I have some blessed salt but.... QUESTION from C J Allen September 23, 2001
I have some blessed salt and I understand it can be used to bless the house and in cooking. I thought it would be nice to share some with someone I met last year. She went around the house asking Jesus to bless her house, throwing salt in the four corners of each room. The following week she said that all 'hell' broke loose in her family and it must be the blessed salt.
Is that a possibility? Can something used to bless make things worse instead of better? Say that one of her two teenage children was involved at some point in a form of the occult. Would this invite darkness into their house? And could it become enraged because of the blessed salt?
Or may this be just a bad personality clash within the family?
I find it hard to believe that sacramentals could do anything but bless the people and items that they are used on.
ANSWER by John-Paul Ignatius, OLSM on September 23, 2001 Dear Miss Allen:
Yes this is possible and common. When blessing the house the demons would get upset.
When you put down a roach bomb the roaches come out all over the place before they die.
Also, the demons would increase their activity to try to spoil the faith of the family. Remember, Holy Salt and Holy Water, Scapulars, etc. are not magic. They do not have the power in themselves to ward off demons like a cross wards off a vampire in the movies. They are signposts that say No Tresspassing, but that doesn't all demons will obey the sign. Some demons need more incentive.
If there was occult involvement it may indeed make the demons more entrenched and thus enraged at the attempts to cast them out.
The family needs to hang in there and not allow their faith to wavor. This is a test that God is allowing. Prayers like we have in our Prayer Catalog and the continued use of sacramentals, and the personal devotions and participation in the Sacraments is what they need to do.
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