ASPERSION. - It is the act of sprinkling holy water on persons or things, usually using a metal instrument or branches of certain plants (v. ASPERSORIUM). Water has always been used for purification, whence its wide employment in the various religions (v. RITE). It is no wonder, therefore, that the revealed religions too made use of such a rite to signify the purification of the body.
In the Mosaic Law purification with water was done in three ways: by ablution, by aspersion and by immersion. In the book of Numbers (19) we have a curious aspersion of lustral water, mixed with the ashes of a red heifer. On the feast of Tabernacles the lustrations were more numerous. The Christian religion inherited from the Hebrew the use of lustral water, and chose from the sacred books the prayers and chants that still accompany the rite of aspersion today. It goes back to the most remote antiquity, and we see traces of it in the Acts of Peter, written around 200, and in the Acts of St. Thomas, 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 is the liturgical use of holy water to obtain healing from illnesses and 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 have certain information. St. Augustine, in fact, St. Gregory of Tours and St. Caesarius of Arles are silent on this subject. It is spoken of in the letter of Pope Vigilius to Profuturus of Braga (538), in the lives of St. Emilian, of St. Mabo and of St. Wilfrid, in the Liber Pontificalis, where mention is made of the Western use of mixing salt with the water in the blessing. The aspersion of water on Sundays, moreover, goes back to Hincmar (9th century); and from the Gallican liturgy it passed into the Roman. As for Baptism by aspersion v. BAPTISM.
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Enrico Dante