There are many ways on how to use blessed salt at home. Blessed salt is one of the sacramentals you can use at your homes for protection and healing.
Sacramentals are “visible forms of invisible grace,” shared Augustine of Hippo in the fourth century. Today, there has been renewed interest in this ancient sacramental use of Blessed Salt. Especially amid the pandemic, when priests may not be able to visit your home to bless your home. The head of the home may learn how to bless his home using blessed salt.
How to use Blessed Salt at Home
For many generations, blessed salt served several purposes. You can use blessed salt in the following ways:
1. Create a spiritual barrier of protection in your homes to ward off evil spirits
You can use Blessed Salt to consecrate the living space your children are raised in unto God. Just as the passover lamb was not magic blood, so should Blessed Salt not be diminished as magic salt. Rather, it shows outward expression of one’s faith and a way to invoke God’s grace.
You can sprinkle Blessed Salt in doorways, entrances, under the bed, cabinets, mirrors, window sills and corners of the room.
You can also place it in a small container and then put in your bag or pockets.
2. Bless those under your charge
The father is the head of the family. In the Catholic Church’s teaching, he is also the domestic priest. What does this mean? It means he has the power to bless and curse the people under his household.
To exercise spiritual authority over his family, home and properties, he can say the following prayers:
Prayer for Blessing a House with Salt
The Archdiocese of Manila Office of Exorcism shared a simple prayer to say when using Blessed Salt to bless a home. The head of the family will exercise spiritual authority over the property in using Blessed Salt with this prayer:
"I seal this (room or home) in the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ our Savior, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."
3. When building a new home, sprinkle on the foundations of the house.
You can sprinkle a generous amount of blessed salt on the slab of your homes before construction commences.
What a creative way to create a spiritual barrier that can never be carried off by winds or foot traffic!
4. As food seasoning, blessed salt can be used in cooking or baking
Instead of an ordinary salt, use a blessed salt when cooking or baking.
Even if not used with food, you can consume blessed salt before you go outside your homes to ask for protection and blessings.
5. Use it as spiritual protection while traveling.
Blessed Salt may also be used in cars and hotels where you and your family may be staying.
How Do You Bless Salt for Protection?
The blessing of salt is more than a blessing – it is an exorcism.
To bless salt, the priest will use the Rite from the Roman Ritual to bless the salt.
Any salt in any amount may be blessed by your priest to make Blessed Salt. Preferably, pure salt like natural rock salt or Kosher salt may be used.
The Blessed Salt official prayer from the Roman Ritual is as follows:
God's creature, salt, I cast out the demon from you by the living + God, by the true + God, by the holy + God, by God who ordered you to be thrown into the water- spring by Eliseus to heal it of its barrenness. May you be a purified salt, a means of health for those who believe, a medicine for body and soul for all who make use of you. May all evil fancies of the foul fiend, his malice and cunning, be driven afar from the place where you are sprinkled. And let every unclean spirit be repulsed by Him who is coming to judge both the living and the dead and the world by fire. All: Amen. Let us pray. Almighty everlasting God, we humbly appeal to your mercy and goodness to graciously bless + this creature, salt, which you have given for mankind's use. May all who use it find in it a remedy for body and mind. And may everything that it touches or sprinkles be freed from uncleanness and any influence of the evil spirit; through Christ our Lord. All: Amen.
The Mention of Salt in the Bible
Salt has long been used for its healing properties. Ezekiel 16:4 mentioned the use of salt on the skin of newborns to prevent umbilical cord infection. Also in II Kings 2:20-21, Elisha was inspired to use salt to decontaminate the water while proclaiming: “This is what the Lord says: ‘I have healed this water. Never again will it cause death or make the land unproductive.’”
As the Roman Ritual indicates, it is this miracle of Elisha used as the primary Scriptural basis for the sacramental use of Blessed Salt to this day.
Jesus also preached about salt to the believers, who describe his chosen ones as “salt of the earth” in Matthew 5:13. Also, in Mark 9:50, Jesus reminded us to “Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.”
Paul echoed Jesus’s teaching in Colossians 4:6 when he taught, ”Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”
These verses are reminders to not be corrupted in our conversations and choose wholesome language. As salt is used to preserve the quality of food and give it taste, so too must believers be mindful of preserving their anti-corruptive influence in a world corrupted by sin.
How to use Blessed Salt at Home: Acting in Faith When Using Blessed Salt
The use of sacramentals, not just Blessed Salt, has become a misunderstood practice of the Catholic Church, sometimes used and viewed as a superstitious belief.
A superstitious perception of this Sacramental hinders, rather than enriches the spiritual lives of believers.
The ways on how to use Blessed Salt at home may be likened to the Israelites using the passover lamb’s blood on their doorposts so the angel of death would pass over their homes.
Be reminded not to use Blessed Salt as a superstition. The use of Sacramentals depends on the faith and devotion of your family, and so must be centered in Christ. Remember the blind man in John 9 whose eyesight was restored, not because of the mud and spittle, but because he had faith in Jesus.
Having said all that, Catholic Church always teaches the general dispositions we must always be:
- Always be be in a state of grace
What does it mean to be in a state of grace? It means to be free from mortal sin and completely resolved to renounce all inclinations to sin. How to be free from mortal sin? Let’s take Padre Pio’s advice. He said to grow spiritually, you need Confession, frequent Holy Communion, daily Examination of Conscience, Spiritual Readings, and Meditations. If you cannot do all these due to pandemic, then you have the sacramentals such as Rosary, medals, blessed salt and more!
It is true that the effect of sacraments also depends on the faith of the person using it, among other things. But the power of it is not diminished by the person’s faith or disbelief. Give a sacramental to a sinner and the power of Heavens shall work tremendously on his heart maybe not on our terms, but surely on God’s.
Check out our 2022 Traditional Catholic Daily Planners on Amazon
Based on the 1962 Missal, each day in the weekly and monthly planner pages are marked with the Catholic Church’s traditional feasts: Liturgical seasons, Ember days, Saints of the day and more.
Preview the contents
FAQs
What do you do with blessed salt Catholic? ›
This salt may be sprinkled in a room, or across a threshold, or in other places as an invocation of divine protection. This will keep demons and possessed persons away from a home and crossing a line made of salt. It may also be consumed.
How do you bless a house with salt? ›If you want to get a little witchy with your salt, you can sprinkle or place bowls of salt in the corners of your rooms that need energy cleansing. The salt will do its job to absorb any negative energy or toxins and after a few hours you can vacuum it up, or toss it out.
What is the spiritual significance of salt? ›Salt is used for various spiritual reasons, with several testimonies recorded from breakthrough to restoration to spiritual protection, fortification, and others. This is why it is often used in important events and rituals that involve declarations and prayers.