the very act of touching; there is not a part of Him devoid of the Holy Spirit. ”

“ While the victims' cousins carried their bodies to their graves in the sand, their father and brothers had to remain in the Tabernacle, because 'the anointing oil of Jehovah is upon you.' That oil, as the symbol of the Spirit, separates those on whom it is poured from all contact with death, from participation in sin, from the weight of sorrow. ”

“ I saw one old woman totter in with a half bushel bag full of rosaries on her back; a frowsy-bearded man came with her, bearing all he could carry. Spreading these out on the slab, they knelt, while the priest sprinkled the beads and gave them his blessing. Before leaving they dropped some coins into his hand. They were Russians and will probably carry these rosaries back home to their friends.
The modern American oil can competes with the ancient water bottle. ”

“ No use in flying hither and thither for some one to lean upon—some holy man, or some eminent teacher—no use building upon our church, or our creed, or our sacraments. We want oil. We cannot do without it. ”

“ That sacred name like the oil lights and heats — lights us to God's truth and inflames us with His love. To learn that name, to be saturated with it as with oil, to be rendered inflammable by it ere the coming of the spirit of fire, was the pagan's first step towards Christianity. Like oil again that name is a spiritual food, nourishing and refreshing, and a wholesome condiment for every action of our lives. " Whatever ye do," says St. Paul, " in word or in work, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ." ”

“ Oil, regarded according to its capacity to invigorate the body and increase the energy of the vital spirits, is used in the Scriptures as a symbol of the Spirit of God, not in its transcendent essence, but so far as it works in the world, and is indwelling in the church; and not merely the anointing oil, as Kliefoth supposes, but also the lamp oil, since the Israelites had no other oil than olive oil even for burning, and this was used for anointing also. ”

“ I answer, in order that the invisible benefits may be more easily received through the visible signs: for as oil by expelling weakness refresheth the wearied limbs, and as it from its own natural qualities affordeth light, so it is to be believed that unction with consecrated oil, the which is a type of faith expelling sin, doth impart health to the soul and doth afford it light. Herein the visible oil is in the outward sign, the invisible oil in the inward sacrament; and the spiritual oil is within. For the oil of the sick we have received authority from the apostles ”

“ Just as the anointing oil, prepared according to divine directions, shadowed forth the power and gifts of the Spirit, with which God endowed the priests for their peculiar office in His kingdom; so the oil, which the leper about to be consecrated presented as a sacrifice out of his own resources, represented the spirit of life which he had received from God, and now possessed as his own. ”

“ Priests and kings had to be anointed with oil as a sign or emblem that they were to perform their official duties from love. Hence the light that is fed by pure oil beautifully symbolizes the truth that shines in the Christian's life, warm with the love of God; but the light that comes from a wick in a lamp destitute of oil symbolizes the life of the hypocrite, the vain professor. It may burn for a little; but it will soon go out and leave him in eternal darkness. The wise virgins represent those who make a profession of faith in the light of truth and in the love of it. ”

“ Thus the belief, past or present, in certain opinions can be deduced from actual practices, just as we may deduce from our own Coronation Service the fact that oil, anointed on a man's head by a priest, was once believed to have a mysterious efficacy, or the fact that a certain rough block of red sand-stone was once supposed to have some kind of sacredness. ”

“ On this point, since I have been in the Catholic Church, I have found there is a difference of opinion. Some persons consider that the oil is the natural produce of the rock, and has ever flowed from it; others, that by a divine gift it flows from the relics; and others, allowing that it now comes naturally from the rock, are disposed to hold that it was in its origin miraculous, as was the virtue of the pool of Bethsaida.
This point must be settled of course before the virtue of the oil can be ascribed to the sanctity of St. Walburga ”

“ For oil is the type of compassion; and as oil was in that spot pressed from the olives, so in His agony was the Blood of Christ pressed forth, with which we are refreshed as with oil, are anointed and are fed. ”

“ And nothing is right unless all is right. The penny saved here takes away the sweet savour of the pound given there. No man is in this to be a law to himself. Public justice and Divine are to be satisfied.
The presence or absence of oil in an oblation marked its character. The sin offering and the jealousy offering were without oil. The "oil of joy" (Isa. lxi. 3) accompanied festal and peace offerings. All ordinances prescribing the oblation of wine and oil necessarily belonged to the cultus of Canaan, for in the wilderness neither of these elements of the sacrifice could be always had. ”

“ Now the oil represents wisdom and righteousness; for while the soul rains down unsparingly, and pours forth these things upon the body, the light of virtue is kindled unquenchably, making its good actions to shine before men, so that our Father which is in heaven may be glorified. ”

“ They must not light with the defiled oil of the heave-offering on a holiday. Rabbi Ishmael said, “they must not light with pitch dregs for the honor of the Sabbath.” But the Sages allow all oils, “with sesame oil, with nut oil, with radish oil, with fish oil, with colocynth oil, with pitch dregs and naphtha.” Rabbi Tarphon said, “they must only light with olive oil.”
3. “They must not light with anything that grows from wood, except flax. And all that grows from wood does not contract the uncleanness of tents,99 except flax.” “A wick of cloth folded but not singed?” ”

“ Men can put oil into their vessels, but they cannot create the olive. See, I have oil; but didst thou create the oil? It is of the gift of God. Thou hast oil. Carry it with thee. What is “carry it with thee”? Have it within, there please thou God.
10. For, lo, those “foolish virgins, who brought no oil with them,” wish to please men by that abstinence of theirs whereby they are called virgins, and by their good works, when they seem to carry lamps. And if they wish to please men, and on that account do all these praiseworthy works, they do not carry oil with them. ”

“ Aromatic balsam is nothing but resin, that comes forth from aromatic trees.
R. Ishmael said: The (Sabbath) lamp shall not be fed with anything that comes from the trunk of a tree. R. Ishmael b. Beroqa said: It shall be lighted only with such substances as come from fruit. R. Tarphon, however, said: It shall be fed only with olive oil. R. Johanan b. Nuri then arose and said; "What shall the people of Babylonia do, who have nothing but poppy-seed oil? What shall the people of Media do, who have nothing but nut oil? What shall the people of Alexandria do, who have nothing but radish oil? ”

“ The idea is taken from the lamp the prophet Zechariah saw in his vision, into which two olive-branches, through two golden pipes, emptied the golden oil out of themselves. If we are thus one with the olive-tree, the oil cannot fail us. It is not as if we had to fill our lamps from a cruse of our own. ”

“ Of a truth in ancient books it was written that an angel had come down from heaven with the miraculous ampulla, [1503] but men were not disturbed by such inconsistencies, and among Christian folk no one doubted that the sacred chrism was possessed of miraculous power. For example, it was known that with use the oil became no less, that the flask remained always full, as a premonition and a pledge that the kingdom of France would endure for ever. According to the observation of witnesses, at the time of the coronation of the late King Charles, the oil had not diminished after the anointing. ”