ASPERSIONE. – It is the act of sprinkling blessed water on persons or things, usually by using a metal instrument or sprigs of certain plants (v. ASPERSORIO). Water has always been used for purification, hence its widespread use in various religions (v. RITO). It is therefore no surprise that revealed religions too should have employed such a rite to signify the purification of the body.
In the Mosaic Law, purification with water was performed in three ways: by ablution, by aspersion, and by immersion. In the Book of Numbers (19) we find a curious aspersion with lustral water, mixed with the ashes of a red heifer. During the Feast of Tabernacles, the lustrations were more numerous. The Christian religion inherited from Judaism the use of lustral water, and selected from the sacred books the prayers and chants that still accompany the rite of aspersion today. It dates back to the remotest antiquity, and we find traces of it in the Acts of Peter, written around 200, and in the Acts of s. Tommaso, written around 232. In the Sacramentary of Serapion, besides the blessing of baptismal water, there are various formulas for the blessing of oil, water, and bread. In the East, at least from the 3rd century, there was a liturgical use of blessed water to obtain healing from illnesses and protection against the temptations of the devil; in the West, on the other hand, we must go back to the middle of the 6th century to find reliable information. S. Agostino, in fact, s. Gregorio di Tours, and s. Cesario di Arles are silent on the subject. It is mentioned in the letter of Pope Vigilius to Profuturus of Braga (538), in the lives of s. Emiliano, s. Mabo, and s. Vilfrido, and in the Liber Pontificalis, where reference is made to the Western practice of mixing salt with the water during the blessing. The aspersion of water on Sundays, moreover, dates back to Hincmar (9th century); and from the Gallican liturgy it passed into the Roman. As for Baptism by aspersion V. BATTESIMO.