Ablution

ABLUTION (Latin ab-luo, Greek ἀπο-λοίω 'wash away'). - A. is a rite directed at putting an individual or a group in a state of ritual purity with regard to the divinity or to a person, an object, or a place invested with sacredness. Before contact with what is sacred, a. serves to remove the filth accumulated on the person; after, it serves to liquidate the contact with the "sacred" and to return the individual to the normal condition. It is distinguished from purification

(v.) which seeks to cleanse a physical or moral miasma, and from lustration, which has a collective expiatory character.

1. IN NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS

A. is performed especially with water, either by immersion or by infusion, as is documented by the ritual of all religions. Running water, especially that of rivers, is most suitable for removing impurities. Hence the very frequent a. of the Hindus in the Ganges and their concern to die in its waves or on its banks or at least with their thoughts turned to the sacred river; in Shintoism, the washing of the hands and mouth before entering the temple to pray; in Islam, the a. before prayer, before reading the Koran, or before touching a copy of it, in order to free oneself from impurities arising from the normal functioning of the body. But other means are not excluded, such as the sand of the desert for Muslims who are far from a source (Koran 4, 46; 5, 9), or ox urine for the ancient Persians and for modern Hindus.

A., therefore, as a religious rite does not have a hygienic purpose in the modern sense; it is directed at cleansing dirt, insofar as this almost deteriorates and spoils the condition of the person or thing, which emerges from the washing regenerated to new life, and is considered a possible receptacle of miasmas that must be driven away; as can be seen from the custom of the Greeks (Aeschylus, Coeph. 95) of turning their eyes backward when throwing out the vessel of refuse, and from the custom of the Roman vestals of throwing from the Capitoline slope (Varro, De lingua lat., VI, 32) or into the Tiber the sweepings of the temple of Vesta (Ovid, Fast., VI, 228. 713).

Nicola Turchi

2. ETHNOLOGY

A. with a religious, or at least ritual, background are found among primitive peoples and among advanced peoples in different forms, with different materials, and under different meanings. It is rare, however, to find them among the culturally most ancient peoples, some of whom recite their morning prayers to the Creator while washing their faces: in this case the a. has no religious character, but constitutes only a preparation for prayer. A certain ritual aspect, on the other hand, is had by the washings that other peoples of the same cultural level practice at the first onset of puberty and which are accompanied by ethical teachings, often combined with appeals to the will of the Creator; and here, then, we are in the presence of a religious substratum.

In more recent cultures, again among primitive peoples, religious, or at least ritual, a. appear with different meanings. A., certainly ritual, in the sea or in rivers, are noted in almost all ceremonies of initiation of the young; but their purpose remains obscure. A particular type of a. is the one that appears almost exclusively in the initiation of young females, when the mother pours beer (Africa) or "chicha" (America) over the body of her daughter, as a wish for every happiness and, perhaps also, for numerous offspring.

Other a. are performed with medicines or with blood in order to heal illnesses, or to defend oneself from every kind of baleful influence. The same purpose is sought by means of unctions, aspersions and the like. There are, finally, a. aimed at removing impurities whether material, or moral, or imaginary, spontaneously arising from important states or phases of existence, such as puberty, marriage, childbirth, widowhood, passage to a new marriage, etc., or contracted from contact with impure things (corpses), or deriving from evil occult forces, or from moral responsibilities.

Michele Schulien

3. IN THE LITURGY

In many regions of the West it was the custom, in the Middle Ages, to wash one's head during the service of Palm Sunday (Capitilavium), perhaps as the last remnant of the bath that catechumens took before baptism during Holy Week. Following the example of the pagans and the Jews, the first Christians too, before entering church, washed their hands in the fountain (cantharus) placed in the atrium, because they were to receive the Eucharist in their hands in order then to communicate themselves. The priests did the same. The last vestige of this custom has remained in the a. of the hands or fingers, which priests perform, reciting an appropriate prayer, before putting on the sacred vestments, and for the faithful the holy water at the entrance of the temple. Another washing of the hands, at Mass, was, at the Offertory, due to the priest's need to wash his hands after having received from the faithful the offering of bread and wine, or also because in dismissing the catechumens he had imposed hands on them.

In today's liturgy there remains the a. of the celebrant's fingers at the Offertory, while he recites the psalm Lavabo. After Communion, out of respect for the Sacrament that he has touched (and likewise always when he has had immediate contact with the Eucharist), already from the 10th century the celebrant purifies the chalice that has served for the holy mysteries, first with wine alone, which consumes as a purification of the chalice and of the mouth, then with wine and water, purifying at the same time the fingers that have touched the holy host, and saying the two ancient Postcommunions Quod ore sumpsimus and Corpus tuum. In ancient times the Mass ended with this ablution, although in the ancient Roman rite the ablution was repeated after Mass in the sacristy, as still happens today in the Mozarabic and Greek-Byzantine rites.

Until the 16th century the manner of practicing the ablution varied according to places and times. Generally the chalice was purified once with wine alone; the fingers, on the other hand, with wine alone or with water alone. With the passage of time the custom finally established itself of performing the ablution first with wine and then with wine and water. These liquids were then poured into the piscina or into another decent place; sometimes, however, they were requested with great devotion by the faithful, to use them or to drink them as a kind of sacramental, from which they promised themselves heavenly favors for body and soul. The second ablution, where it was in use, was performed not at the altar, but in the sacristy or near the piscina. In many places the ablution was not accompanied by prayers; in others by one, by two or even by three. The present rite was established by Pius V in 1570. Bishops, abbots and all who have the privilege of pontificals wash their hands also after the ablution of the chalice and fingers, as in the 11th century all priests were accustomed to do.

Filippo Oppenheim